Lisa Writing Wild

Being a writer of young adult books, I read a ton of YA novels. I also like to read a lot of YA non-fiction to keep up on what goes on with teenagers today. I was lucky enough to find Cheryl Diamond's Model, A Memoir at my library. I read it in two days and bought the book when I was finished so I could read it again. I can't tell you enough how much I loved this book. Cheryl moved to NYC at sixteen, lived on her own and worked her butt off to break into the world of modeling. She is beautiful, strong, determined, funny and someone you'll want to hang out with. Cheryl takes you with her on auditions, jobs and everything in between. Your heart will race toward the end when she recounts a particularly horrible experience, and you'll feel like you're witnessing it right alongside her. Cheryl was gracious enough to take some time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions. 1) What was the hardest part about writing this book? The easiest? The har...

So far this year I've read thirty-four books, almost all YA. I come across new authors in so many ways. Through Facebook I've become friends with tons of YA authors, I've gotten great recommendations on blogs, and sometimes I just stumble upon them like I did Jessica Brody . I was Googling Save the Cat! working for novels and found a terrific interview with Jessica Brody.  I ended up getting her book that same day and fell in love with it. I can't wait to read her others. Once I find an author I like, I check out their website to see what I can learn about them. Like a lot of writers, I'm interested in how they work, what they struggle with and, basically, anything else they have to say about writing. I was thinking today about questions I'd ask authors if I had the chance. I wrote them down and emailed them to two of my favorites: Jessica Brody and Kody Keplinger . They both got right back to me and agreed to answer them. Yay! The more I continue to read...

I'm sitting here watching UP with my son, and it came to the part where the old guy was looking through his old photo album of pictures of  him and his late wife. At the end of the album she had written, "We've enjoyed our adventure. Now go make another one." (I'm totally paraphrasing here. It's the only part of the movie I've seen). It got me to thinking about life and how short it really is. If you sit back and let it go by without doing much to enjoy (or improve) it, it's your loss. You're not going to get another life. This is it. I can't count the amount of time the words, "Some day I want to..." come out of my mouth. It's usually followed by something like, learn to knit, cook, be more patient, get up early etc. If I don't do one (or any) of these things now, they may never get done. I don't know where I'm getting the determination to plow through the first draft of my new novel, but I'm not going to...

I am in a much happier mood when I am writing consistantly. Last week I reached 10k on my WIP.  That was nothing short of a miracle for me. Even when my husband kept me up most of the night with his coughing from being sick, the next day he commented on what a great mood I was in considering my lack of sleep. Ear plugs! I've been using ear plugs for the past few months to help me sleep better. They're fantastic and I actually sleep deeply now (thanks to a low dose of melatonin, too). But the other day my husband was nice enough to take our four year old into the "movie theater" (basement) as my son calls it and play Guitar Hero with him. For some reason I like to sit at our dining room table to write, instead of my office two floors up. But the dining room is right above the movie theater. So I popped in my ear plugs and pumped our over four thousand words yesterday. When I have complete and utter silence, I crank it out. Outlines are my friend. I don't do ext...

A year ago I was struggling to figure out what it was I wanted to write. I had worked on various genres of screenplays previously, and had a half-finished adult novel sitting in a drawer. One day I saw Taylor Swift on Oprah. I had never seen her speak (I'd only seen pictures of her) or heard her music before. There was something about her that made me want to hang out with her. She seemed like a nice girl, and like she'd make a fun girlfriend. It got me to thinking about being a teenager, and I started re-reading some of my old Judy Blume books, like Forever. After that I picked up Ellen Hopkins' Crank and Glass and basically never looked back. I admit since I'm so bad at sticking with things, I was very afraid of throwing myself into the YA world, only to change my mind a few weeks or months later. But it's been over a year now and I'm just as in love with YA now as I was back then. To narrow it down even more, I've learned that I love writing teen ...

I heard the Eagles the other day on the radio, and it brought me back to over thirty years ago when I was a kid. Certain songs evoke certain emotions. The Eagles make me feel calm. Bruce Springsteen reminds me of being in my bedroom in the eighties, with my Boss poster (the one of his butt) hanging above my bed. There's a Guns N' Roses songs I still can't listen to because it reminds me of a boyfriend from long ago and still makes me sad.  Same for Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel. My mom listened to that over and over when my dad was in Vietnam when I was little. Too sad for me now. My parents constantly had the radio on when I was little, which is probably why I'm the same way now. We almost always have music playing in the house and in the car. I remember being seven years old and calling up 92.5 WBBF and requesting "We don't need no education..." by singing it to the dj. We've gotten Joey into all types of music: classic ro...