Sarah Allen's Blog, page 57

And then my mind was all like...Hello John Cusack

Lots on my mind today. I can't think or focus on anything long enough to form a coherent thought, let alone a profound one centered on writing, so...stream of consciousness splurge? Something? 
My roommate didn't get in to the BYU MFA program. We're still waiting to hear from U of U, but we were talking today and that means she has no reason to stay in Provo past the summer. I don't either. Except I do. I want to do something exciting, go somewhere, but I know what happened last time and I'm terrified. Is this my chance to try it in a better way, going with someone I know? Will that make things work better, or am I being insane or cowardly? I don't know. And we still haven't heard from U of U. And yes, I realize this makes us sound like a married couple.
John Cusack movies are dangerous. Seriously. I've watched two in the past twenty four hours. ('How Do You Know' and 'Must Love Dogs'. Both wonderful). Do people like that even exist in real life, and if so, please someone tell me where I can find one? And when people say "get out and do something fun for the weekend" what do they mean? Bars? Parties? What parties? What if all your friends are busy? What if you want to meet new people?
Dear blank please blank is shiny and funny and very distracting. I love it.
I think I've listened to 'Journey to the Past' from Anastasia on repeat about forty bajillion times. Thank heaven for headphones or my roommates would be really, really annoyed.
If I'm not going to stay here past the summer but I'm not making enough money to live really and need to fix that soon, what do I do?
Do guys really prefer long hair to short as much as people say they do? Because I think short hair is cute, and I know my brothers think Emma Watson is gorgeous and she has a pixie cut, but I've also heard that guys really like long hair...Just curious.
Motivation is odd. I can't find any right now. I just want to sit in bed and read and play on Pinterest and watch John Cusack movies. It's not that I don't want to write, I do. And I'm still working on stuff, can't let myself actually lose it completely. But still. *le sigh.
Things are good though. Book--working on it. John Cusack is adorable. Pinterest...DBPB...where should I work? Should I move? I like that haircut. I like windowsills and nighttime air. I wish it was snowing. People are going to think I'm crazy. 
Hopefully not too crazy :)
Do you have days like this too? What do you do?
Sarah Allen

Project Next, and so it begins

[image error] For the last while I've felt like I can't start edits on Novel 1 until I have at least a good start on an outline for Novel 2. It's taken me a while, but the outline is finally starting to come together. Edits will start soon, and then to beta readers, and then the roller coaster submissions process. We'll see what happens. I've probably mentioned all this before.

My last novel was in third person. My MC was a 40ish year old man. Partly to run the spectrum and because I just want to, the new one will be different.

The new one will be in first person. I think. I will also have a 26 year old female as it's main character. I'm not going to go in to much more detail then that because I've learned from experience and wiser writers than me that talking about the project too early in the process can really deflate things. But basically I'm working on an outline for my 26 year old girl and its finally starting to come together.

There's no real structure to my process, but there are a few things I typically do that help me a lot. I love going down my list of favorite books on Facebook to see if they spark any ideas. I love going to Barnes and Noble and reading the back cover of random books for the same thing. Movies actually really help me get fresh perspective on things when I'm stuck. Now I've done all those things and I'm starting to get some very general ideas formed.

I want to try something new for the next step. I want to try the notecard method. For whatever reason I feel like that's the best way for me to pull my ideas together at this point. That way I can add things as I develop them and can move things around. Then once I've got enough I'll type it all up into something more resembling an outline and start from there. And hopefully edits will be done or somewhat close to done by then too.

Now its your turn :) How are your projects going? What are you working on these days? What strategies do you use to develop ideas and fill in the holes?

Sarah Allen

Why I want to be the Adele of the book world

So many reasons, I'll just say right off the bat. Her crazy frenzy of popularity in the last several months may end up being a fad, but in my mind she's one of the rare celebrities that actually really deserves their blaze of fame. So yes, I would love to be the Adele of literaria. Let's start with the more obvious reasons.

She's famous, rich, lives in a big house in England, has won a Colosseum load of awards and basically everyone loves her. Not bad reasons to want to take a leaf from her book, right? I think we'd all love that kind of money and prestige, and although not everyone would want to put up with the crap that comes from being famous, I'm not too proud to admit I think it would be awesome :) And come on...she's British.

Really, though, there are a couple more important reasons I think Adele's got it right.

She's so hard core yet down to earth. What woman doesn't adore her for what she's saying about body image and beauty? She doesn't have the runway model stick-thin body, but she knows herself and owns it and I know plenty of people who think she's downright sexy. Not to mention her boyfriend is totally hot. He has a beard. Also he's British.

The main reason is a creative one. Obviously every artist has different strengths, and we get our creative inspiration and ideas and artistic beliefs from different sources. While Adele's lyrics are definitely beautiful, I know plenty of other singers who's words are more poetic or philosophical (*cough* Billy Joel). Adele's strength is her vulnerability, and no, that is not an oxymoron. She is incredibly open and honest and unafraid to let people see and relate to her at the deepest levels. I know there are tons of jokes going around about how whoever broke Adele's heart made her filthy rich (How bad was your breakup on a scale of 1 to Adele?), that kind of thing, but she wouldn't be record breaking, Grammy winning, played on the radio every other song Adele if what she's doing wasn't working. And really what she's doing is very simple. She's creating something with enough talent that people understand it and enough heart that they relate. That right there is exactly what I hope to achieve in writing.

So yeah, I'm another Adele fan-girl, but I think she deserves it. I'll leave you with my favorite Adele song. Not one of the big ones, but still my favorite:


Sarah Allen

P.S. Happy Presidents day :) Hope you're having a good one!

A little weekend song and dance

Here's the song:


And here's the dance:


Pretty cool, huh?

Have a great weekend!

Sarah Allen

Never too sick to look at sexy skirts. Er...yeah.

Here are some things:

1. It's official, guys, I'm addicted to Pinterest. I've been on it for a while, but I just spent a weekend sick in bed and that sort of solidified my addiction. The cool thing is, I've actually gotten some good blog traffic via Pinterest. (p.s. anybody else having issues with Google Analytics or is something funky happening to me?) I may talk about that later, but for now let's just say it's fun and I'm addicted and you should swing on over and check out what I've got.

2. Speaking of sick, is it just me or is everyone and their dog sick lately? Everyone from my roommate to my roommates friend's roommates, which we found out when we were buying Jamba for our sick roommates at the same time, to the little blond boy in my preschool class who hasn't been in two days and my little sister who I found out stayed home today. Something's going around. If you're sick, you have my condolences and a recommendation: Pina Colada Jamba with an immunity boost and a movie with Hugh Grant.

3. Writing: About ready to start editing Novel 1, and making progress on outline for Novel 2. It seems I'm destined to not be a Young Adult author for a while yet, because many of the problems I couldn't seem to fix went away when I changed my MC's age from 18 to 26. Still lots to figure out, but it's coming.

4. I really like listening to jazz when I write. Set Pandora to Miles Davis or John Coltrane and I pretend I'm in a cafe in Paris.

5. Tell me this is not a sassy, sexy and super fun skirt. It's totally a hard core tutu, which makes me smile inside.

[image error] I'm telling you. Pinterest.

Sarah Allen

p.s. Also these shoes...
[image error] p.s.s. And these. [image error]

Why I can't write villains

I've tried. And I'll keep trying, but the problem is that I end up sympathizing with them too much, and then they turn out much more anti-hero than straight up villain.

See, all the best villains have back story, right? And there are few villains, particularly good ones, who don't believe that what they are doing is right. The notable exception to this is The Joker. But really, every character is simply trying to get what they want the best way they know how.

Because of this, I pity my villains and want them to get what they want, and because villains are layered and complex I usually end up rooting for them way more than the boring, unrealistically perfect hero types.

This is why Severus Snape is my ideal character. He's definitely not a hero in the traditional sense, but he's not the villain either which puts him in the anti-hero space, which makes his efforts at goodness way more heroic, in my mind, than it would be otherwise. He had to work for it, consciously choose good over bad. Although to be fair, Rowling does a pretty darn good job of making all of her characters complex, including Harry.

Basically what I'm trying to say here, is that when I try to write villains they always end up more Snape than Voldemort. Which I suppose isn't a bad thing, unless I really want a Voldemort. But really, we all just write what we write, right?

Sarah Allen

The 1 Social Media Tip a Writer Ever Needs. Also Rumpelstiltskin.

There is so much said everywhere about how to use social media. And by so much I mean SOOOOOOOOOO much. In terms of how to use it and what to use it for, the advice is endless and can't really be taken as more than opinion. Everyone has different personalities, goals, and strategies, and all that comes in to play when using social media. It's point is to be personal, and while taking other peoples tips and ideas can definitely help, it really comes down to what you want.

How to manage social media, however, is a different can of worms.

Whatever you do, however you do it, social media can get complicated. There's so much out there, so many possibilities it easily becomes overwhelming. I mean, sure we all want to take advantage of as many social media opportunities as possible, and sure we may have some creative ideas, but how do we put it all in to play without going crazy and putting the rest of our life in jeopardy?

The answer is extremely and ridiculously simple. And believe it or not, it can truly be boiled down to five minutes a day.

Make a spreadsheet. Along the top, list all your social media accounts. Get the big ones in there first, like Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Then down the side list the days of the week. On mine I've included a "Daily" section for things I want to do every day. Then you schedule out your social media strategy for each site, each day. For sites like Twitter, where daily posting is appropriate, I've listed a sort of category or topic for each daily Tweet. I have planned what days I'm going to post on Facebook and Google+, and what type of thing I'm going to post.

My list of things is pretty broad: stuff like music videos, funny videos, cool pictures, quotes, links to other cool blogs, stuff like that. It cuts down on sitting-trying-to-think-of-something-to-post time, and scheduling helps so it actually gets done. And even with as many sites as I use, when you break it down it comes to a couple comments, a link and a quote or something like that everyday, spread across a few sites, and that, my friends, can be done in only five minutes.

(Blogging is slightly different. Obviously it does take more than five minutes a day, and even more time commenting and reading other blogs is good too. This other stuff is a way supplementing your blog, really, though keeping track of what you want to do blog wise on the chart is a good idea too.)

Hope that all makes sense. On a completely different but equally important note, is anyone else watching Once Upon a Time? Freak, guys. I have a damaged-man complex or something. I kind of flipped out a little bit. Tell me it broke your hearts too. He's going to save Belle and she's going to save him right back and it will be beautiful, and this show has finally paid off. Mr. Gold has officially been added to my Snape, Ben Linus, Mr. Rochester, Men who shouldn't have a love interest and do and I love them list. *Sigh*. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Anyone else as crazy as I am?

Sarah Allen

New bloggy fancy pantsy schmancy

So? What does everyone think? Pretty cool, yeah?

This, my friends, is my city on blue roses.

Designed, of course, by my infinitely talented and way cooler-than-me sister Rachel. She's an illustration major at BYU, engaged, and still managed to fit me in. But I don't need to tell you she's awesome. I'll show you.
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So. Check out her blog and the rest of her portfolio, and there will be a link in the sidebar anytime you need to call upon her artistic awesomeness.

Sarah Allen

How I Became a Writer, by Jennie Walters

I became a writer (and I still can't quite believe that's what I am) in a roundabout, step-by-step sort of way. I was working in children's publishing when a colleague looking for new authors suggested I write a story for her. At first I thought, 'I couldn't possibly do that!' And then I thought, 'What if I had a try?' And somehow, page by agonizing page, Forest of Doom ('Read it and shriek!') took shape. By the end, I'd learned perhaps the most important writerly quality: persistence. Now, twenty-five books later, I can still work for hours and end up with two mediocre paragraphs, but I know that if I sit down at my desk every day, take it page by page, write and endlessly re-write – many months later, there'll be a book at the end that's as good as I can make it.

Yet although the process may be 99% perspiration, there has to be 1% inspiration in the mix. People often ask where writers get their ideas. In the case of my Swallowcliffe Hall historical trilogy, it was dates that inspired me. I suddenly realized that a young Victorian girl could have had a daughter of that age in 1914, on the brink of the First World War, and a grand-daughter her age in 1939, on the eve of the Second. So there was the timeframe for my three novels. I decided to root them in a grand old English country house, large enough to accommodate an army of servants besides the aristocratic family who've lived there for generations. Now I had two worlds, side-by-side yet poles apart. Instantly there would be secrets, frustrations, jealousy and heartache, as well as a fascinating glimpse into history.

During my research I learned about girls taken into service at the age of eleven or twelve, kitchenmaids who were up at five to light kitchen ranges, housemaids who could only dust the legs of drawing-room furniture, and masters who would not allow servants to see them (one maid had to jump into a hall cupboard to hide). Of course there were exceptions: kindly mistresses who would nurse their girls through sickness, for example. But what a wonderful breeding ground for stories! From 1890 to 1939, our world changed beyond all recognition and opportunities for young women, in particular, were transformed.

Now the world is changing rapidly again. Writers can make their work available in a completely new way, thanks to the ebook phenomenon. When my Swallowcliffe Hall books appeared in print, there was only a short window of time for them to prove themselves. If the first volume in the trilogy didn't sell, bookshops wouldn't take up precious shelf space with the second or third. Now, though, all three volumes can exist in cyberspace for years to come. OK, so we authors have to become more proactive about marketing, but the advantages are huge. Your story doesn't have to be narrowly categorized: the people who want to read it can decide if it's a book for teens or adults. Readers and writers can connect in ways that just weren't possible before.   
So why not take the plunge? Write, re-write, have your story edited, re-write again – then put it up there, tell a few people and see what happens. You might be surprised! ***Jennie began her career in children's publishingbefore starting to write her own stories. Under the name of Lucy Daniels, she wrote four titles in the Animal Arkseries and the Perfect Poniestrilogy, and then under her own name, created the Party Girls series of ten books, published by Hodder, and the Swallowcliffe Hall trilogy, published bySimon and Schuster. These are the books she has recently released as ebooks, alongwith a new novel for teens, See You in MyDreams. She lives in London with her husband and two grown-up sons.
www.jenniewalters.com

5 Ways to Replenish Your Muse

[image error] This is in part (ok, ok...in full) inspired by Roni Loren's post from yesterday about protecting your muse. It's a great post, and I'd definitely recommend checking it out. But I thought I'd add some of my own thoughts on the subject.

Roni talked about protecting your muse. I'd like to talk about feeding it. Nurturing it. Making it grow so you can live a long and happy life together. So here goes.

1. Meet other people's muses. Muses are social creatures, and shrivel up and become embittered when you don't let them out to play. So read good books, listen to music, go to art museums, watch great movies and television. It's like school and recess for your muse all rolled in to one.

2. Lube the engines. (Lube...ha.) Your mind is not a separate entity from your body. It's part of it. People think a lot about the mind controlling the body, but not so much about the body controlling the mind. And it happens, in a negative way, if we're not careful. If you don't get the right foods, or not enough sleep, or don't get the blood pumping often enough, your mind (your Muse) pays the price, not just your body.

3. Give your Muse a break. This is probably the hardest one for me. This also goes back to the whole sleeping thing. But it's not just that. Often your muse needs a break in your waking hours as well. Sometimes its helpful to let yourself think about nothing, and don't stress about it. I'm not good at that, or the sleeping thing. I think, though, this is where your subconscious can work wonders.

4. Stock your pantry. This is why I carry around a notebook. When our muse is happy and working well, we need to make sure and take advantage of it. Keep all your ideas written down and ready for any dry spells. Then you'll still have stuff to work with when your muse takes a sick day.

5. Stretch new muscles. Let your muse try something she hasn't tried before. If you write young adult, try historical or sci-fi. If you write novels, try short stories or poetry or a screenplay. Try painting or writing music. Your muse may grumble and say its too hard, but try it anyway. You could end up with some pretty impressive results.

And remember, be happy. You love this, remember? And whether or not she wants to admit it, so does your muse.

Sarah Allen