7 Days With Shirley Jump, Advice for Anyone Who Wants to Write a Novel

Today's the last day of November, of NaNo, and of our 7-day interview with New York Times Bestselling novelist Shirley Jump. She's shared with us her personal techniques and experiences as a writing mother, and even where she gets her ideas!

In December, we can move forward stronger, more determined... certainly less deterred from our goals by the holiday busy-ness ahead of us.

7. What’s your best advice to someone who wants to write a novel?

There are only three ingredients to help you go from wanting to write a novel to becoming a published author: Read. Write. Persevere. You HAVE to read extensively. Absolutely, hands-down, have to read, read, read. Read everything you can get your hands on, not only in your targeted genre, but in other genres. You have to develop a natural inner ear for the rhythm of story construction, for the beauty of language, for the depth of emotion in scenes, etc. You also have to know what your competition is and be able to recognize their strengths, then apply those lessons to your own work. Then you have to write. Write and write and write and write some more. There is no substitute for sitting down at the keyboard and writing. You can read about how to write, you can go to classes that will teach you how to write, but nothing teaches you how to write like WRITING. Then sit back and look at your work objectively, compared to what you read. Learn from those who are better than you. Finally, persevere. 99% of getting from unpublished to published is simply hanging on past the rejections. This is a competitive, crowded industry. You need to want it badly enough to keep on writing. Oh, one more thing, affiliate yourself with other writers. No one speaks the language of writing like other writers. That will help you through the good times and the bad times and help you decipher the language of rejection and revision letters, and know where to go and how to get there!

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Thank you Shirley, for spending 7 days with us here!

Note: Really Something is available now for preorder and Miracle on Christmas Eve is in stores now. (I found it at the grocery store the other day and picked up my copy. I can't wait to settle in this weekend for a good read.)

7 Days With Shirley Jump, Old Manuscripts Never Die

One of my prettiest friends recommended this author-interview series on a writer's forum yesterday saying, "Shirley makes writing seem so...possible."

I heartily concur. I first "met" Shirley in 2004 after one of my frequent trips to the public library. Every few weeks I would pile an enormous stack of books on the counter with titles like, How to Write a Damn Good Novel, How to Write Fillers and Short Features that Sell, Writing the Breakout Novel, The Joy of Cooking (how did that one get in there?), and Amelia Bedelia Helps Out. All the librarians must have known my secret: I was a writing mother. I would search their faces as they beeped my books through week after week, but there was no sign of either disapproval or discouragment. Thus encouraged (it didn't take much), my rampant checking-out-of books continued.

But it wasn't until I slid How to Publish your Articles from the top of the stack at home and started reading through it that I shouted "Eureka!" (Which, as I learned from Amelia Bedelia, Rocket Scientist, means "I found it!") Quickly, I secured my first-ever writing assignment (college English class notwithstanding)for a local magazine. Soon after that, I Googled Shirley so I could somehow thank her, found her JustWriteIt group, and from there I became Shirley's biggest stalker - I mean fan, her biggest fan. :) I'll admit I was a little bit disappointed to find out she had moved on to fiction, but I hung around at JustWriteIt anyway, to pick up whatever crumbs I could.

And yeah, it got to me. I started a novel. Which brings me to today's question:

6a. Where do you get your ideas? (Just kidding!)

LOL. Ideas are everywhere though, honestly. I wrote about it here if you want the whole long spiel: http://www.novelspot.net/node/1983

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See? Shirley's so nice she even answers the cliched questions. And now for the real question - What am I going to do with 85,000 words of crap if they turn out to be crap? Or, to put it another way:

6b. I’ve always wondered about something: You wrote 10 books in 8 years before you had a ‘yes’ from a publisher. What happened to those 10 books? Were you ever able to resurrect characters or scenes from those?

I sold one of them (the 8th out of 10) and that was THE VIRGIN'S PROPOSAL, my very first book. I used seven pages out of the second one to become THE BRIDE WORE CHOCOLATE and reused just characters for THE DADDY'S PROMISE. I don't think I even used a word of the original draft of that book. Everything else was truly hideous. :-) Most of it was so old, too, that it's on those really old, really big floppy disks, too, those kind that went in pre-Windows computers, LOL. What were they, 5 1/4" or something? I don't even know if I could recover them, if I even wanted to. I have a couple of them on my hard drive but they are truly that bad that I'd never do anything with them.

They were practice. A mini college education. :-)

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Tomorrow is our last day. Shirley gives advice to aspiring writers.

4 Days and she's still here! Shirley Jump, NYT Bestselling Author

Yesterday's post was a nice diversion, taking a peek at two of Shirley Jump's latest novels and easing back into the work mode. But today we're fully back into how to get more writing done when you're a Mama.

I’ve heard Shirley rave about her Alphasmart Neo on the JustWriteIt Yahoo Group. She says she takes it everywhere with her. (It’s lightweight and indestructible because it was made for kids.) Other writers use similar tools (including – gasp – pen and paper) to write, write, write – everywhere.

That sounds great, but I’ve always wondered if writing in bits of time like that would work for me. Of course, I haven’t had the opportunity to try it, because at the pediatrician’s office, I flip through magazines as my dd keeps up conversation (if “I Spy” and “Hey MOM, look at me!” count as conversation). But I hear that one of these days I won’t be so cool, and I’ll likely find myself with a lot of quiet time to write. Which brings me to the next question:

4. When you write *in the car or at the doctor’s office or soccer practice, is it difficult to tie what you’ve written in with what you already have on the hard drive at home?

Not really, because the book is almost always "cooking" in the back of my head. If I know I'm going to have those few minutes coming up, I let the book percolate while I'm heading over to the doctor's office or wherever. That way, when I get there, I know what scene I am going to write, and I can dive right in for those 20 minutes. Do I get blocked? Sometimes, yes. But I force myself to write anyway. I'll do something like have the character open a door or a box or find a picture and see what unfolds from there. Most of my books have a "secrets" theme and when characters find something, there's always a secret unearthed.
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*I should note that when I asked this, I was thinking that she must sometimes wait in the car for her kids, and not, as one might think from the way I worded the question, that Shirley zooms down the freeway with one hand typing furiously on her Alphasmart. I'm sure even the busiest authors would advise against that! LOL!

"On the 3rd Day with Shirley, Ms. Jump said to me..."

(Sing it with me now!)

I'm in a holiday mood. ;-) We just need to kind of ease back into the work-week after all that Turkey and bargain-hunting. (I promise we'll get back to work in a minute.) Until then, I thought you would appreciate a peek at Shirley's latest, A Miracle on Christmas Eve. Just look at that picture! Perfect for sitting by the fire I mentioned yesterday and reading - after the kids are in bed.

I wanted to make the photo clickable, but then I realized I don't know how to do that. So here it is, less snazzy but still effective: Miracle on Christmas Eve (And for our Canadian Writing Mothers: Miracle on Christmas Eve)

And here's a review that confirms you'll get that warm and fuzzy feeling that is just so appropriate for the holidays. :)

If you're in a different mood, there's Shirley's upcoming book. I've read somewhere (I'm sure of it) that Shirley writes "romantic comedies with heart." This one is more like a romantic comedy with heat! :D



I'll have that picture up every day this week. Not just because he's cute, but also because Really Something goes on sale December 4th. (What a great stocking stuffer for your BFF!) It's available for preorder now. (And, oh Canada...)

Romantic Times gave it 4 1/2 stars (out of 4 1/2). Here's a snippet of their review: “With Jump’s trademark comedic touch, readers are treated to a well-crafted story about what it means to come home to face yourself and your past.”

The story has a great premise. Allie Dean comes back to her hometown of Tempest, Indiana, 170 pounds lighter and determined to "exact the sweet revenge that comes with looking seriously hot." I don't want to mess it up, so I better let you read an excerpt.

3. You’ve said this book is a departure from your usual work. How is it different and what prompted the change?

After my mother died, I found myself naturally delving deeper emotionally for all of my books. I don't think you can go through such a major life upheaval without it affecting you in a huge way, especially in a creative field. When I started writing Really Something, I found myself starting with a funny premise--a woman returning to the town that scorned her, seeking revenge and a hero who is a weatherman predicting the weather with a Magic-8 ball, but when I started to dig deep into these characters, I knew they had big reasons for doing what they did. Duncan, the hero, has been protecting his little sister all his life, first from an abusive father, now from herself, and is desperate to hold onto his job, hence the Magic-8 ball. Allie, the heroine, was teased mercilessly as a child because she was overweight. She felt invisible (the working title of the book had been Miss Invisible) and now the revenge she is seeking is against all those people who tortured her. But she doesn't realize that she is the one who isn't seeing her true self, and that the pain she is feeling is because she has yet to get in touch with what made her put up those emotional walls in the first place.

It was a hard book to write, because there was a lot of emotion in it, and a lot to deal with for all the characters. But it was also fun, because I had some really fabulous secondary characters who were larger than life and who maintained that comedic element that my readers are always looking for.

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Day 2 With Bestselling Author Shirley Jump!

At some point, a lot of us realize that being a mom isn't about sipping cocoa by the fire and watching the kids peacefully playing together. And by the time you’ve extinguished Johnny’s hair and removed cocoa stains from the carpet, the job of finishing even ONE novel seems pretty enormous.

Bestselling author and mom of two, Shirley Jump, has written and sold 29 books. I know I can’t be the only one who wonders...

2. How are you able to write so much with kids and a husband who has his own business???? Do you have a maid, a nanny, and a personal chef? An assistant who handles all of your accounting? A ghostwriter?

Oh, how I wish I had ANY of the above! I have no ghostwriter, no nanny, no personal chef, no assistant. Once in a while I hire someone to help with major mail drives, but that's about it. I do have a cleaning service that comes in twice a month and does the big stuff in the house, but otherwise, it's just me. I keep saying I'll get an assistant, but honestly, I don't like having anyone underfoot. When I worked 70+ hours a week at home (just before I sold my first book and I was doing a LOT of freelancing), I had a maid three times a week for about six months and hated it because she was HERE. She didn't bother me, but she was HERE. It drove me nuts.

I write fast. I type at some ungodly speed, and can write a lot of words in a short period of time. Then I'm spent, and just kind of play for the rest of the day, answering e-mail, sending out mail, doing marketing stuff, business stuff (that means all the accounting (UGH) falls to me, too, except the corporate filing; that a pro does) and any other miscellaneous business things. I write between 5 and 20 pages a day, depending on whether it's a good day or a bad day :-).

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I like how she says she just kind of “plays” by doing accounting and marketing stuff. I never thought of those as recreational pursuits! (Answering emails, yeah - that can be fun. As long as they aren’t about accounting or marketing!)

Now before I run off to sign up for a class to improve my typing speed, I want to leave you with an extra-credit reading assignment. ;-) Here's another great interview where Shirley answers this question. (I imagine she gets it a lot!)

Have fun! Tomorrow we’ll ask her to tell us more about how she squeezes in writing time.

7 Days With Shirley Jump

She's a Mama with 29 book contracts and counting! New York Times Bestselling author Shirley Jump knows what it takes to have a successful writing career alongside a family.

Like many of us, Shirley juggles her writing career with marriage, kids, and assorted pets. She says she finds time to write by feeding her kids junk food, allowing them to dress in the clothes they find on the floor and encouraging the dogs to double as vacuum cleaners. But don't let her fool you - this is one busy writing mama!

A former journalist and freelance writer with over 3000 articles to her name, Shirley now writes romantic comedies for Harlequin and Kensington. Besides writing novels, she keeps a blog, is generous with author interviews, and she runs a Yahoo group called JustWriteIt for aspiring novelists.

So how does she really do it all? I decided to prevail upon her generosity and just ask! Over the next 7 days, we'll find out what it takes to make it as a writing mother, get insights into the writing process, and find out what keeps this bestseller selling.

Shirley is famous for meeting ridiculously short deadlines, so in honor of National Novel Writing Month, I asked her to share her secret with us:

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1. You write books so quickly, it seems like every month is NaNo for you. What’s your process? How do you do it?

Well, not every book goes fast! I have some that can take months, because they're stubborn, others that just seem to stream out of me in one constant thought process. My approach, though, is the same no matter what -- I start with a what-if proposition, and then start trying to figure out WHY the characters are in that position. I never know the end until I get there. I might think I do, but I really don't. I write fast, partly because I want to know the ending as badly as anybody else, and I'm trying to turn those pages and see how everyone turns out.

I write every day, and I think about the books a lot while I'm doing mindless activities like washing dishes or taking a shower. When I'm in the car alone, I'll talk the plot out aloud and figure out the problems that I'm having with the book. I also meet weekly with another writer, and we review each other's chapters and hash out any other issues we might be having. That camaraderie really helps keep me from feeling like I live in a cave :-). The biggest key, though, really is just to show up at the computer every single day.

When I don't feel like writing (and trust me, I have those days like everyone else), I get out of my office and go someplace public, like a coffee shop, and write there. I feel compelled to write, because people are there, and if I'm playing FreeCell, they'll think I'm a slacker, LOL. So I work like a bear and have a lot of espresso. I can get several thousand words written in a couple hours in a coffee shop, all for the price of a couple mochas ;-).

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Thanks Shirley! Tomorrow I want to find out how you keep up with the family side of life! :)