I remember wanting to write when I was young and taking creative writing courses, but not really knowing how to go about the whole novel thing. Joining the provincial writing guild and getting into a critiquing group got me on the right track. Most of my first novel was written on yellow stickies—yes, you read right—those little post-it notes. I’d jot down ideas when sitting at red lights, and when I couldn’t sleep. The problem with writing the notes in the dark was that I often couldn’t read my scribbles in the morning or I’d find I’d written one note on top of another and that was impossible to decipher.
By the time I got to my second book I was a little more organized and used a rough outline. Even now that I’ve written and published seven books, I find that I’m still jotting down ideas on yellow stickies.
If asked to give advice to beginning writers, I would say:
Don’t give up and do get yourself into a critiquing group. You need other sets of eyes and other perspectives that will be impartial. You can’t evaluate your own work objectively—you’re too close to it. Also, you know what you are thinking, but that doesn’t always come across clearly on the page. You need to know how a reader will see it.
What has been the biggest challenge of my career? Marketing! It’s almost more work than writing the book—time consuming and no magic answers to get people’s attention.