Warren Adler's Blog, page 32

October 14, 2015

Casey Doran

I began to write because writing told me to.

I grew up scrawling short stories in notebooks at cafeterias and coffee shop and beaches, my backpack at my feet and heavy with copies of my literary idols like King and Bukowski and Hughes. Staying up late at night and hammering away drafts on my typewriter, trading sleep for the addicting sound of hammering keystrokes. Carrying copies of my latest story or poem or essay around with me at school, too self-conscious to let anyone read it, but too attached to throw it away. Years later came submissions to agents and publishers and my first book deal. I attended launch parties and celebrated publication days. I looked up reader reviews on Amazon, Goodreads and Barnes and Noble and embraced the surreal experience of seeing my book mentioned with other writers who I’ve always admired. Through it all I’m still that kid staying up late at night, compelled to get in the chair and sit in front of the screen, addicted the hammer of keystrokes, and eager to see where the next stage leads as the journey takes me along for the ride.

http://www.caseydoranauthor.com/

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Published on October 14, 2015 03:00

October 12, 2015

Jennifer Bowen

What does a 34 year-old-woman do after she’s written a Young Adult novel? She has doubts.

That was the state I found myself in. I’m what we’d call ‘yold.’ That’s young and old, people. Young enough that I can still remember being seventeen as not some foreign state. But old enough that I worried my novel wouldn’t resonate with an audience half my age.

When I was thirteen I fell in love with David Lynch’s TV show Twin Peaks. My novel is inspired by Lynch’s dissection of small town weirdos, dead prom queens, and his realistic take on the supernatural. With the support of a writers group in New York City, I wrote in my typical mad-woman style, and churned out a wobbly, thriving, first draft at the end of the year.

But…what then?

My writers group consisted of people like myself in their 30’s and 40’s. But I kept wondering – what would a seventeen-year-old girl think?

The only solution for me was to ask some teenagers directly. The first time I tried this it didn’t go so well. I was trying to chase down teenage nieces/daughters/friends of friends, and a lot of them weren’t all that interested in reading. But even with the little feedback I got, I knew I needed to make some serious edits. The main one being all the adults who read my manuscript chose the ‘right’ guy out of the love triangle, but all the teenagers chose the ‘other’ one. That was a reality check. #yold

So I wrote and rewrote. A lot. And then I tested it a second time with teenagers a year later. By this point I discovered they were called beta readers – people who read your novel and give feedback before it’s published. I’d figured out how to attract serious beta readers, and by the end of it, I had a 35+ page report full of feedback from teenagers all across the US on what did and didn’t work in my manuscript. It tested much better the second go around. They answered big picture questions, from relating and loving my main character June, to reassuring me that my ending–since it’s a mystery novel–struck that balance between satisfying and piquing curiosity. They also offered such unique specifics, such as my ‘texting’ seemed realistic and my teenage sarcastic dialogue was believable.

The whole process was so wildly helpful, the first time with editing my manuscript, the second time as a marketing tool to prove the viability of the manuscript. As I turned to the oh-so-daunting task of trying to get published, I realized I had a powerful secret weapon with my positive test results. I’d done the field work. I knew my manuscript was grabbing teens. Wouldn’t this get an agent’s attention?

And with that, I turned an idea–doing beta reader editorial research–into a company: BookHive Corp. One day, when my manuscript gets bought or I decide to self-publish, I’ll be thrilled to work with an editor. That editor, I’m sure, will not be seventeen. So it’s nice that I’ve had ten real-life age appropriate consumers provide me with a backbone of knowledge that I can trust. This is what I want to provide to other novelists: a method of gauging whether their manuscript is solid and ready for public consumption.

Please enjoy the coupon code BUZZ for $100 off our services.

https://www.bookhivecorp.com/

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Published on October 12, 2015 08:16

Lee-Ann Mayimele

You see, I used to be a selfish girl. I wrote stories but I did not share them. In 2009, Lady Fate – in all her wisdom – decided to change that. I suffered a major concussion that resulted in me losing my senses of smell and taste. During the reflective days after that curveball, something in my soul stirred. My selfish girl days were numbered.

I tuned in to the soulcall to share and was rewarded generously: I developed superpowers. Yes, superpowers! I realised that:

My loss of smell forced me to use my ears more.

So, I started to listen. Really listen.

My loss of taste forced me to use my eyes more.

So, I started to see. Really see.

It occurred to me that on the road to recovery, I had developed a special set of skills using instinct, intuition, vibrations, feelings, nuances. My 2 dull senses heightened the 3 fully functional ones. Those superpowers were my biggest gift as a writer. They made for some powerful storytelling.

So began my journey to publishing my writing. My stories translated into emotions. The emotions connected hearts and magic began to happen.

I followed the magic. I let my heart guide me. I had no idea where the road would lead me. I simply put one foot in front of the other and kept writing. Before I knew it, I had penned my debut novel, “I am Grateful”. I screamed “thank you!” and then sat down to write some more.

World be warned: This African woman has superpowers and she intends to use them!

https://aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com/

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Published on October 12, 2015 08:12

Joshua Isard

I began writing because of a compulsion. That’s it. I’m not sure I would have phrased it that way when I was 21 and really started to take my writing seriously, but now I know that’s why I started writing, why I continue writing. I’m compelled by something in my make up to write stories. I don’t know if it’s genetic or if it’s because I spent so much time reading books and watching movies as a kid, but there’s a compulsion inside me to keep doing this, and it’s never let up.

I feel as though most writers are like this. Someone once said that they write because not writing is worse, and that’s another good way to phrase it.

The result of this compulsion, though, is far more meaningful. Each time I write something I’m proud of, I feel as though I’ve fully expressed myself. Everyone experiences the feeling of wanting to say something and not quite being able to do so—a good story solves just that problem, and I rarely feel better than when I’ve written one. That feeling reminds me that the next time I feel compelled to write, I ought to, that there’s a payoff beyond just satisfying that urge to type.

Author of Conquistador of the Useless

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Published on October 12, 2015 08:08

Jeannie Palmer

There’s never been a time when writing wasn’t part of my existence. As a child, writing was my catharsis, my chosen outlet for self-expression, a means of reaching others the best way I knew how. By my young twenties, I’d completed my first novel, a historical romance. My book was an extension of me, of my “self”, a thing I’d breathed life into – given birth to. I’d made a huge emotional investment.

I shot it off to the top literary agents of that time. The first rejection letter knocked the breath out of me and I cried for hours. That was my first experience with the sharp sting of rejection. I feared hearing from the other agents. That fear was a hard fist in my stomach.

Another agent responded and I held the letter in trembling hands, unable to look, unable to look away. More rejections wouldn’t diminish my need to write, no matter how badly they stung. I tore open the envelope. Inside was an agent’s contract. Since that day, there’s not a day goes by that I’m not writing in one form or another. Writing is my essence. It’s core to my existence. I can’t not write.

http://www.jeanniepalmer.com/home.html

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Published on October 12, 2015 08:04

October 6, 2015

Michelle Lim

As a girl, I wrote songs and sold them to my grandmother for a dime. Little did I know that was the beginning of a great love; the love of words and how they played together on the page.

As a tween, I challenged my sister to read more books than me in a summer. I lost at the count of 103 to her 105.

As a youth, my grandmother belonged to three book order clubs so we could read all the same books together.

As an adult, I wrote my first novel in three days only to trash it as drivel never to be returned to.

As a teacher, I met a child who burned in my mind the idea of a story that needed a page to breathe.

As a young mother, I needed a voice to speak the words stifled by a cloak of invisibility.

Finally, my literary heritage wove its fingers around my heart and I began to write. Writing gave me a voice, not just for myself, but for the young girl, the tween, the adult, the teacher, and the young mother.

But even heritage can be snatched back by tragedy. Brain surgery stole the words that once breathed on the pages and I feared I would never get them back. Time and God’s blessing restored them.

Now my voice on the page is for many and myself that of triumph through struggle and pain to recapture the gifts we are given.

https://thoughtsonplot.wordpress.com/

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Published on October 06, 2015 13:58

John Altman

I began writing because it offered an escape from everyday life – although in fourth grade (when I undertook my first script for a self-created comic book), I certainly didn’t think of it in those terms; I just knew it felt good to create. I imitated the things I enjoyed as a reader: Marvel comics, Roald Dahl, and as I grew a bit older, Ray Bradbury and Rod Serling and Stephen King. Even as the baggage surrounding writing grew more complex – as my income, and a large part of my identity, became inextricable from what I wrote and how it was received – the basic drive remained, and remains, the urge to escape everyday life; to inhabit a place more romantic, more dangerous, and, crucially, more under my control than reality.

www.johnaltman.net

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Published on October 06, 2015 13:57

Judi Blaze

I have always loved stories. I loved hearing them as a child and by the time I was 10, I loved writing them on my Tom Thumb typewriter. Words are an outlet and expression of our creativity, a voice that inspires us to write from the heart. Words are a powerful thing.

As a journalist, I wrote fact, until finding my true calling, which is fiction. After having written a few books and hundreds of short stories, I am now trying my hand at screenwriting. SQUID JIGGERS, a short story that was a finalist in the People’s Choice award on the Warren Adler site, is my first feature.

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Published on October 06, 2015 13:56

Ted Tayler

I enjoy communicating with people. If it’s verbally, face to face, then that’s fine and I enjoy that too; however, I can reach more people with the written word and long after I’m gone the books I’ve managed to get finished will be available, somewhere for anyone who wishes to read them. I don’t have a ‘message’ to get across; I’m simply a storyteller.

I write my novels in the same way I would tell you a story if we were sitting together sharing a meal and a glass of wine. It’s just a conversation written down; nothing pretentious or manufactured. The characters are what are important to me and I hope they’re more believable because of the way I write.

http://tedtayler.co.uk/home/

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Published on October 06, 2015 13:55

Xu Xi

I was an insomniac child and woke one morning at 4 am when I was 11, snuck out to the living room and gazed at the Hong Kong harbor by night. This led to writing my first published piece, an essay about stillness and beauty, which appeared in the children’s section of the local English paper. That was in 1965. My insomnia never went away, which is how I kept writing over the years. Early mornings remain my favorite time, but I’ve taught myself to write whenever there is space for silence, and I’ve learned to make that space. You have to listen to your heart — that’s the reason I still write — and shut out the noise that distracts you from knowing who and why you are. I was lucky because I discovered quite young that I did want to write. The trick has been never to stop writing.

http://www.xuxiwriter.com/

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Published on October 06, 2015 13:48

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