Krysten Lindsay Hager: #YAlit NEXT DOOR TO A STAR and writing all the time

Please welcome Krysten Lindsay Hager, whose new YA book is called Next Door to a Star. She admits how thoughts of writing pervade her every waking moment. Boy, can I relate to that!

*   *   *

Writing: The Job You Never Turn Off 

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

               

People think being a writer must mean that I play make believe all day and spend long hours on the couch watching bad daytime TV. In reality, writing isn’t a job you fit in when you have time to pick up a pen or get to a computer—it’s a job you never walk away from. If you’ve seen most writers’ computers you’ll notice several tabs open at all times. Now imagine what our minds are like! It’s like a million ideas swirling at all times—new plots, themes, how to rework the ones we already have churning in their minds, and then rewriting something we’ve already sent to the editor. Even going out for the night doesn’t take us away from the work.

Before I wrote my latest young adult novel, Next Door to a Star, I went to the beach towns I write about several times. I scouted out Grand Haven, Michigan (the main setting for the book) to check out the beach, shops, pier, and downtown where my character, Hadley, and her friends hang out. I also went to Saugatuck, Michigan where the Hadley and Asia go on a day trip and run into the rock star Hadley has a crush on. When I was in Grand Haven, my friend was looking forward to spending some time in the sun. So while she was catching some rays, I had mapped out where my characters would be going so I could see if how I planned a scene for the book would actually work in reality…right down to the actual steps the characters (Simone and Hadley) would take on the pier. 

On another visit, while my husband was taking in the sun, I was taking in the sites and jotting down notes and taking pictures with my phone so I could capture the scene exactly from every single angle. To look at my phone gallery you’d think I took a million pictures of the same scenery to get one decent picture, but nope. I needed to see that scene from every possible angle so I could go back to my laptop and recreate the setting in the book. It helps me to go in person to see the downtown where Simone (the former teen TV star) would go to get her hair down with Hadley and where they’d run into her ex getting pizza with a new girl—an older high school girl. Then, I take all my pictures so I can plot out where the girls go and make sure I have the landmarks in the right order for anyone who reads the book who is familiar with the area.

Later, I went to shops my characters would visit and imagined where their conversations would take place—like when Charlotte and Hadley are invited out with the popular girls and feel out of their element. I sat on a bench to emails notes to myself so I didn’t forget anything all while Instagraming shots to my followers of places they could expect to see in my next novel.  

When we made a snack stop, I saw an ice cream place across from the beach that I needed to go into. My husband said, “You want ice cream?” And I replied no, I didn’t, but my Hadley and Simone might want some and I needed to see the setup of the store. So he got some ice cream to give me an excuse to scout out the place and jot down details.

People don’t always realize all the details that go into creating a scene, but I like to take the reader right into the world that I am creating. I’m always on the lookout for something that will add to the story, make it richer, and bring you into my character’s world. Sure it means I can’t turn my brain off from writing, but I assure you, I had just as much fun that day researching and scouting out places for my book as someone who sat in the sun enjoying the beach.

Watch the Next Door to a Star Book Trailer:

*   *   * 

Learn more about Krysten Lindsay Hager on her website and on Instagram.

Buy Next Door to a Star on Amazon, iTunes, and elsewhere.

No, No, NaNoWriMo

Happy November 1. I wish you all a happy and productive National Novel Writing Month. Please excuse me if I sit this holiday out.

I often consider why participating in NaNoWriMo is so unappealing to me, when so many writers find it inspiring. And I've decided it's because of the mantra that keeps me writing at least a bit every day:

Anything is better than nothing.

Yes, as a novelist and short story writer, those are the words I live by. If I look at a novel as a 70,000-word monster that needs to be created and cleaned up before it's worth anything, I'd never even start. But if I think of it as a building I can lay one brick at a time (and on really good days, ten bricks), then it seems completely doable.

For me, the very concept of NaNoWriMo makes me feel stress, not motivation. Too much needs to be accomplished in too short a time, so my mantra wouldn't hold up.

So no NaNoWriMo for me, thank you. But that's not to say I'm not working on a novel. In fact, I'm at different stages on two of them: I'm polishing a middle grade historical to ready it for an agent hunt, and I'm doing the revisions my publisher requested for the sequel to Green Light Delivery. I expect to have a very productive November. At my own pace.

And to those of you for whom NaNoWriMo gets your writing engines stoked, I hope it's a fantastic experience and you write up a storm!

It May As Well Be Official

Time to make an official commitment to Write 1 Sub 1. It's what I've been doing anyway, at least while I'm not teaching: finish a story per week. That's on top of working on the novel, of course.

The idea of Write 1 Sub 1 is to commit, not only to a regular writing schedule, but also to regular submissions. The work one submits in a given week need not be the story one has just written that week. (We don't want unripe stories flying around. They leave an ugly mark when they hit you.)

I'm curious to see whether taking this, um, oath of office has any effect on my writing life. What I'd really like to join is Write 1 Pub 1, but I can't find a link for that.

It's Not the Marketing...

...and it's not the networking.

All those hours on Twitter, FB, my blog and others', message boards, Duotrope, agent directories.

Not one minute of it matters if I'm not constantly producing good writing. It's hard not to get distracted by it all. The essential thing is to have high-quality merch to market.

The Dangerous Lull

One big project is drafted. Revisions and packaging lie in the immediate future. My brain continues to formulate new stories, so I pick one to start on. There's outlining and research to be done. The various stages of the creative process swim along.

But what's missing is actual writing, the daily production of prose. After I'd drafted my first novel, it took months to get back into that phase because of the needs of planning the new thing before writing it. Do those synapses crystalize with disuse over time, or will they stay oiled and retain the heat of experience?

Many writers write something, anything, every day, just for the sake of exercise. My attempts at that have left me disgusted by insufficient quality and longing for real, goal-oriented writing.