The Bright Lights of Hong Kong
Earlier this year I made a decision – I’d say YES to as many things as possible. YES to going to new plays and gigs; YES to reading at book events and festivals; YES to visiting as many schools as I could; YES to travelling to new places and having new experiences. So when the Hong Kong Young Readers’ Festival asked if I’d attend their festival for a week, I took a deep breath and said YES.
It took a lot of organising. My parents very kindly offered to take my youngest two children during the trip (the eldest is 18 and said he’d stay at home and mind the rabbit and the house) and I booked the flights rather nervously. I love visiting other countries but I’m not a great flyer and it’s a twelve hour flight from London to Hong Kong. Luckily my partner said that he’d travel over with me.
On Thursday morning I arrived home from what can only be described as a whirlwind tour of Hong Kong – 9 events in 5 days.
The first events I did were nursery rhyme sessions with young children and their mum and dads. Here I am doing an action rhyme in the Hong Kong Central Library with some parents and toddlers.
Then I did lots of writing workshops and school visits, travelling all over Hong Kong to talk to students of all ages.
They were all lovely students and really interested in Ireland and Irish culture. I had great fun chatting to some of the girls after the events and finding out about their schools and what they liked to read. They told me that most people in Hong Kong have a Chinese name and also an English name which they pick themselves.
We also squeezed in time for some sightseeing. Hong Kong is full of skyscrapers and at night they are all lit up. It’s quite a sight!
I had an amazing time. If you ever get the chance to visit Hong Kong, do go! And don’t be too surprised if a Chinese girl pops up in one of my books some day soon.
Hong Kong is the kind of place that says YES to life every single day – it’s fast, busy and crowded but the people are very kind and friendly and the whole trip was a brilliant experience, one that I’ll never forget. I’m so glad I said YES!
Yours in books,
Sarah XXX
My new novel for adults, The Memory Box has just been published in Ireland. It will be available in the UK (and as an e-book) in September.
It’s about Pandora, who is about to turn thirty and who has just been tested for a hereditary cancer gene, BRCA1. I have written some articles about the research and the gene, and as soon as they are published I’ll post them here.
I’ve been the usual bundle of nerves waiting for publication date – I think it gets worse every year in fact. Here’s part of a blog I wrote in 2011.
Lots more writing and getting published blogs to come in 2013, plus lots new author interviews.
Yours in writing,
Sarah XXX
Pre-publication Nerves (2011) 
Writers at every stage of their careers are riddled with doubts and insecurities, especially around publication time. I’ve written eleven adult novels now (nine published, two out in the next two years), I’ve written four Amy Green novels, and lots of other children’s books, but I’m still horribly nervous about the reaction to each and every new book.
Seeing your new book on the shelf for the first time is terrifying, yet exhilarating. Not seeing …
My new novel for adults, The Memory Box has just been published in Ireland. It will be available in the UK (and as an e-book) in September.
It’s about Pandora, who is about to turn thirty and who has just been tested for a hereditary cancer gene, BRCA1. I have written some articles about the research and the gene, and as soon as they are published I’ll post them here.
I’ve been the usual bundle of nerves waiting for publication date – I think it gets worse every year in fact. Here’s part of a blog I wrote in 2011.
Lots more writing and getting published blogs to come in 2013, plus lots new author interviews.
Yours in writing,
Sarah XXX
Pre-publication Nerves (2011)
Writers at every stage of their careers are riddled with doubts and insecurities, especially around publication time. I’ve written eleven adult novels now (nine published, two out in the next two years), I’ve written four Amy Green novels, and lots of other children’s books, but I’m still horribly nervous about the reaction to each and every new book.
Seeing your new book on the shelf for the first time is terrifying, yet exhilarating. Not seeing it on the shelves when it’s supposed to be there is, of course, far worse! I’m in the very lucky position of having publishers behind me who believe in my work and do all they can to edit, market and promote my books to the very best of their ability. And in turn I try to do my part, writing articles, being interviewed by journalists on all kinds of things, visiting the bookshops to say hi to the booksellers and to sign stock, doing school events, library events, festivals.
Around publication time I generally set aside a full month to work on the publicity side of things. There is no point spending a year or longer writing and rewriting a book and then just sitting back and letting it find its own way in the market - I like to get out there and do as much as I can to help it on its way.
I know some unpublished writers look forward to the bookshop visits, the interviews, talking to school children or reading their work to adults, but many don’t. After over fifteen years writing and publishing books, I guess I’m just used to it; but publication month never gets any easier – it’s exciting, joyful, stressful and exhausting. But you have to embrace all the publicity and the marketing for what it is – part of every writer’s job. And I’m very, very grateful that people actually want to read my articles, want to interview me, want me to visit their students.
Here’s to many more publication days for us all!
I was at a 40th birthday in London recently and I got talking to the band – lovely Scottish lads called The Holy Ghosts.
They have been working their wee socks off, playing gigs and parties all over the UK and Europe. They’re super, their lead singer has buckets of charisma (and an amazing voice) and I know they’ll make it because a/ they’re determined b/ they’re damn good and c/ they’re putting in the hours.
I told them the story about The Beatles playing in Hamburg that I first read in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book Gladwell explains the 10,000 hours rule – how if you put in the time and work hard, success will follow.
In a nutshell The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time. According to Gladwell the hours and hours that The Beatles spent performing live shaped their talent. He quotes their biographer Philip Norman who said ‘So by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany, they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.’
Gladwell also talks about Bill Gates and how …
I was at a 40th birthday in London recently and I got talking to the band – lovely Scottish lads called The Holy Ghosts.
They have been working their wee socks off, playing gigs and parties all over the UK and Europe. They’re super, their lead singer has buckets of charisma (and an amazing voice) and I know they’ll make it because a/ they’re determined b/ they’re damn good and c/ they’re putting in the hours.
I told them the story about The Beatles playing in Hamburg that I first read in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book Gladwell explains the 10,000 hours rule – how if you put in the time and work hard, success will follow.
In a nutshell The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time. According to Gladwell the hours and hours that The Beatles spent performing live shaped their talent. He quotes their biographer Philip Norman who said ‘So by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany, they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.’
Gladwell also talks about Bill Gates and how at the age of 13 in 1968 he spent over 10,000 hours programming on a high school computer.
Putting in the hours. It’s not very exciting, is it? But it’s so important. I think a lot of people starting to write don’t realise how hard writers work to get published and to stay published. How many hours they put in.
Coming up with an idea is the easy bit. Creating characters, plot . . . not so hard. Writing the first few chapters of a manuscript . . . not so difficult either. Finishing a book and then rewriting it over and over again until it’s as perfect as you can make it, that’s the hard part.
I’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again – you learn how to write by writing. By putting in the hours. At night after work, early in the morning before the kids get up, at weekends, on holidays, when you’re on top of the world, when your heart is breaking – you have to keep at it. You have to put in the hours. It’s as simple or as difficult as that.
All the very best for Christmas and 2013. Try to make some time to write over the holidays. And I’ll try to follow my own advice!
Yours in writing,
Sarah XXX
- Martina Reilly
To plot or not to plot? That is an interesting question. Over the years I have realised that it very much depends on what type of person you are.
If you are a planner – if you pack days before going away, if you know exactly where your passport is before travelling, then you’re a planner and you may need to plan your book.
If you pack the hour before leaving for the airport, if you hate planning anything weeks or months before it happens, than you’d probably think planning would kill your book’s spontaneity. And for you it might do just that.
So if you’re a planner like me – you need to plan. I’ve also interviewed a writer who is not a planner – the wonderful Martina Reilly – so you have both views.
So first, Martina’s answers:
Martina, how much planning do you do before starting a book?
I do no planning at all. I tend to get an idea of what I’d like to explore. In my next book ‘What If’ I had a few things I wanted to write about. The first, a moment where a life is changed forever (a …
- Martina Reilly
To plot or not to plot? That is an interesting question. Over the years I have realised that it very much depends on what type of person you are.
If you are a planner – if you pack days before going away, if you know exactly where your passport is before travelling, then you’re a planner and you may need to plan your book.
If you pack the hour before leaving for the airport, if you hate planning anything weeks or months before it happens, than you’d probably think planning would kill your book’s spontaneity. And for you it might do just that.
So if you’re a planner like me – you need to plan. I’ve also interviewed a writer who is not a planner – the wonderful Martina Reilly – so you have both views.
So first, Martina’s answers:
Martina, how much planning do you do before starting a book?
I do no planning at all. I tend to get an idea of what I’d like to explore. In my next book ‘What If’ I had a few things I wanted to write about. The first, a moment where a life is changed forever (a lot of my books are about such moments, I am unable to get away from that, though in this book it is very obvious what that moment is) and the second thing I wanted to write about was Alzheimers. Having experienced first hand how devastating this disease is, I wanted to write an uplifting story where Lily uses her disease to ask forgiveness from her daughter. But how do you ask for forgiveness when you can barely remember?
That was the challenge and so I just dived straight in and began to write.
Do you do any work on the characters?
None at all. I suppose I see my characters as people I have been introduced to at a party. If I like them, I leave them in the story and get to know them over the course of nine months or so (the length of time it takes me to write a book). These characters begin to grow week by week as I find out things about them. I then go back to the start of the story and flesh them out using everything I’ve learned. Some characters are much easier to know than others. In the next book, there is a prickly character called Deirdre, she was a hard one to get right, but to my mind, she is the best character in the book now.
Any story boarding/plotting?
No! Having said that, diving straight in can be a bit of a disaster sometimes. Maybe about 40,000 words in, I’ll discover that the way I’m telling the story is all wrong. I might need to introduce a better/stronger plot (yikes) or I might feel that the book would be much better if it were told from a first person narrative instead of a third person narrative. I fight against it for a while until I KNOW it’s not working and then I’ll go back and rework. I have found though that it doesn’t really hold me up as I get a renewed interest in making the book right and I fly along. The way I write is quite organic, I suppose. I like to surprise myself with the story so that way I hope the reader is surprised too. If I plotted and planned, I think I’d lose the spontaneity with which I write.
I’m also a very impulsive person, so plotting and planning would drive me mental.
How much editing do you do after the first draft?
Very little. I suppose I edit as I go so most of my books (bar three) have been published with very minor changes.
And now I’ll ask myself the very same questions:
Sarah, how much planning do you do before starting a book?
My Dancing Daze Notebook
Do you do any work on the characters?
Yes. I write down everything I know or am starting to find out about the main characters – what they look like, their birthdays, their dreams, hopes, fears . . .
I give them names – I love naming characters. Once I find the right name for a character they become much easier to visualise and understand.
Any story boarding/plotting?
My Scene By Scene Plot Notes
How much editing do you do after the first draft?
Again, a lot. I usually do around five or six rewrites, often more, depending on the book. Some books require more rewriting than others. Ask Amy Green: Dancing Daze didn’t require too much rewriting; The Shoestring Club, my latest adult book required quite a bit of rewriting. In fact the first draft is very different to the final book. Pretty much everything changed and I think it’s a much better book for all the thought, planning and rewriting.
So there you go, two writers, two very different approaches. Now which type of writer are you? Do you need to plan or are you happier just sitting down and writing? I’d love to know.
Yours in writing,
Sarah XXX
(And a big thank you to Martina for giving me her time)
I’ve been writing this ‘Yours in Writing’ blog for many years now, and I would like to thank all of you for the fantastic feedback and regular comments both here and on Facebook and Twitter. It means a lot to me.
To say thank you, I’d like to address some topics that YOU have asked me to cover. The first – and yes, probably the easiest – is my writing routine. When do I write? How many words? Computer or long hand?
Over the next few weeks I will tackle the other questions I’ve recently been asked – on planning books, getting published for teenagers, what editors are looking for right now and other subjects. If there is something that you would like me to cover, you only have to ask.
So – my writing routine. And thanks to Claire Hennessy for the question, a very experienced writer herself.
Here’s a map of my writing day:
7am Rise (groggily) and get the kids to school.
8.30am Get home and start thinking about what I have to do today.
Potter around the house avoiding work, ‘tidying’, opening mail, checking emails, Twitter and Facebook (terrible I know but best to get it over …
I’ve been writing this ‘Yours in Writing’ blog for many years now, and I would like to thank all of you for the fantastic feedback and regular comments both here and on Facebook and Twitter. It means a lot to me.
To say thank you, I’d like to address some topics that YOU have asked me to cover. The first – and yes, probably the easiest – is my writing routine. When do I write? How many words? Computer or long hand?
Over the next few weeks I will tackle the other questions I’ve recently been asked – on planning books, getting published for teenagers, what editors are looking for right now and other subjects. If there is something that you would like me to cover, you only have to ask.
So – my writing routine. And thanks to Claire Hennessy for the question, a very experienced writer herself.
Here’s a map of my writing day:
7am Rise (groggily) and get the kids to school.
8.30am Get home and start thinking about what I have to do today.
Potter around the house avoiding work, ‘tidying’, opening mail, checking emails, Twitter and Facebook (terrible I know but best to get it over with early I find so I can get on with my morning! Twitter and Facebook are big distractions but also great fun and I dip in and out during the afternoon when I’m doing my emails and admin etc).
9.30 Walk – think about my current book while doing so (or that’s the idea – it doesn’t always work out that way – somametimes I end up chatting to my mum or a friend while walking – which is also nice!).
10.30am Switch off my mobile and take the phone off the hook – my writing computer does not have the internet – which is a Godsend! Sit down at my desk.
Stare into space for a while.
Stare into space some more.
10.45am Start writing.
I write straight onto my computer (I’m a fairly fast and accurate touch typist) but I do also write a lot of early plot notes/character notes in yellow notebooks. Yes, always yellow!
1.00pm Collect my son or if he’s in after school, stay writing until 2pm.
I aim to write about 2,000 words a day – that’s my natural limit. Anything more than that is a bonus but if I don’t reach my target I don’t beat myself up about it. I write as often as I can, every day if possible – that way it’s easier to jump straight back into the story. Otherwise I have to re-read what I’ve been writing and it slows the process down. Sometimes I stop writing in the middle of a sentence or a thought – I find it easier to pick up the thread of the story that way. It’s probaby a bit nuts, but whatever gets you through, right?
In 15 years of writing (10 of those full time) I have always written something when I’ve sat down at my desk. Even if I’m not feeling great or am having a horrible day/week/month I still manage to write a page or two. I have NEVER left my desk without getting something down.
In the afternoon I deal with my emails (I hate email but it’s a necessary evil), answer phone calls, write my blogs (I have two, this one and one on my Amy Green website and also blog for Girls Heart Books), do my event programming and check in with my Facebook and Twitter friends. I also update my website and write any reviews, articles or other bits of writing I’ve been asked to do.
I also used to work three or four evenings a week, but recently I have stopped this. I’m not as productive as I used to be but it gives me more time to spend with my family.
And that, my friends, is my writing day! I am very blessed to be able to write full time and I would like to thank my readers for making it possible.
Yours in writing,
Sarah XXX
This piece first appeared in the Sunday Independent
My latest book for children
When are you going to write a proper book – a book for adults? It’s a question every children’s writer is asked at some stage of their career. I started out writing for children, switched to adults, and now write for both. When the inevitable question was put, I’d explain children are the most discerning audience of all, children’s books are challenging and fun to write, and any author who doesn’t try it at some stage is missing out.
I am only one of a host of authors who write for both children and adults. J K Rowling’s debut adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, a dark comedy about local politics will be published on 27th September, quite a risk for someone with such a successful track record in the children’s book world.
Roald Dahl also wrote for adults and children, as do contemporary award-winners Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman and most recently, Philippa Gregory. The American crime writers like James Patterson are all at it; and ex-SAS man Andy McNabb has produced a popular action/adventure series for younger readers.
My latest book for adults
Under the Hawthorne Tree was an international hit for its creator, Marita Conlon-McKenna, followed by seven further bestsellers for young readers. Her latest book for children, Love Lucie (Simon and Schuster) has just been published and she is currently working on her next adult novel, The Rose Garden. So why did she turn to adult fiction after so much success in the children’s world? “The Magdalen (Marita’s first adult novel, about the laundries for unmarried mothers) was a story I’d always wanted to tell,” she explains. “But because of the harsh subject I couldn’t write it for children or even teenagers. It was very successful and my publishers asked me to write another book for adults.”
“For me,” she continues, “the story decides the age group, not the other way around, I’m driven by story; and my publishers give me great freedom to write what I want. Irish writers don’t seem to get labelled or pigeonholed as much as other writers – they can write plays, musicals, screen plays and it’s very acceptable. In other countries they seem to like their writers to stay in their box. Irish writers are an unknown quantity, no-one knows they will do next.”
Like Marita, Wexford man, Eoin Colfer of Artemis Fowl fame always wanted to be a writer first and foremost, not a ‘children’s writer’. “I have had different stories in my head,” he says, “some suitable for kids, some for adults. I think because I have such an outlandish or maybe juvenile imagination some of my stories are definitely only for children, but recently some of the more complicated stories have been pushing themselves to the front of my brain. I also will admit to feel a little pressure (self-imposed) to write a book for grown-ups.”
Switching from writing for adults to writing for children is more usual and Judi Curtin, author of the popular Alice and Megan series did just that. Her first book Sorry, Walter was for adults but after finishing her second adult novel she wanted to write something that her daughters could read. “It was supposed to be a temporary change,” she says, “but it snowballed.” She has now written thirteen children’s books but is also exploring the adult world again. “There’s a story I’d like to tell which isn’t for children,” she says.
The Giggler Treatment, Roddy’s Doyle’s first book for younger readers was written to entertain his children. “I wrote a few pages towards the end of every working day,” he says, “and read them to them at bedtime, starting at the beginning every night. It gradually became a book.” When asked will he continue to write for children, he says “I’m not sure. My books for children have always been aimed at particular children – and children, I’ve noticed, tend to grow up and stop being children. But if the ideas are there and, more importantly, the urge to put them on paper is there, I’ll still give it a bash.”
John Boyne had never thought about writing for young readers until the idea for The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas came into his head. He says “The experience I had with that book – going into schools, getting children interested in reading – opened up my imagination in a new way and I found that I wanted to write for both audiences.” Like Roddy, he will continue to write for both audiences. “In fact I’ve just delivered a draft of my next adult novel to my editor. I’ll be rewriting that over the next six months or so but I’ve just started a draft of a new children’s book too.”
Master of children’s horror, Darren Shan also started out writing for adults. His first adult book, Procession of the Dead was published in 1999, a year before Cirque Du Freak (his first children’s book). “I had written a lot of first-draft books by that stage,” he says, “all of which were aimed at adults. I thought that was where my career lay, but I’d always wanted to try a children’s book. One day I had the idea for Cirque Du Freak and by the time I had finished the first draft, I had already decided to write another book for children.”
Darren now writes for both children and adults. “I’ve learnt so much about pacing and editing while working on my children’s books, which has fed back into the books I write for adults. I love the dichotomy of moving between the two worlds (adult’s and children’s publishing),” he adds, “and I would love to be able to continue doing that far into the future.”
When asked which adult writer he’d like to see writing for children, Darren immediately says “Kurt Vonnegut – he could have been a great children’s author if he had been that way inclined.” Roddy Doyle’s choice is Anne Enright. “Any book for children by Anne would be magical.” Marita Conlon McKenna suggests Marian Keyes, and John Boyne would love to see David Mitchell tackle children’s literature. “Knowing his extraordinary imagination and linguistic abilities, I think (it) would be something very special,” he says.
And finally Eoin Colfer nominates Colm Toibin. “I would love him to be forced to call me and ask for advice on pacing,” he says, “so I could churlishly hang up. It’s the auld Wexford-Enniscorthy rivalry!”
Will Eoin ever get his chance? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Sarah Webb has two books out this month, Ask Amy Green: Dancing Daze for young teens (Walker Books) and The Shoestring Club for adults (Pan Macmillan).
Apologies for the lack of recent blogs, I was helping to run the Mountains to Sea Book Festival and taking some much needed time off. I wrote the following blog in August, before I sent my new proposal to my agent. More on this at the end.
For weeks now I’ve been worrying about a book proposal. Is it good enough? Will my agent like it? Will my publishers like it?
I’ve published 23 books now and it never gets any easier. The doubts are still very much there for every single book or proposal.
I worked hard on the proposal, on getting every detail right – the series title (it’s a new series for girls of 9+), the title of each book, the girls’ names (there are 4 main characters), the plots for each of the first 3 books, the setting; especially the setting. I started reading widely on the subjects covered in the plots and added details to my proposal.
I wrote some of the first book, then rewrote it many times until I was happy with it. Only then did I send it to my agent. She read it and gave some suggestions. I took those on board and rewrote the whole proposal again. Finally it was ready to be sent to my editors and so began the waiting game.
What happens next? My editors – if they like it – take it to an acquisitions meeting where the sales and marketing team get their say. If they all like it, and they think it will sell, then you have a book contract.
My most recent Ask Amy Green book - out now!
I visited my publishers, Walker Books in London to hear the news and I waited anxiously for their verdict. I didn’t have to wait long. As soon as I walked into the reception area (where some of my other Ask Amy Green books were twinkling at me from the book shelves), one of my editors said ‘Everyone loved your proposal’. I was so relieved! I thought my proposal was good, my agent thought it was marvellous but you never can tell . . .
But nerves are good. In fact they are important to writers. It’s what keeps us on our toes, makes us try our very hardest to produce something excellent. Nerves are like the adrenaline before a race, keeping us alive.
As writers we wear our hearts on our sleeves, outside our bodies. We are largely a highly emotional bunch and like actors, we crave an audience for our work – we need readers. We want people to say ‘We love your books’.
But we also need to have confidence in what we are doing. So once we get that initial ‘You’re on the right track’ nod, we need to take that affirmation on board and then get back to work. We need to put all those fears and doubts aside and write as if nothing else mattered.
Because if we let our writing worries consume us, we clip our own wings.
So once you get that initial nod – from your editor, or if you are not yet published, from a trusted friend – put all your worries behind you and fly. The only way to live a writing life is in the air and not stumbling along the ground.
Sneak peek at the Irish cover of The Memory Box (2013)
I’m all set to take my own advice. After proof reading The Memory Box, my next book for adults which will be out in early 2013, I’ll be writing the first book in the new series. The series is called The Wishing Girls. More about that soon.
Yours in writing,
Sarah XXX
Here is a fantastic blog from my talented writer friend, Claire Hennessy. I like it so much that I’m reposting it. Do check out Claire’s great website and blog here.
How To Contact a Writer by Claire Hennessy
Recently Sarah Dessen talked about getting an obnoxious email from someone when she didn’t reply to someone to help with a book report. It didn’t surprise me. Sarah Dessen obviously gets bucketloads more fan mail than, well, most of us, but this happens. It does.
Recently I had a conversation with another writer about getting sent manuscripts to read (‘tell me if it’s any good!’) from people out of the blue, and how to deal with that. This happens too. And it’s tricky in all sorts of ways.
I think there’s a lot fuzziness out there in the world about what is okay, and what is not okay, to contact an author about. And the ease of communication – social media as well as email – means it’s so much easier to get in touch, and easier to have a sense that you’re owed a response. (‘She RTed me that time! Why has she not read my manuscript and sent it to her publisher yet?!’)
I have… not necessarily the definitive guide, because every writer is different, but some things for people to consider, based a little on my own experience but also on paying attention to what many others have said about correspondence with readers.
•Some writers respond to fan mail (and by this I mean communications that are just appreciative, rather than asking for something); some don’t. Of those that respond, some will do personal responses and some will do a generic reply. Whatever they do… it’s their choice. There is no ‘rule’ that says authors must reply to all fan mail personally. I have never heard or seen any writer declare that they hated getting fan mail (or that they didn’t read and appreciate it very much) – it is almost always about time. Personal responses take time, and time is something almost everyone is short of. Neil Gaiman once spoke about how he’d become someone who ‘answered emails professionally, and wrote on the side’ – I think most people would prefer authors keep writing books.
•Fan mail tends not to be treated in a time-sensitive manner. If an author gets an email from their editor or agent with a big long list of things that need to be sorted out about their work-in-progress in the next fortnight, and one from Little Suzie wanting to know if they have any tips for her… well. (Snail mail also tends to go via a publisher, which means it can take longer to actually arrive in the author’s hands than you might expect.) Even if you do hope for a response, it is unlikely to be as super-speedy as you’d like.
•If you have a question to ask a writer – whether it’s about their books or their writing career or you’re looking for advice – do your research first. Go to their website, do a Google search, find out as much as you can that way. (There is a reason many authors’ websites have things like Frequently Asked Questions or sections on writing advice – these are things that come up over and over again.) An awful lot of people don’t bother doing this, and it’s one of the reasons why many writers do auto-responses.
•Find out what the author’s policy is on communication – some may note that it takes them X amount of time to get back, or say that it’s better to get them on Twitter, or Tumblr, or something like that. Everyone does things slightly differently.
•It is never an author’s job to do your homework for you. If your teacher has said you need to get a response from a writer (whether this is a book report, an assignment on ‘becoming a writer’, etc), he/she is in the wrong. It is never anyone else’s job to do your homework for you. It is not the job of an author you’ve never met to make him or herself available for your often time-sensitive questions. (Laurie Halse Anderson has a policy on her website; Holly Lisle has a slightly snarkier page about it.) I suspect that teachers who assign things like this feel it shows students will go the extra mile if they get a response from an author – but the focus should be on what the student is doing, not how/when/what the author responds.
•Even if you’re, say, Facebook ‘friends’ with an author, it’s better to err on the side of formality/professionalism when sending a message or email – avoid acronyms and internet shorthand and all that jazz. (If there’s ongoing correspondence, take your cue from them – some writers can OMG and !!! with the best of ‘em. Others will genuinely see your ‘by d way i tink ur awesome!!!’ as indicative of a lack of respect or clued-in-ness, because the level of written-word casualness that exists online is a relatively new phenomenon and is still best avoided in most messages that are not to someone you know well.)
•Do not send email attachments – some email servers will block these immediately. If you have something that can’t be placed in the body of a text – like fan art – upload it somewhere else and include a link, or ask if you can send it on.
•Do not send writers your manuscript (of a story, of a novel, of your poetry collection, whatever). More on that here. There are of course exceptions to this rule – some authors will run competitions on their blogs and invite submissions, and if you’ve been corresponding with someone for a while the rules can shift because this isn’t an initial-email-to-someone-in-their-professional-capacity situation anymore.
•If you’re asking an author for advice on something personal – like maybe it’s something they’ve written about in their books – just be careful, okay? Protect yourself a little bit, just in case they are among the writers who don’t reply or maybe take ages – it doesn’t mean they don’t care or that there isn’t anyone else out there you can talk to. (Some writers love giving advice; others are very wary of it. I can see both sides of this one – it is a really, really tricky area.)
•A lot of this applies across the board. If you’re asking someone you don’t know or barely-know for a favour, there’s a really good chance that they’ll say no. You increase the chances by being kind and respectful and understanding and doing your research, but they still might say no or not reply or not reply quickly. It’s almost certainly because they’re busy doing other things, work things or life things, and not because they’re selfish terrible awful people who must go on your List Of Mortal Enemies.
(This blog first appeared on Claire’s website)
