What Beginning Writers Can Learn From Stephanie Meyer

Ah, Stephanie Meyer and her world of sparkly vampires.  Many people will be gagging as they read this title, some will be affronted by the mere mention of her name in relation to literature.  Today, I am not discussing anything regarding the merits or mistakes in her books.  For those of you who found sparkly vampires insipid and irritating, I recommend checking out her book The Host, instead.  The Host is more evolved in terms of character development and psychology.

Today, the reason I am bothering to step into the maelstrom is to share her down-to-earth representation of how Twilight originated.  She is amazingly humble and in this video interview a number of things stood out.  As a "beginning" writer of sorts, I find it very inspiring to see the similarities between her published books and my own writing process. It is a short video, so I'm going to expound on what I derived from the video.  It is really interesting to note that when she wrote the book, she had absolutely no intentions of ever sharing it with the world.

Here's a few things from the video that I found interesting and/or helpful:

1)  Write down your dreams.  Whenever I have vivid dreams, I always try to find time to write them down.

2)  Be curious.  Ask the next questions, "what if my character had an abusive childhood?", or "what makes this character unique?"

3)  Take away the pressure of performance if you can, just engage your curiosity so you can complete a story

4)  Be excited about finishing a story, it's an awesome feeling, even if you know you need to redo half of it

5)  Don't be afraid to ePublish or submit your manuscript.  You might get rejected, but it's better than never trying.

6)  Don't worry about audience too much, your audience will make itself known

7)  Try to find a support group, whether it is friends, family or solely online

8)  Ignore the haters (not mentioned in the video but definitely applicable).  If your goal is to sell copies of your book and you accomplish that goal, ignore harsh criticisms and let yourself enjoy your success

In addition to these things, I would say not to give up.  If writing is something you really like to do, you will do it even if you are not a well-known writer.  Hopefully, you will enjoy a measure of success if that is your goal, but a writer will write no matter what.  It brings joy, and in my case I feel it helps me keep my sanity.  Never underestimate something as simple as a dream or nightmare, you never know when a full-blown story may pop up.   The timing on finding this interview is very interesting to me; this past week I was inundated by extremely vivid dreams which had absolutely nothing to do with anything I read or watched. It was very encouraging to hear that Stephanie Meyer's successful Twilight series was born under similar circumstances.

So, take heart writers! You do not have to be a literary guru, you just have to tell a story that other people want to read.  Pick up that pencil and keep writing! :)

That is all for today!

-Ninjawriter