Spotlight On...Model & Author Cheryl Diamond

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 hardest part was the fact that I had absolutely no experience writing books when I decided to write Model at seventeen. The first chapter took me about six months to be satisfied with since I was learning as I went. I'm actually glad that I never took a writing course, I don't follow a lot of the accepted 'writing rules' that I heard about later. An agent told me that I should never begin a sentence with a gerund. After looking up what 'gerund' meant I promptly ignored this advice.

The easiest part was that being a model in New York provided me with a wealth of anecdotes and material. People in the fashion industry are nuts. Bless them.

2) What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel (or writing in general)?

The focus and time required. It took me three years to write my book, during which time I gave up on any semblance of a real social life, or time off. It's a very solitary process. Also, the whole time I had no guarantee that it would actually sell, which leads to a lot of examining your life choices at 2AM.

3) What do you do when you’re in the middle of a book and you’re sick of it? How do you keep from stopping to work on your new shiny idea?

I just think about all the people who were sure a model could never write a book by herself and then I feel instantly energized and full of righteous indignation. Also, it would be more work to start a whole new book than to knuckle under and finish the first.

4) What are your current writing projects?

I'm working on a novel about the modeling industry and also considering writing for magazines.


5) What are you most proud of accomplishing so far in your life?

Surviving New York. (Look a gerund!)


6) What is your favorite quality about yourself? Your least favorite?

My favorite is my absolute determination, once I decide to do something I will find a way to make it happen. My least favorite is actually quite similar, I push myself way too hard. It's no joke. I have made myself sick by ignoring exhaustion and anything else in the way. It may be a side effect of my upbringing and having been in seriously competitive sports. Or possibly just becasue I'm a Leo.

7) Favorite TV show?

The Office.

8) Who is your favorite author and why?

I like P.J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores, because he speaks the truth without being depressed by it. We're only going to live for a finite number of years, so we might as well be able to laugh about life.

9) What’s the last book you read?

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. I actually re-read it, it's another of my favorites. He's such an operator.

10) What is your favorite/most helpful book on writing?

I never read any books on writing. Is that arrogant? Or confident? It's a fine line:)

11) Do you have a Facebook or web page for fans?

Yes I do, I'm thoroughly modern! www.facebook.com/cheryldiamondbooks or my
website: http://www.cherylmodel.com/



Thank you, Cheryl!

Buy the book!

Check out Cheryl on Good Morning America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNq-awOViYs

Something New is a Brewin'

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, the more questions I want to come up with to ask my favorite authors. I can't wait to read their responses.

One Life. Go Live It.

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 question it. I've never finished anything other than a short film before (though I have about half a million story ideas I've started and haven't finished). The fact that I'm moving ahead so quickly is what's keeping me confident that I'll finish it.

My biggest fear (besides losing the ones I love) is being on my deathbed and being regretful. That terrifies me. I don't think there's anything sadder than thinking, "I wish I'd done this, or spent more time with so and so."

My mom died when she was only fifty. She said there were a lot of things she didn't get to do. That broke my heart. We all know life can end much, much sooner than we plan on. You can die at 102 while going for your daily walk, or you can get hit by a driver who's not paying attention, while you sing songs with your baby in the backseat. We just don't know.

So I'm going to do it. I'm going to learn to knit. I'm going to try my hardest to learn to cook (if you've eaten my cooking before you'll know why I say try my hardest) . I'm going to work on getting up earlier so I can write then, and spend more quality time with my son during the day (without my head in the clouds, writing in my head). I'm going to make a list of things I want to accomplish and start working my way through it.

What are you going to do?

Things I've Learned About My Writing Self

• 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 extremely detailed ones, but I filled out ten scene cards so I have an idea of where I'm going. I'm not at all strict about sticking to the cards, but it gives me a little boost in the right direction. And if  anything changes as I write, well, I wrote the scene cards in pencil for a reason:)

• My fourth and final thing I've learned over the last week is to power through my story. I've always been the writer who goes over and over a sentence trying to make it perfect. I could have an hour to myself to write and I'd only get one paragraph done. It was a perfect paragraph, but still... . With my new wip I've been writing without going back over what I've written. This also means I don't want any feedback on it until I finish my first draft and go through at least one rewrite. I know it's mostly crap right now, but it's the really good kind of crap that has an actual plot! 

What Inspired You to Write Your Genre?

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 comedy stories. I have a bunch of fleshed out ideas for more serious stuff, but it always ends up depressing me. I can't write something for months on end and be depressed all the time. I love having a mc right now who actually makes me laugh out loud.

What (if anything) inspired  you to write in the genre you write in?

Music That Brings You Back

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 rock, hip-hop, Top 40, heavy metal, country, etc. He loves it all and will dance to anything. I hope when he gets older and hears a song he heard when he was a kid, he'll remember the fun we had dancing around the house or singing in the car at the top of our lungs.

I'm still making memories with music now with Joey. Whenever I hear Katy Perry, I think of him. Right now she's his favorite. Even if he does call her "that guy that sings with Elmo."