Adrian Stephens's Blog - Posts Tagged "12"

First, I apologize for being absent for a while. I've been in writing mode, which means I've been working on my latest novel, and neglecting my blog.

It occurred to me as I was deciding what to write about, and being so busy right now, that my time is as much in demand as when I wrote In My Shoes. I've had plenty of people ask me either how I came about writing In My Shoes or how I found the time to do it. It's tough sometimes. But, for those of you out there who aspire to be authors, I thought I'd share my experience.

I started writing In My Shoes around June of 2009. To that point, I had come up with some ideas and written a little something down here or there. Nothing really substantial. With those ideas, it wasn't that the ideas didn't inspire me to write, but rather at that point I wasn't sure how to develop them. I figured I would save what I had and wait for the inspiration to come to me. With In My Shoes, the idea, the story development, the characters...let's just say it was all there in my head and, for the first time, had the inspiration to do it.

I had never considered myself a writer, and I had never been one with a plethora of confidence in my ability to do anything artistic. I'm not saying I never did anything with arts...I like to play piano, sing, draw, you name it...I just never had confidence in my abilities to do any of those things.

I can't tell you the exact date, or exactly what my thought process was when the idea came to me, but I do remember sitting at my computer one day and having this idea for a boy and girl who switched bodies. The body swap story has certainly been done before. What I wanted was to create a story that specifically dealt with the awkwardness that would occur from being in someone from the opposite sex's body. When trying to determine the best age of my characters, I remembered back to the awkwardness I (and I think most people) felt as a teenager. So much changes in our teenage years. We are learning so much and are just trying to figure out where we fit in and what is normal. By the time we reach high school, I think most of us have become more comfortable and confident (if not too confident) with who we are, how our bodies work, and we are more sure where we fit in. I thought that would be the perfect place to put my characters...at the point where they think they've got it pretty well figured out.

So, I had the age decided for my main characters. I thought about what would be involved in switching bodies. I did a lot of research. I thought about how it would feel to know someone is walking around in your body. I would want to make sure that person knew everything they could about me, so I didn't end up looking like a fool. I thought about how difficult it truly would be to pull something like that off, and realized that, if it were possible to switch bodies with someone, the only way you could really pull it off without people knowing was if you had a lot of similarities to start with. I've seen stories/movies where one character was an unintelligent, obnoxious jerk, and the other was a more refined, thoughtful, intellect. Really...how could that work? I didn't think it could, so I felt my main characters should be smart enough to be able to pull it off, and have some fundamental characteristics in common.

I thought about my target audience...who did I want to read it? Everyone! Really, though, I wanted to make a story that teens could read and relate to as they are dealing with some of that awkwardness we all have experienced in our life. At the same time, I wanted adults to be able to read it and reflect back on their experiences. Let's face it, surviving our teenage years is a learning experience. We change the way we look, talk, walk...we are a work-in-progress. That's what I wanted people to get out of it, all the while, I wanted them to be able to laugh a lot. I know how it feels to read a book you just can't put down. That's what I wanted for those who were going to take the time to read my book.

In order for boys and girls, men and women all to be able to fully enjoy it, I really felt like the story needed to be told, at time, from each of their points of view. So, I wrote down, mapped out really, every key situation I wanted to happen in the story, and I started assigning them to days. I realized that, if I was strategic, I could flip the point of view systematically. I rearranged some situations, and I had my blueprint.

I had everything ready to go. I had only two problems...I had never started writing a novel (aside from the brief, undeveloped blurbs mentioned above) and I had no time to write. The first problem was easy enough to fix. I just sat down at my computer and started writing. I knew I needed to have something jump out at the reader from the start. Something that makes the reader want to read the next sentence, and the next and so on. The first couple of paragraphs were difficult. No matter how much you've read, when you start writing you've got to think about sentence structure and the voice of the characters you are creating. Once I made it through the first few paragraphs, it became a little easier. After the first chapter, even easier. In retrospect, the first couple of paragraphs weren't very good to start, but once I was comfortable as a writer, I was able to go back and clean it up.

My biggest challenge became finding the time to write. Why? I'm glad you asked! I work a full-time, Monday through Thursday job. Because I have Fridays off, I work longer those four days. By the time I get home, have dinner and spend some quality time with the family, I have about an hour to get organized and in writing mode. That's if I have not other obligations. For instance, in the Spring (and Fall this year) I coach my boys' baseball team. The time in getting them to practices and games is already quite involved, but since I coach, I have to be there for pretty much every event. I also have to prepare rosters, report scores and attend league meetings. Fridays I help out at my boys' school. My dad used to take me to lunch on his days off when I was little, which was always special to me. I have carried that tradition on for my kids. Any number of family events and house cleaning can take a good portion of my weekends.

I'm sure many aspiring writers can relate to having to squeeze time in for writing. After all, just because we want to write doesn't mean the world is going to stop for us to entertain our new craft. For me, I found my time to write primarily on my lunch breaks. Each day, I would take my notebook and write. Sometimes I would type at my computer, but usually I wanted to get away to write. Each day, I would think about where I wanted the story to go next so that, when I had the actually time to write, I was ready. When I would get home, after spending time with the family and getting the kids in bed, I would type what I had written that day, sometimes getting a little more in before I shut down for the night. On the weekends, I would squeeze writing in where I could. It took almost exactly a year, but in June 2010, I typed the last sentence of In My Shoes. It's a great feeling to get to the end of writing a novel. For me, it told me I could do it. Not just come up with an idea, not just develop characters and a story, but to put it all together from beginning to end.

For those of you who have ever thought about writing, singing, acting, unicycling, quarterbacking...all I can say is don't give up on yourself. To be great at anything takes dedication and diligence. Very rarely is anyone ever great at something from the word go. They have to develop their skill. You may not have a cheerleading section to start, but that doesn't mean you should give up.