Posts by Lydia Sharp
We are so happy to have former regular contributor Lydia Sharp back with us today! Lydia was one of WU’s ‘unpublished writers,’ writing for us from 6/10-3/14. We’re thrilled to help her celebrate the publication of her debut novel, WHENEVER I’M WITH YOU (Scholastic Press), releasing TODAY, and glad to welcome her back to share lessons she’s learned while working on that story. A little more about her:
Lydia Sharp worked a number of different jobs, everything from retail management to veterinary medicine, before turning her passion for stories into a career. She is now an editor for Entangled Publishing and writes young adult novels with lots of kissing and adventures. Her debut YA novel, WHENEVER I’M WITH YOU, released from Scholastic Press in January 2017. For info about her books and more, visit lydiasharpbooks.com and follow on Twitter @lydia_sharp.
Welcome back, Lydia, and huge congratulations!
Lessons Learned from My Debut Novel
My debut novel is not the first novel I wrote (it’s the 8th!) but the experience of it brought me a lot of firsts. My first book deal was also my first novel sold on proposal—only a synopsis and sample pages were submitted to the publisher—so it was also my first experience with fast drafting under contract followed by turbo editing on an intense deadline. My editor and I went from story idea to rough draft to finished book in a matter of months, and at the start, I honestly had no idea if I’d be able to pull it off.
But I was honored to have the opportunity, so onward I wrote, and then onward we edited that book together. It might have looked more like a potato sack race than a relay race at times, but we did it. We crossed the finish line with a book we’re proud of.
And here’s what I learned along the way:
“I’ve never done this before” and “I don’t know if I can pull this off” are NOT reasons to NOT try.
This can be applied to pretty much anything in life, but it’s especially important to remember as novelists. The publishing world is constantly in flux, so to survive, we must constantly try new things, or different approaches to the same thing. You never know, that “impossible” idea you have could end up being your author legacy. To step away from a new idea, you should have a stronger reason to not try it than your reason for wanting to try it in the first place. So if your circumstances permit, just try it and see what happens. If nothing else, you will have spent time practicing your craft and stretching your imagination.
Don’t get too attached to your plot, your characters, or pretty much anything BUT your core story.
Read MoreA lot of writers deal with depression. I’ve never stated it outright, but I am one of those writers. Fortunately, my depression is seasonal. Even during the worst bouts, I still have the ability to function day to day. It’s more like an itch I can’t scratch than a broken hip. Sometimes the itch is all I can focus on, and this hinders me, but it doesn’t cripple me.
I used to get down on myself if I didn’t hold to the mantra that you must “write every day.” And of course, this self-deprecating attitude would lead to more depression and lower productivity. But writing is far too personal to generalize like that. Still, it took me some time to be okay with my own process. It wasn’t until I stepped out of the current moment in time and looked at myself in terms of a whole year here, a whole year there, that things finally, blessedly, clicked into place.
I am a seasonal writer. There are large chunks of time–days or weeks at a stretch–that I do little to no writing at all. And when I do write during those dark days, rarely do I finish what I start. Sometimes it is not even worth saving, let alone pursuing publication.
These low periods are balanced out by the highs. The months when I am finishing everything I start, while also reading stacks of books every night, multitasking work and home, family-ing, day-job-ing, and rescuing puppies on the side. If I didn’t know so much about bipolar from being married to someone with bipolar, I’d think I was bipolar. But I’m not. I am a victim of the earth’s annual weather cycle in the region that I live. It’s called seasonal affective disorder, and it pretty much rules my writing process.
Does this mean I am not a professional writer? No. It means I have a mental circumstance to work around. My skill is not dependent upon living in an ideal situation, and neither should anyone’s be. But all of our circumstances are different, so each of us must learn how to embrace our own process, and how to not compare it to anyone else’s.
In the chaos, I found order. I found the reason my process works for me.
March/April/May
Read MoreSchool is officially out for the summer in my part of the world. For those of us who are parents working mostly from home, this is both a joy and a curse. I love having my son home with me, but it is much more difficult to work. Which is approximately 56 hours of any given day. Living in a single-level, two-bedroom apartment only exacerbates the issue, especially when my son decides to watch his movies at full volume in the room adjacent to my “office”, aka this sad little corner of my kitchen table. There is not even a wall between my work space and the living room.
Despite the insta-migraine this creates, my brain adapts to the situation by attempting to make every bit of data it collects from my environment relevant to my work. A few days ago, my son was watching The Lorax, which is a brilliant movie based on a brilliant book. But it’s very colorful and loud and not very conducive to the quiet time required to get my work done. After I’d downed a shot of Excedrin between jovial exclamations of “Thneedville! Thneedville!” the mind meld began. Everything I saw and heard in the other room was suddenly relevant to what I was doing in my sad little corner of writing and editing.
1. When a story begins with seemingly happy characters in a seemingly perfect world, there had better be Utter Doom ahead.
2. According to O’Hare Air, people will buy anything in a plastic bottle. So put your books in plastic bottles and watch your sales soar!
3. Don’t let anything stand in the way of your author dreams. Unless those dreams require deforestation. In that case, eBooks!
4. When the going gets tough, the tough eat marshmallows.
5. The Once-ler repeatedly cut his story short and told Ted that if he wanted the rest of the story he’d have to come back another day. Give the reader what they want, but not all at once. Holding back the juicy bits until just the right moment can draw out the tension.
Read More“It’s called picking up the game, people. So from now on, every. Single. Story that we do is gonna have to be sensational. We’re gonna me more aggressive. We’re gonna work harder. And we’re gonna do it right now.”
When Rachel McAdams’ character said the above quote in Morning Glory, her crew behind the scenes of Daybreak were in a desperate situation. They had two choices–either pick up their game or the morning show would be canceled.
As a new author in today’s era of publishing, I feel like I’m in the same desperate situation. To make any kind of headway in your career, or even just stay afloat, every story you submit for publication has to be sensational. And whether or not you are published yet, it’s time to pick up your game right now. Light a fire under your own ass.
So, as any professional author would, I put on my R2-D2 panties and watched every episode of the original Star Wars trilogy back to back to back, drowning my writerly insecurities in buckets of popcorn, until somewhere between Tatooine and Endor, the answers hit me.
Lesson #1 from Episode IV — Start in the middle.
The advice to “start as late as possible” in your story is nothing new, and it is sound advice. But that wasn’t good enough for Star Wars. The saga starts in the middle with episode four, not one. Even the title itself–A New Hope–makes it clear we missed something significantly tragic. Did this hinder the audience of 1977 from being fully engaged in the story? Not at all.
When we are dropped into something in progress, the automatic response is to start questioning. If the opening has forward movement despite the unknown, this questioning leads to intrigue. And instead of trudging through a swamp of setup, we are immediately immersed in a fleshed-out world with fleshed-out characters, each opposing side already in pursuit of something vitally important to them.
The result? We want to know what happens next AND we want to know how things came to be this way, so we continue on to find out.
Lesson #2 from Episode V — Destroy everything.
Read MoreAt the time I thought of writing this post, I didn’t know we’d be on the tail end of Frankenstorm when it aired. So perhaps it was fate that made me ditch the first ten or so post ideas I had before deciding on something that is, ultimately, a painful reflection on one of the darkest periods of my writing career thus far. But this isn’t meant to be a downer, that’s not my style. Chin up, fair writers. Sometimes we need the dark to appreciate the light, or a cold, hard rain to appreciate a warm embrace from the sun.
The journey to publication has felt like an unending storm with several eyes of calm that like to tease you long enough to restore your hope and motivation, then disappear again. So many things have changed even in the short time since I’ve begun. You must blog–it doesn’t matter if you blog. You must tweet–it doesn’t matter if you tweet. You must join Facebook–it doesn’t matter if you join Facebook. This critique partner loves your opening, that beta reader hates it. Print versus ePub, agent versus indie, traditional versus self-pub… I lost my sanity long ago. Only the craziest of us have stuck it out.
These things rain down on us, daily. Sometimes a drizzle, sometimes a torrent. Personally, the entire year of 2011 felt like a flood of confusion, and most of it came from my own head. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the year I’d reached a crossroads in my writing journey. One way led to immediate failure (giving up), the other led to success (at some indistinct point in the future). I’m sure every writer comes to this junction at some time or another. Perhaps even several times.
The most unfortunate part of this crossroads is that it finds you at your weakest.
Read MoreAside from the immediate benefit of getting yourself away from the computer screen and the blackhole of the Internet, studying movies and TV shows is a great way to enhance your storytelling skills. No, writing a script is not the same as writing a novel. But if you look beyond the differences in written format you’ll find some amazing similarities.
Because a story is a story is a story.
1. Structure
Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. Any novelist will pinpoint one of those three things as their personal weakness. For me, it’s not just the middle, but more specifically, the second half of the middle. This is where a lot of novels, even published ones, start to drag or lose focus. Define your personal trouble area and see how it is handled in a movie you already love.
Watching movies that tell similar stories to your novels is not only fun, but also a quick and effective way to troubleshoot. It might take you a week to read a novel and break down its structure, then study it. You can do the same thing with a movie in a single afternoon. I’m not saying you shouldn’t study novels at all (because you most definitely should), but if you’re extra busy that month or you just feel like doing something different, try a movie instead.
Before you can do this, however, you need to have an understanding of story structure. I highly recommend reading the following two books, cover to cover, multiple times, and even compare them. One was written by a screenwriter and one was written by a novelist. They use different terminology, but they describe the same thing–basic story structure.
Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder
Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell
2. Character
We all have film characters we love, hate, or even love to hate. Have you ever stopped to think of why? Is it their viewpoint? Dialogue? Mannerisms? Something you never really noticed until asked this question? The most accurate answer is “all of the above.” Character = the sum of its traits.
Read MoreThere is a saying in writerly circles, that a manuscript can reach a point where it’s been edited to death. The writer has produced so many new drafts that the life has been sucked out of the story, leaving nothing but a dry, cracked shell. Not even a shadow of the author’s original vision for the piece.
To prevent this morbid scenario, you must have a plan for editing to life. To start, it is a good idea to take a break from the story once you’ve typed END. Step away from it (still keeping it in your sights) and work on something new for a while. However long “a while” is will be different for each person.
The longer I refrain from working a story, blocking its outlet, the built up energy creates illumination. The brighter it shines, the more clearly I can see into dark corners of the story that need rearranging, redesigning, or recycling. This is macro editing. When a true lightbulb moment occurs, I will apply the revision to my manuscript and then let it all simmer again.
Once you feel there is nothing more significant you can do in terms of macro editing, you enter the dangerous territory of micro editing. The project has officially exhausted you (you just want it to be done already!), and because you narrow your focus down to the minutiae, you start seeing more that is wrong with your work than what is right. You can easily lose sight of what got you excited about it in the first place.
Micro editing is where manuscripts are either murdered or are given vibrant new life. All the major cuts have been made. All the major holes have been filled. This is where characterization is whispered rather than shouted, where descriptions are sprinkled rather than dumped, where foreshadow is carefully planted rather than pounded into the wrong soil.
The number one thing in any novel–any genre, any type–that gets me to keep reading, is characterization. A unique premise will initially get my attention, but that readerly excitement can disappear within the very first chapter if the characters aren’t up to snuff.
I’ve found the following tips and resources to be extremely helpful to my own editing process.
Read MoreThe cold & flu season has hit me pretty hard this year, and we’re not even into winter yet. My family has gone through more boxes of tissues in the past six weeks than the average elementary school classroom does in a year. As soon as we got over one thing, something else hit.
I’ve been in such a brain fog lately that I’d completely forgotten I had a post for WU this month until I flipped my calendar to November and saw the reminder. Thank the Sucrets I’d marked it down. But by then I was already five weeks into this phlegm-covered mess, and all my ideas for a post kept ending in violent sneezes. Whilst calming my sore throat with (yet another gallon of) honey chamomile tea, I concluded that I only had two choices– to either cancel my post/ reschedule it, or write through my obstacles.
After a few rounds of Schweppes ginger ale and some Nyquil-tinis, I realized I have been writing all this time (started a new novel last month), despite my raging sickness. But how?
Here are the three main things I’ve been doing… that I can remember:
Toss out your weekly/monthly word count goals and make a new, realistic goal for yourself at the start of each writing day, depending on how you feel. One day I wrote ten new pages. The next day I wrote less than fifty words. You can only take it day by day, and that has to be good enough until your health returns to normal. Some days your goal might just be “one new sentence.” And that’s okay.
Allow others to help lighten your load. When I’m sick my house becomes an every-man-for-himself war zone. We had it especially hard this past week because all three of us were fighting something, so for a few days this place was looking post-apocalyptic. But usually that isn’t the case, and at least one of us is well enough to pick up the slack that the other is leaving behind. It’s okay to take advantage of this for, say, a ten-minute writing session. That might be the only ten minutes you have that you’re coherent enough to string words into a sentence.
Step away from the computer and curl up on the couch with a pen and paper. Sitting at a desk, staring at a backlit screen for extended periods is not recommended even when you’re in good health. When you’re sick, you might get better writing results if you go the old-fashioned route for a few days. You can transfer anything salvageable to your word documents later. Writing is writing is writing, no matter what format. And there is something about the movement of a pen across paper that actually heightens your brain function.
Above all else, rest whenever you need it and don’t push yourself too hard, mentally or physically.
All of that being said, I sincerely hope you never have to put any of those points to use any time soon. May you all have a happy and healthy writing life for the remainder of 2011 (and beyond).
_____
photo courtesy of flickr’s sidknee23
Read MoreNo matter where you are on your career path, one of the best ways to connect with readers and fellow writers is through social networking. But we are all different. Some of us are apples, some are oranges, some of us are plums, some are kiwis…
The way you present yourself through these venues is undeniably important. It can either help or hinder your fan base and industry connections. But how do you show who you are — what makes you unique, why others would be interested in you — without going overboard and pushing people away? How do you know which parts of your personality to put on public display and which to keep hidden?
The short answer: It takes time to find what works for you. It takes trial and error to establish your comfort zone.
For the long answer, I asked a couple of authors at different career stages the following questions: In your writing career thus far, how have you been true to yourself in the public eye, what makes you, you? What have you allowed yourself to compromise, either with a good or bad result?
Both authors have shown themselves to be quite adept at social networking, through more than one venue. How do they approach it?
Read MoreEvery writer’s career path is different, but one thing remains certain: those who are currently floating in the limbo between “new writer” and “published novelist” endure unique circumstances that can make even the most mentally stable of us question our sanity.
Our minds are in a constant state of flux.
We know what we’re doing, yet still have so much to learn. It’s discouraging. We’re close, but not quite there. Negative thoughts can hinder our progress. Sometimes–oftentimes–it feels like we will never reach our goal. But there are specific actions we can take now that will help us find balance and improve our outlook.
1. Rejoice
Rather than allow jealousy over the successes of others to stew in your personal cooking pot of “why not me?”, tell yourself “my time will come, it just isn’t here yet”, and then build a positive connection by showing your support of that author’s accomplishments.
2. Redirect
This is one of the few things we do have control over–how we present ourselves to the public. For every one thing you say about yourself, say two or three good things about others. For example, every time you tweet one of your blog links, tweet two or three you found helpful from fellow writers. When you focus on the good in others it distracts you from the bad you see in yourself.
3. Remind
Fellow unpublished novelist, Christi Corbett, posted an article on her blog a few months ago that encourages writers to keep an “I Don’t Suck” file. For those of us who are in the query or submissions phase, this is one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve ever seen with regards to maintaining a positive frame of mind. Whenever you receive a compliment from an agent, editor, or fellow writer, copy it into your “I Don’t Suck” file.
Reminding yourself of the good others have seen in your work is an effective way to squelch any self-deprecating thoughts before they become so ugly that you consider giving up.
Read MoreRub-a-dub dub
Three scribes in a tub
And who do you think they’d be?
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker
Which type of writer are thee?
As writers, we love to categorize ourselves (don’t deny it). Personally, I’m a candlestick maker with butcher-like tendencies. What in the name of peanut butter fudge does that mean? Read on…
The Butcher
You write with reckless abandon. You’re not afraid of the delete key. You thrive on major overhauls and rewrites, rearranging scenes, cutting chapters, removing characters and subplots that seemed brilliant at first but now they “get in the way”, or perhaps you just start the whole novel over from scratch. In a first draft, you’re usually an all-out pantser. You write with little to no forethought or direction and hearing/seeing the word “outline” makes you dry heave. You simply let the characters guide you on their journey through your fingertips.
This method produces fast and furious first drafts, and usually requires extensive revising once you type END. But even though it seems to an outsider that you are chaotic, you are actually so well-skilled in your craft that you know exactly when and where to trim the fat, draw and quarter, gut it out, and then stuff it with something more tasty, without having to pre-arrange anything or think about it too much before making a decision. When you feel the right spark, you run with it.
The Baker
If the butcher can be likened to a hare, the baker would be a tortoise. Both finish the race, but at very different speeds. As a baker you “follow a recipe” for success. You thrive on structure and sketch out some form of an outline before the story-writing begins. You’re a plotter. A first draft usually takes months–maybe years–to complete as you carefully measure out all your ingredients and mix them together just so, making sure you don’t miss a step or accidentally blend when you should have gently folded. You can’t remember where “delete” or “backspace” is on your keyboard (hint: they’re the only keys covered in perma-dust).
Read MorePlease welcome Lydia Sharp, who was one of our FINALSTS in WU’s search for an unpubbed contributor. She wrote:
I wrote my first “book” in second grade (of my own initiative, not through the school curriculum); entered a state level short story contest in third grade; studied poetry, literature, and screenwriting in high school; and wrote several short stories all through my school years. Then Real Life got in the way, and I’m sure everyone is going to say that, too. It happens. The writing bug bit me again in early 2008. This was when I started viewing it as something I could do professionally, and set out to learn all that I could about the business and the craft. I’ve been continuing that self-education ever since, in addition to writing novel-length and short fiction.
Lydia’s post charmed us, as did her honest side note about how she’d had a hard time coming up with a topic to blog about for us.
A brief note about why I chose this topic. I was stressing out big time because I had an abundance of ideas and zero focus. I was blocked, and I know this is a common problem, so I wrote about what works for me. This article was the result.
Welcome, Lydia!
Defeat the Wicked Witch of Writer’s Block
Click your heels together three times and repeat after me: There is no such thing as writer’s block, there is no such thing as writer’s block, there is no such thing as–
Sorry, Glinda, it didn’t work. The page is still blank, and the cursor is mocking me in perfect rhythm.
You.
Suck.
You.
Suck.
You…
…are not alone.
All of us encounter obstacles that hinder our progress in some way. We call it writer’s block because we don’t know what else to call it. And for lack of a better phrase (because if we had any semblance of creativity within us at that point, there wouldn’t be a problem to begin with), we blame our absence of epiphanic brilliance on an abstract, um, something-or-other.
See. It hit me just now. You are my witnesses.
Writer’s block is an equal-opportunity destroyer of dreams. It does not care whether you’re writing your first novel or your tenth. Or if you write full-time or part-time. It doesn’t even care if you’re writing a novel, a short story, a poem, a query letter, a synopsis, or a blog post. It is one of the main reasons why some aspiring authors give up on writing altogether.
Don’t become a victim, Dorothy. You can melt the wicked witch of writer’s block with a few helpful tips from the Wizard.
Are you a scarecrow? All you need is a brain.
Read More
