Rachel Hawthorne: Dream It Up

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm stuck. I don't know what to write about for this blog. Worse than that, I'm not sure what happens in the next scene in my current WIP (Work in Progress). Yes, you'd think I'd know the story, because it's due to my editor next month—and I do know the big picture, but the little details are still in hiding. What exactly happens in Labor of Love now that my heroine has noticed the hot hero?

Maybe it's because of all the outlines the teachers made me create when I was in school, but even thinking about doing an outline now makes me shudder. I much prefer to just write and see where the characters and story take me. In other words, I write by the seat of my pants. Among writers, those of us who prefer the no-outline-unless-we-absolutely-have-to method are called "pantsters." And there are quite a few of us.

But inevitably, this method leaves me staring at my computer and wondering…Where do I go from here? What I'll usually do when this happens is take what I've written to bed with me. I read the final pages just before I go to sleep. And then I dream. Often I'll dream about the story, and I'll see the next scene. Sometimes it'll be so strong and clear that I'll wake up and start writing right then. (Keep paper and a pen that shines a beam of light nearby when midnight inspiration strikes.)

I love the satisfaction that's generated when the words flow.

That's how I deal with writers' block. I sleep on it. Better yet, I dream on it.

Are you an outliner or a pantster? What do you do when you get to a point in the story and you're not sure what happens next?

Rachel Hawthorne
Author of First Kisses 1: Trust Me

Alma Alexander: Inspired by a Real Live Writer

When I was fifteen years old, my school brought out a Real Live Writer to talk to my class.

Our visitor spoke to freely us about her life. She talked of the fickleness of inspiration; of the frustrations of waiting for weeks or months or sometimes even years for a response to a piece of work; of the bitterness of rejection. She spoke of every valley of shadow in her life, frankly, without holding back, without giving us a rose-tinted vision of what a life like hers could be like.

And yet, she spoke of it all with the light of angels in her eyes, and she also spoke of the pleasure of simple acceptance, of the fierce joy which came as a gift offered by a stranger who had read one's words and found them pleasing. She had brought books to show us, and she touched them all gently–with pride, with contentment, with love.

Up until that moment, I'd written poetry (LOTS of it!) and I'd written stories. By the age of thirteen or so, I'd even written a novel which (thankfully) didn't survive to this day—but my ideas about my future had not taken shape or form yet.

On this rainy night in November, they did. A flame was kindled in me that has never gone out. I looked at our visiting writer and I said to myself, "Some day, that is going to be me. This is what I WANT."

I was no childhood prodigy or an "overnight success." Twenty years passed between that childhood vow and my first published book. But in those twenty years, I never stopped dreaming, I never stopped believing, I never once considered giving up. And now here I am, with books of my own in my hands.

Do YOU want this life? It will not be easy. It will not be simple. Sometimes it will be hurtful and frustrating, and you will water the tender plant of your dream with tears rather more often than you might like. Nothing really worth having in life comes easy, after all.

But it's worth the wait.

Alma Alexander
Author of Worldweavers: Gift of the Unmage

Alex Flinn: Playing Hooky (or, Write What You Have To)

I have a lot of trouble staying on task. That's how I became a writer. When I was a lawyer, my mind would wander. I'd make up stories and write them down during my lunch hour. It was fun, writing when I was supposed to be doing something else, like playing hooky.

I still play hooky. Sometimes, I'm writing what I'm supposed to write, and I'll have an idea that takes over my mind and won't take no for an answer. When this happens, I've learned that I have to follow that instinct.

This happened with my very first book. I was writing a story about a girl whose boyfriend hits her, and right in the middle, I started thinking about the boy. A lot. In fact, I had to sit down and write a bunch of pages about the boy.

Eventually, I ended up chucking the book about the girl and writing about the boy, and that's the book that got published.

That's not the only example. Once, I was most of the way through a book I had a contract for when I started thinking about another book. I stopped what I was doing and wrote it (but I wrote the other book, too, after I finished).

And just recently, when I was writing and minding my own business, I started obsessing over Beauty and the Beast. I have kids, so we read the story a lot, and things started bothering me about it. Like why would Beauty’s father let her go live with the Beast? And where was the Beast’s family? I found that I had to write a book about the Beast, so I did, a modern Beast, set in New York City, and that book is being published this fall, Beastly.

Sometimes, you just have to play hooky.

Have you ever felt like you had to write a certain story? Did you?

Alex Flinn
Author of Diva

Alma Fullerton: Why a Writer?

The most common question that people ask me is: "When did you decide to become a writer?" I don't think there was ever a time I decided. Writing was just something I always did—always HAD to do.

When I was growing up, I wrote, read, and told stories to escape. It didn't matter if I was writing journal entries, essays, or short stories, as long as I was in the "zone," I didn't have to think about all the bad things going on in my life at the time. Writing through those bad times made it possible for me to be here today.

I'm in a much better place now, and I no longer have to write to escape, but that need still burrows in my mind. There are so many things I feel passionate about, and I need to write about them. If I don't, no one can write about them for me. Yes, there are other stories on the same subjects, but those stories don't express everything I need them to express. They don't fill my need to express my own thoughts, and sometimes those stories hold opinions that are totally the opposite of mine. Are they wrong? No, I don't believe so. They are just different.

Did it do me any good to read those stories and hear those opinions? Absolutely.

I believe before you can develop your own opinion on something, you have to learn all the different sides of that particular thing. If you only hear one side of the story, that's what you tend to believe to be true and it's hard to form your own opinion. Truth lies in educating yourself, and education leads to passion.

What are some of the things you're passionate about?

Alma Fullerton
Author of Walking on Glass

Jeremy Strong: World Book Day

It's been pretty manic this last week here in the UK. We had World Book Day. Every schoolkid in the UK got a voucher to exchange for a special World Book Day book. There are ten titles to choose from, and one is a new story of mine—My Sister's Got a Spoon Up Her Nose. All week I’ve been whizzing around doing promotional work for the book and World Book Day—been in schools, theaters, TV, etc., blah-blah-ing!

Thank heavens the weekend arrived and I could stop. Now I'm back home and I'm preparing for some more visits to schools. I'm going to Milan (Italy), shortly to speak to children at an International School out there. I'm looking forward to it. It'll mostly be work, but I should have a chance to look around—all those fab Italian clothes stores! (And all the arty stuff, too.)

I'm also moving slowly toward starting a new story. I'd like to write a sequel to Stuff, but at the moment I don't have much of an idea about where to take things. Will Stuff stay with Sky, or is there trouble ahead? The new baby should be arriving, so maybe that'll cause problems. And what about Pete? I like him, as a character to write about! He's unpredictable and you can never be sure he's telling the truth. I have known several people in real life like that. They can be very attractive as personalities, but maybe after a while you get fed up with not being able to rely on what they tell you.

Do you know anyone like that? How do you get on with them? Do you think they're cool, or do they simply drive you mad?

Oh yes—I'd love to know what you think of Stuff as a story. Do let me know.

Jeremy Strong
Author of Stuff

Melissa Marr: Chasing Impulses

Writing, for me, is about curiosity and impulses. Seeing a documentary on hauntings led me to the Mojave to spend a weekend at a ghost town. Complimenting a musician led to passes to a few shows. Getting tattoos led to learning how a tattoo machine works. Most of this leads to getting to meet people and hear their voices—and all of it ripples through my writing sooner or later.

For me, writing isn't practical or orderly. It's not about attending workshops or reading "how to write" books (although a good grammar & style handbook is a wonderful thing). It's about living, being, and pursuing passions. Breathe in art & energy. Listen to the muse. Live. Talk to people. Gaze on oceans or ruins or art. Curl up with Faulkner or the history of architecture. IMHO, that's the best recipe for storytelling in any medium: curiosity and experience.

So, what sparks your curiosity? What makes you sigh? What piques your interest? (And please do feel invited to share. Hearing people's words and interests fascinates me). Exploring that is the secret to writing…at least that's how I do it. My impulses lead me to experiences and people and places that enthrall me. That's how I nourish Ms. Muse. When my muse is nourished, she dances—and so the words flow on to the page. Whether it results from what we learn or who we meet, paying attention to the impulses can give us what we need to create a story (or song or painting or sculpture). Plus, well, it's just fun.

Melissa Marr
Author of Wicked Lovely (June 2007)

Sara Shepard: The Voices in Your Head

Hi HarperTeen FanLit readers!!! How's everyone doing? Writing lots?

So the other day, I was watching a rerun of America's Next Top Model. (I know, I know—bizarre intro. But stay with me.) The models were at a photo shoot in Thailand that involved posing on top of an elephant. One girl got creative and posed with her foot wound around the elephant's trunk—and the photographers loved it. Lo and behold, when the next model got up for her shoot, she wound her foot around the elephant's trunk, too—the photographers praised the first girl for doing it, so she'd get bonus points for striking the same pose, right? Wrong. The photographers rolled their eyes. Tyra Banks had a lesson for the copycat: It's okay for someone's else's style to inspire you…but copying it is lame. You have to make the style yours.

And I thought, Huh. Tyra's advice applies to writing, too.

Now, I'm not saying you should rip off someone's writing style. No way. But I am saying it's okay to be motivated by someone else's style—and then make it yours. When I started writing a lot in tenth grade, I found some writers voices infectious—my writing style would change according to whoever's amazing book I'd just read. I felt weird about another author's voice seeping into my fiction—did it mean I was stealing? But in the end, I reasoned that it was okay. All these great authors had given me a starting point and had encouraged me to write. And write. And write.

After a while, I stopped imitating what I read and found a voice that was just, well…me. And I think that doing tons of reading and tons of writing helped me get there. And don't worry: Your own unique voice is inside you somewhere. You just have to keep writing to find it.

What about you guys? Can you think of any favorite books or writers' voices that you’ve used as a jumping-off point? How have your found your own signature voice or style?

Sara Shepard
Author of Pretty Little Liars #2: Flawless

Kate Cann: Be Your Own Chief Character!

I'm really keen on diary keeping. I don't mean the day-by-day "got up, went to school, had a burger for lunch" type of incredibly dull diary—I mean a plain-page notebook that you write in when you really want to.

Diaries don't have to be all literate and in perfect sentences. You might just want to write a series of words—write swear words, if someone's really annoyed you!

As you write what's happened to you, you become your own chief character in the drama that's your life. You begin to see why people behaved the way they did, you understand consequences, you chart all the emotions and interacting motives. It's great training for a novel!

When I wrote the Diving In trilogy, I dug out my old teenage diaries to get the authentic teen voice. I was amazed by the passion and the fury in those pages! So if you keep a diary—never throw it out.

When you're feeling strongly about something—get it down in writing. If you're moved and excited by something, your readers will be too. Teenagers make brilliant book characters—they're so intense and volatile.

Anyone out there keep diaries already? When do you write most?

Kate Cann
Author of Diving In

Frewin Jones: Traveling for Free!

Writing is a never-ending journey of fun and discovery, where you can take yourself and your characters to any place you choose in the entire universe—or even out of it, if you want to write about people with wings and about mythical creatures and magic spells in worlds where no one but you has ever been. Wherever you want to go, it'll cost you nothing but time, and it needs no fuel other than your imagination.

For me, the first rule of writing is not "write what you know about," but instead, "write about whatever inspires you." Just enjoy yourself. Then again, if you're writing stuff that you'd like other people to read and enjoy, you'll probably need someone to whom you can show your work, but not necessarily a friend or relative—friends and relatives will usually want to be kind and polite; they’ll tell you what they think you want to hear. What you need is someone who will be honest with you and whose opinion you can trust. Do you know someone you could show your writing to and whose opinion you would trust and value?

Writing is such a personal thing that it's really hard to have to deal with criticism, but you'll learn a lot more from being told what's wrong with something that you've written than you ever will from being told that everything you write is totally amazing.

Can you cope with criticism? Can you listen to other people's opinions and change a story you've written to accommodate new ideas?

And what about those ideas—where do they come from? That's often the first question people ask writers—where do you get your ideas?? So—where do you get your ideas?

Frewin Jones
Author of The Faerie Path

Brent Hartinger: The Simple Secret to Writing Great Stories

Hellooooooooooo HarperTeen FanLit readers!

Writing advice. That's what y'all want, right? The secret to writing a great story?

You're expecting me to say there is no secret, aren't you? That writing is hard work and there are simply no shortcuts?

Wrong! There IS a secret, a simple one. Here goes.

Imagine the most interesting person you can think of. That's the starting point for all good stories: the character.

Next, give that character something she wants really badly, something she feels like she'll just DIE if she doesn't get. Then put lots and lots of obstacles between that character and what she wants, things are way stronger and way bigger than she is. In other words, make the character work REALLY hard to get what she wants--so hard that the only way she can succeed is by becoming much stronger and bigger than she was before. That's the plot of your book.

And then, finally—you're almost done!—give that character some reward for all that hard work. It might not be what the character THOUGHT she wanted when she started out, but it turns out to be exactly what she NEEDED at that point in her life. That's your ending.

That's it. That's the secret to a good story! You write that, and I guarantee that lots of people will want to read it. It's so easy, isn't it?

Okay, so maybe it's not THAT easy. But you know what? It's not that hard either. Maybe there's even something in your own life, something that happened to you that would make a great story like this.

But take it from me: Good stories are about action and drama and desire and conflict and movement and satisfaction and change.

Whaddaya think? Do your favorite stories have all these elements?

Or am I totally blowing hot air? Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time.

Brent Hartinger
Author of Split Screen