Terry Trueman: Two-Finger Typist

I have a blog on my own webpage at www.terrytrueman.com, but it's fun writing something for HarperTeen FanLit, too.

I'm kind of an old guy, and it's been a challenge for me to keep up, even shabbily, with all the amazing changes in technology that computers, the Internet, etc. have and are making happen every day. I bought my first computer, a K-Pro in, I think it was like 1983 or something, a lonnnnng time ago. It didn't have a Windows operating system and it made the first video games, like Pong, look pretty advanced.

I type with two fingers—I'm typing this blog with two fingers right now—so the ability to use a program like Word totally changed my ability to write longer things, like the novels I write now instead of just poems. Speaking of "just poems" for any of you budding poets out there, even though poetry isn't terribly popular in the sense of people rushing out and spending their rent money on it, for a writer, I think that working at writing poems is the best way to start. It teaches you the importance of being concise and treating language carefully, and there's nothing a writer can do that's more important than that. I guess I could start spouting off now about politics, the war in Iraq, Barack Obama, the death penalty, immigration laws, blahblahblah…but what do I know? I write novels for teens and any other smart readers who pick up my stuff and like it—so I'll just wrap up by thanking all of you for supporting my work and for listening to an old guy who types with two fingers yak on for a while!!! Viva José Martí!!!

Terry Trueman
Author of 7 Days at the Hot Corner

Victoria Foyt: What's the Dirty Little Secret About Writing?

You want to write, you have a story burning a hole in your heart, but something holds you back. Perhaps you're ashamed to talk about it. You're not alone.

I can almost guarantee you that there is only one thing stopping you from getting to the last page: the Critic in your head!

Like a soundtrack on automatic play, that pesky voice endlessly repeats, "Who are you to think you can be a writer?" Or, once you fill the intimidating blank page, he is waiting with, "This stinks!" And into the trash your hard-won effort falls.

Sound familiar? Take heart. You can defeat this foe. Here is a three-step strategy that works for me:

1. Acknowledge the fear in you. To deny it simply emboldens the Critic—it festers in the dark. Eventually, the negative voice will win out if you ignore it. Shine the light on that nasty thing!

2. Create a dialogue with the Critic. Listen carefully to the attack and parry back thoughtfully. Verbalize to yourself or write the dialogue, like an interview. The key is to be specific! For example, if the Critic’s favorite punch is, "You have no imagination!" then make the best counter-attack possible about that subject. Your defense might be as simple as, "I like to daydream." Or perhaps you'll remind yourself of that fabulous story you want to write!

3. Gradually, you will wear down the Critic. Your writing will progress. Be warned: The Critic won't like this. Like peeling an onion, another layer of criticism will surface, though with less impact. Just repeat the dialogue process. And keep writing. As you gain confidence, the negative tape will fade into the background!

How does your Inner Critic stop you?

Victoria Foyt
Author of The Virtual Life of Lexie Diamond

Denise Gosliner Orenstein: How to Travel for Free

Have you ever fantasized about traveling to a different country or continent? Do you crave adventure and excitement? Short on cash? Not enough vacation time? Restricted by parents and school? Here's my solution:

Write.

The world of the imagination is a powerful tool, one which offers great riches and freedom. In addition to allowing one to visit new places, it also provides the opportunity to inhabit the complex emotional lives of others. If you are curious about what it means to be homeless, a musician, an inmate, a scholar, or the bush pilot of a float plane, give yourself permission to find out. Locate that place inside yourself that identifies with your material and then explore, languish, linger there. When you emerge, you will have inhabited your subject matter and be able to write effectively from this perspective.

As the author Eudora Welty wrote: "All daring comes from within." It is a true gift to live a life of great adventure without ever leaving home.

Many of us have been taught that writing is a process of quiet reflection, and that the author should follow a clear path which leads to a safe, predetermined destination. I beg to differ, and encourage you to squirm in your seats and to consider writing as a dangerous activity, one without marked trails. Effective storytelling is often the result of plunging oneself into uncharted territory, and having the courage to see the subject matter at hand with new perspective, as well as to experiment with language in entirely new and dangerous ways.

Writing is not for the timid; it provides the opportunity for discomfort and for the testing of courage. A good story or book avoids comfortable clichés, jargon, and generalizations, in an effort to unearth precise, vivid, evocative language that surprises, disturbs, thrills, and resonates long after the piece has been read.

I am rarely bored or restless since this opportunity for travel and adventure is ever present in my life. I relish those moments when I have nothing to do and no one with whom to talk, as it is during these times that I am most receptive to my own imagination and most able to create my own worlds. So the next time you are stuck at home with nothing to do but stare at your computer screen, stop staring and begin typing. Think of what it might be like to live in a different culture and experience the world through a different lens. Stop wishing you could hop a train and speed your way across the country. Stop worrying about all of the restrictions on your life. Delve, head first, into the complicated world of your own imagination and will your fingers to type what you fear and what you wish for. Seek danger. Experience discomfort.

Be thrilled.

Denise Gosliner Orenstein
Author of The Secret Twin

Mike Spradlin: Hello HarperTeen FanLit Peeps

Michael P. Spradlin, devilishly handsome author here to pass along his A Number-One Top Secret writing tip.

I'm often asked when I speak or correspond with young writers: What's the number-one secret to being a good writer? My answer? I have absolutely no idea. There are no manuals, there is no right or wrong way to being a writer, and there is no secret Internet "You Can Be a Great Writer Too" download. (Okay, just to be clear: There are writing manuals, but most of them don't actually, like, help).

However, there are a few things that writers can do to improve their skills (read a lot, be observant, always keep your pencils sharp, etc.), but the most important of these things is to write. Good writing takes practice. If you want to become proficient at something what do you do…practice.

Suppose you're on the soccer team, but you're riding the pine. You really want to get that starting position. What do you do? Play more video games? Pants your little brother? Watch more TV? No. No I say! You practice. Run more laps, do more agility drills, dribble, tackle, and practice!

If you want to get to the next level on Halo 2, what do you do? Practice!

See a pattern?

Every author has a different approach. Some will tell you to write every day. Some might say to write only when the muse strikes. Others will say to always carry a litter bag in your car. Me, I say it doesn’t really matter when or how often you write, as long as you write.

Just like in soccer, some days the ball goes in the net, and some days it doesn't. Writing is the same. Some days it's good, others it's not. The important thing is to just keep at it.

So write. Write whenever you can as often as you can for as long as you can. Then write some more. When you think you're all done, keep writing!

And watch your writing improve!

Question: What is your approach to writing? How do you motivate yourself to practice your craft? I'd love to hear!

Mike Spradlin
Author of Spy Goddess, Book Two: To Hawaii, with Love

Ruth Katcher: Extraordinary Details

In a children's literature class I took once, when I was working in a bookstore and trying to get up the nerve to look for a job in publishing, the professor read a scene from a novel where an ordinary teen girl looks at an ordinary shampoo bottle and sees extraordinary, even magical, possibilities.

When I read, I find that no matter how original a story is, it won't convince me unless the ordinary details—the shampoo bottles—are believable. In the first chapter of Garth Nix's Sabriel, a teenager brings a rabbit back to life so a little girl won't be faced with the tragedy of losing her pet. We see the blood on the rabbit fur, the running child, the iron gates of the school; we feel Sabriel's urgent need to set things right—even as we also get a taste of her supernatural power over death.

Since you're asking the reader to suspend belief about some elements of your story, the rest of it needs to be completely crdible. In Susan Juby's new novel, Another Kind of Cowboy (December 2007), she makes me see, smell, and touch the world of competitive horseback riding, even though I haven't been on a horse since I was twelve. Those powers of observation about the world around you—don't lay them aside just because you're setting your story in France or in a boarding school, or just because your main character is like nobody you've ever met except in dreams. Instead, sharpen them up and use them to make the physical details of your story believable to your readers—down to the last shampoo bottle!

How do you use physical details to keep your story real?

Ruth Katcher,
Executive Editor, HarperCollins Publishers

Farrin Jacobs: Go Team!

Hello HarperTeen FanLit folks! Sorry I've been absent from the blog lately, but I've been busy doing my regular HarperTeen work as well as working on the FanLit e-book, Reflection Perfection. In publishing, writing the material is only the beginning! So even though the story part of Reflection Perfection was wrapped up a few weeks ago, it takes a little time before it becomes an actual e-book. There's editorial work that needs to be done, the pages need to be designed, a cover has to be created, copy must get written, someone needs to proofread the whole thing…Basically, it's one big exercise in teamwork. (Of course, the team doesn't usually include more than 28,000 people. What can I say? We like to break new ground over here at HarperTeen.)

The writing part, though, is usually done in a solitary environment. Except when it's not. Although it's certainly not for everyone, writing as part of a team can help you be more disciplined. (Because, let's be honest: Sometimes it's hard to motivate when it's just you and your computer.) If you are going to go the team route, make sure you pick someone you're compatible with and make sure you’re both on the same page (har har) in terms of expectations and division of labor.

Reflection Perfection isn't the only multi-author project we're publishing this year. When you get your hands on the e-book you'll find a special sneak preview for The Upper Class, a summer 2007 book that is written by the fabulous writing team of Hobson Brown, Taylor Materne, and Carolyn Says. And the brilliant duo of Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman publish their second teen novel, Summer Intern, this summer too. Plus, next summer we've got an exciting project called How to Be Bad, by, like, an author supergroup: Sarah Mlynowski, E. Lockhart, and Lauren Myracle. So Gabriela, Jesse, Mary, Shea, Lisa and Jesse F. (and the other 27,994 of you), you're in good company!

Farrin Jacobs
Executive Editor, HarperTeen

Kristin Marang: The Formula

Has a well-meaning English teacher ever used this line on you: "The best writers are readers"? I heard it a lot in high school and college, and the reasoning behind it makes sense: By reading, you expose yourself to good writing, and you learn to write well by example. Sure, I get it—but, just the same, I've always felt that there was something missing from the Reader = Writer formula. If you read every book in the canon of English literature, I'm sure it would improve your vocabulary, your sense of story, and your ease with writing. But if your goal as a writer is to develop your own unique voice and to use that voice to say something that's never been said in quite the same way…then part of the formula has to include living—hands-free of books—with your eyes wide open.

In my view, the best writers are the ones who pay attention to the world around them and then step back and try to sort the whole crazy mess out on a blank page.

What's going on around you? What are the all-consuming questions that lead to sleepless nights in your life? Whether it's your take on first love, your perspective on life as a teenager, or your insightful musings about reality TV—when you pick a topic that's inspired by your own questions and experiences, it's a great opportunity for authentic, inspired storytelling. After all, the way that you alone see the world through your own unique lens is worth exploring. So read everything you can get your hands on…but don't be afraid to explore your own world, too—it's worth writing about.

What's on your mind or catching your eye today? Anything worth writing about?

Kristin Marang,
Editor, HarperCollins Publishers

Melanie Donovan: On Favorite Quotations

I got a new bookcase for my office last week, and while I was reshelving, I came across a little paperback book that has brought me a lot of pleasure over the years. As you are all writers and fellow book-lovers, I thought that you might enjoy it, too.

It's called The Writer's Quotation Book: A Literary Companion, edited by James Charlton. It's a collection of quotations by famous writers and editors that was created as a giveaway for a booksellers' convention, but it proved such a hit, it was subsequently published.

I don't know about you, but I find it illuminating to read what great writers had to say about our craft. Who can deny the truth of Red Smith's conclusion that "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein?" In case the name Red Smith doesn't ring a bell, he was one of the most popular sportswriters of his day. Fess up now—when you are facing the keyboard at 4:35 a.m. with a deadline looming, that is exactly what writing feels like.

And here's what James M. Barrie wrote about being a newly published author: "For several days after my first book was published I carried it around in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded." Can't you just see the author of Peter Pan sitting on a bench in Hyde Park, peeking into his pocket to make sure the first copy of his first book hadn't turned to fairy dust?

But I think my favorite entry may be this anonymous quote: "You know how it is in the kid's book world: It's just bunny eat bunny." Pretty awful, I know, but it still makes me laugh.

Anyone else out there who has favorite quotations to share? I'd love to read them.

Melanie Donovan,
Executive Editor, HarperCollins Publishers

Alexis Barad: Playing Office

When I was a kid, one of my favorite games to play was "office." My mom had bought me an "office kit" one rainy day driving around my town. I was ecstatic to have an abundance of brand-new notepads, new pens and pencils, appointment calendars, and a very serious-looking stapler. My friends didn't quite enjoy this game as much as I did. In fact, I'm pretty sure the ones who agreed to play it with me were merely humoring me. How does one play office? Well, there has to be an imaginary boss behind an imaginary office door, and you and your friend get to be the secretaries (I was obsessed with the movie, Working Girl at the time). You take imaginary "very important" calls and write down the names and numbers of the callers. When I stumbled upon the remnants of this game a few years ago, I read some of the names on the call lists I used to keep: "Mrs. Kitty" and "Mr. Smelly face" seemed to call quite often. Most importantly when playing office, you have to "look like you are doing something important."

It's not like I aspired to grow up and become someone's administrative assistant, but boy did my office game come in handy. My first job was as a sales assistant at a major publishing house. The way I assisted was by answering phones for my boss (annoyingly so, Mrs. Kitty never called), booking conference rooms, and creating endless Excel spreadsheets. I realized that "office" wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I was always busy, but I never felt that what I was doing was at all important. I mean, I had graduated from an excellent college, maintained a great GPA, and was a quick learner. But here I was, reserving the second-floor conference room for a lunch at 2, and faxing spreadsheets to an office in Houston. Hello? Torture?

It turns out that that sales assistant job led to an amazing opportunity in the same company to work as an editorial assistant to a high-profile editor. And yes, there still was a lot of administrative work, but by that point I realized that every step on the career ladder has its purpose. In publishing, and probably in most industries, there is a certain amount of "paying ones dues" that has to happen before you get to do the fun stuff (like actually editing books.) So, when you start to think about your career, and where you want to be, you might want to prepare yourself for a long game of "office."

I wouldn't be as happy as I am now as an editor if I hadn't had to endure that dues-paying period. And to be honest, I did learn a lot about the publishing industry from just being around the higher-ups in my office and taking notes in their meetings. I just think it is funny that as a child I must have had some sixth sense of needing to prepare myself for the corporate world in my future. To this day, I still feel that same childish thrill when I open a new box of pencils and Post-its.

Alexis Barad,
Associate Editor, HarperCollins Publishers

Maria Modugno: How I Got Started in Publishing

One of my first jobs in publishing had the imposing title of "assistant to the institutional marketing director." As such, I was in charge of several large filing cabinets. I was very impressed by the number of files I had to manage, including a set of state files with everything from AL (Alabama) to WY (Wyoming). Each time I typed a letter, I would put a copy on my supervisor's desk for her review, and would receive it back with a scribbled notation that read, "file TX." Hmmmm. I thought, I don't know what this letter to Publishers Weekly (or the University of Michigan or to some literary agent) has to do with Texas, but what do I know? There is so much I have to learn about publishing. So I would carefully file it in my burgeoning Texas file.

Several months into my job, my supervisor asked me for a copy of a letter she had sent to the New York Times Book Review.

"Oh, yes," I replied efficiently. "That's in the Texas file." And I quickly pulled what amounted to a chronological file of copies of everything I'd sent out to date.

"The Texas file?" my supervisor asked.

"Oh, yes," I replied smugly. "I filed everything marked 'file TX' right here."

"The Texas file!" my supervisor repeated incredulously. "That's supposed to be 'file—thanks.'"

I did have so much to learn—and also to file.

Maria Modugno,
Vice President/Editorial Director, HarperCollins Publishers

Michael Stearns: The Habit of Creating

I read a lot of interviews with favorite authors of mine to see how they do their work, and sometimes it seems there are two very different kinds of writers.

Some write only when hit by what they've humbly labeled "inspiration." You get the idea they sit around on velvet pillows all day, sipping tea and waiting for that magic moment. Another sort of writer treats writing like a regular job. They write every day, writing a set number of hours or pages or words, forcing themselves to sit down and work.

But writing is supposed be fun, right? Why treat it like a job? And besides, who doesn't want to say they wrote a story while "inspired"?

But why should it be an either/or kind of thing?

An interviewer asked W. Somerset Maugham (author of one of my favorite novels when I was a teen, the classic The Razor's Edge) whether he wrote when inspiration struck him or according to a schedule. He replied, "I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp." It was a smart-aleck answer, but he was making a point: The best way to take advantage of inspiration is to make sure you're there when it strikes—and to train it to strike on a regular schedule.

And, according to many of the writers I have worked with, the best way to do that is to write on a schedule. Make sitting down at your desk and facing a blank page no big deal. Make it a routine. Make writing and creating a habit. Teach inspiration to strike when you want it to, when you've set aside time to fully capture your best ideas with pen and paper.

It doesn't matter when you write (some prefer early morning, others keep vampire hours); and it doesn't matter where you write (one writer I know still writes on a typewriter propped on a board in his garage—the only peaceful space he could find when he started writing years ago); it matters only that you make the time to write. If you do that, everything else—especially inspiration—should follow.

Michael Stearns,
Editorial Director, HarperCollins Publishers