Sara Shepard: Keep on Blogging!

Hi everyone!

I'm thrilled to be the first guest-author blogger for HarperTeen's new MySpace page! There's a great lineup of authors who will be blogging here over the next few months, so I hope you'll stay tuned--I know I will.

So all us HarperTeen authors have been told that we can write about anything in these blogs—our lives, our writing, our books (mine are the Pretty Little Liars series). That's basically free reign, but I'm guessing a lot of you tuning in are writers yourselves. Maybe you've got a novel already written. Maybe you're struggling with chapter two. Or maybe you love to write, but have no idea what to write about.

I used to feel frustrated about that, too. In fact, I moaned about that very thing in my eleventh-grade journal on November 20th, 1994, which I still have, tucked away in my closet: "Sometimes I wonder what I even have to write about," I wrote in scrawling pencil. "Would my stories spark discussion…or put people to sleep? You know, I bet people would fall asleep. Nothing ever happens to me."

As boring as I thought my life was, I kept recording it in journals, either handwritten or typed on my family's computer. I wrote mostly because I needed to vent, not because I thought any of it would come in handy someday. But to my surprise, that's just what happened. I use plenty of details from my own life to describe Pretty Little Liars characters Aria, Emily, Spencer, Hanna, and Alison. So all of you who think you have nothing to write about—don't despair. Keep writing everything down. Those little details are yours, and they're what make stories come alive.

How many of you keep journals—or maybe blogs—already? Or do you have other ways of thinking up great ideas for stories? I can't wait to hear from you! Also, check me out at my MySpace page—www.myspace.com/sara_shepard. And if you want to talk Pretty Little Liars, be sure to log on to the discussion boards at www.nevertrustaprettygirl.com.

Until next time, keep writing—or blogging!

Sara Shepard
Author of the Pretty Little Liars

Check back each day to hear from a new HarperTeen author!