Lisa Manterfield's Blog, page 8
March 27, 2017
Let Me Show You Around Sheffield
Writers are often advised to write what they know. While I don’t have a lot of personal experience with reincarnated boyfriends, I do know a thing or two about Sheffield, the primary setting for A Strange Companion. Sheffield is a city in the north of England and it’s also is my place of birth. I […]
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March 20, 2017
How J. K. Rowling, Daisy Ridley, and Andrew Garfield Helped Me Write “A Strange Companion”
When I’m writing, I like to “see” my story. I tape a big piece of brown paper to my office wall and cover it with post-it notes of story lines, scene ideas, and nuggets of information I don’t want to forget, along with pictures of settings in which the story takes place. Once I have […]
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March 13, 2017
Remembering to Savor the Moments
Things are suddenly getting very real around here. After months (okay, years) of writing and revising A Strange Companion, it’s suddenly a real book. I know it’s a real book because: It’s available for pre-order on the major bookseller sites. A printed proof arrived and I have held it in my hand. I’m throwing a […]
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March 6, 2017
How Stories Evolve
When people ask me, “What are you working on?” they’ll often get a blank stare in return. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m writing about, but in the early stages of a project, so much can change. Plots evolve, characters take over, and themes emerge. What might have started off as “a book […]
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February 27, 2017
Feeling Helpless? Do Something Small.
Does your world feel off-kilter at the moment? If so, you’re not alone. Whether you’re worried about the political situation, the climate, or changes in your neighborhood, health, or career prospects, there is a sense of unease in the air right now. And you’re not imagining it, either. A friend’s doctor reported seeing a sharp […]
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February 13, 2017
For Those Who Don’t Love Valentine’s Day
It wasn’t until I hurried into the card shop to buy a birthday card for my brother that I realized I was going to be solo for Valentine’s Day this year. Mr. Fab had made travel plans and when he’d asked if we had any conflicts on the calendar for those days, I’d said no. […]
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February 6, 2017
That Time I Risked My Life to Research a Novel
Early in the writing of A Strange Companion, I realized that Gabe would die in a climbing accident. I had a vision of Kat and Gabe climbing together, of Kat scrambling ahead of him, showing off, and of Gabe falling. The details of that particular scene have changed over the various rewrites, but I always […]
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January 30, 2017
The Strange Course of Grief
My dad passed away more than 30 years ago and there was a time I thought I would never get over losing him. It seemed as if everything I did and everything that happened to me was filtered through that loss. I felt, at 15, that people looked at me differently and that it was […]
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January 23, 2017
How I Decide What to Write Next
This week, I finished the last big revision of A Strange Companion. This means that the story currently on the page is the story that will be in the finished book. I won’t be cutting or adding scenes, no new characters will appear, and I won’t suddenly change the ending. I sent it off to […]
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January 16, 2017
How to Be a Grown-Up Tip #14: Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes
From the age of 12, all I wanted to do was be an engineer. Specifically, I wanted to be a civil engineer. I wanted to design buildings and bridges and roads, maybe even roller coasters. I wanted to build things. I planned my school career around this goal, dropping arts and social science classes and […]
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