Ask Us Anything About #Writing with Amy Shamroe and Our Blogging Team

Dani: Dear readers, today we welcome Amy Shamroe to the Blood-Red Pencil. Amy, tell us a bit about your writing project.

Amy

I have worked in books pretty much my entire adult life (bookseller and book festival organizer). As one might imagine, I have been a voracious reader since I could first read, too.

 
Despite that, when I was sitting in my living room working on designing an ad for work and an idea of a book popped in my head - not just a book, but a series - I was both excited and scared. Like many I have daydreamed here and there and toyed with ideas, but suddenly I could see my main character and her love interest detective. Her character and personality were so clear, I swear I could hear her voice. And so was the time period - the 1920s. Living through a pandemic now certainly certainly makes that time period so relatable. But it also has so much to work with - the losses from the war combined with the wealth and excess of the new decade. The changes in everything from music and literature to social norms. I am venturing to bring her and her very interesting friends to life.

So here are my first few questions:

Amy

What advice do you have to first time authors to stay inspired? Life can get in the way of a lot of things, especially something you are trying for the first time and not sure how it will go. What can I do to keep myself keeping at it?

Dani

Make it a daily ritual to write, and think of it as a gift to yourself. Even if you only spend a half hour at lunch writing, or an hour before bed, this is your time to create something precious. Do it for yourself, before anyone else, and without regard for any long-term goal. Enjoy the process just for itself.

Shonell

I think having an accountability partner is very important. It could be a fellow writer, your best friend, or a writing group that you can be a part of so that you can share your journey. I think it's also important to create a space in your world that is delegated to your writing. It could be an actual room, it could be a closet that you put a desk and chair in, it could be a lap desk that you purchase to put your laptop on, as long as when you see this item or are in that space, you know it is time to write. Also, it is important to think about your day-to-day activities. It would be a good idea to sit down and journal what you do throughout a week. You want to put in the times that you eat your meals, take care of children, go to work, play on social media, Etc. Doing this will allow you to find time that you can reclaim to use for writing. For example, many of us spend a great deal of time on social media, and we could easily carve out 15 minutes or 30 minutes or even an hour a day or every other day for our writing instead of for being on social media.

Elle

Commit to yourself to show up every day. That's all you have to do: just show up. Make it your priority, before browsing the internet, checking social media, answering emails. What does "show up" mean? That's something you get to define. Everyone is different, and it's a muscle you need to develop. So a beginner writer might not be able to pound out 4000 words a day, but they could do 100 or 200. Some days might be really bad and "showing up" could simply mean opening the file on your computer, reading through some of what you wrote, and making a quick note about what's next. Showing up every day allows the work to stay in your mind, which is how you maintain momentum even when life gets in the way.

Ann

Many folks subscribe to the "show up every day" philosophy, and there's definitely something to training your brain to recognize: It's three o'clock: writing time!

But for some, that just doesn't work, so then you have to find something that will. Maybe every day is too much, what with all the other responsibilities. If so, then how about once a week? With Zoom and so on, there are all kinds of "write-in" groups one can join that meet at various times of the day or night. (My local Sisters in Crime and local California Writers Club chapters both have such.) 🙂 I find having writing buddies who nag me, who are willing to brainstorm, is extremely helpful in keeping the writing on track and keeping me inspired.

 

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Amy

How do you keep confidence in your ideas? As someone who has read her entire life, I write and work on character development and then have moments of "Does that sound too much like X character or Y series?" No one needs to reinvent the genre wheel, but no one wants to be a hack either ...

Shonell

One thing I like to do is keep affirmations around my writing space. These affirmations speak to me being a great writer with an active, unique, and creative imagination. I recite these every day, especially when I sit to write. I also get very drill sergeant on myself and say, "Shonell, stop and write, now!" I do this because it's important to get out of your thoughts and into your writing.

Maryann

Keeping our confidence level high is always a challenge. One thing that helps me is going through an older manuscript and finding a passage that just sings. I marvel that I wrote that and let that euphoria bolster me. I love to find such passages in books I read, which is why this works for me. That doesn't mean that the confidence doesn't ebb and flow, but to succeed we need to keep on writing.

Diana

Even if you gave ten writers the same basic plot and number of characters, each story would be unique: different voice, view of the world, opinions, descriptions, dialogue, and themes. No two stories are identical unless someone plagiarized. 🙂

 

Elle

The characters you come up with and their interactions will be your unique stamp on your work. Plots very often turn out to be similar (Georges Polti posited the 37 dramatic situations theory in the 19th century), but, as Diana said, every writer approaches these core plots differently, and every character responds differently. As long as you, as the author, are fascinated by your own characters that will carry you through the doubts. If you think they seem too close to characters you've viewed or read in other stories, think about what aspect or trait of that other character might have stayed with you and why. Then think about your character's back story and how it must be different to the other author's character. How does your character's history change their point of view and their response to situations? How did they get to be like so-and-so if they didn't have the exact same set of experiences? What did happen to your character?

Dani 

And in the first draft, what is most important is that you love your own characters. So what if they might seem like someone else's? For now, don't even think about it. The time to critically examine that is in a revision. Just love them as they evolve in the first draft.

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What about you, readers? Do you have any advice or suggestions for Amy as she embarks on writing her first book? Please leave us a comment. We'll have more questions from Amy soon!

 

See Part 2 here.