This week we are profiling @ShirleyJump author of Writing Compelling Fiction. Shirley is an award-winning, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and USA Today bestselling author who has published more than 80 books in 24 countries that have sold more than 8 million copies. LUV: You have segued from writing romance novels to teaching about writing, offering nonfiction books, workshops at conferences, and via your YouTube channel. Can you tell us about both the journey and what you offer? Is it only for aspiring writers or do you cover how to step up a writer’s career? Shirley: When I first started writing, there weren’t a whole lot of resources to teach me how to write a novel. I wrote 10 books in 8 years that were rejected EVERYWHERE. I literally had a banker’s box full of rejections with vague reasons like “the characters didn’t come alive for me.” Over my years of working with authors, I realized that they were struggling with many of the same things I had, but that a lot of the information out there was either conflicting, confusing, or worse, taught by people who had no real publishing experience. I often liken the writing journey to playing basketball. If you want to get to the NBA, you need to take lessons from a pro, not the guy down the street with a hoop in his driveway. I’ve succeeded, I’ve failed, and I’ve learned a lot through that process, which is what I try to bring to the table with everything I do. I’ve published more than 85 books in 24 countries and sold over 8 million copies—but it wasn’t an easy path to go from “characters who don’t come alive” to characters that readers love. The first video you see on my channel talks about how I once quit writing, and how difficult my road was because I had no real support to encourage me when things got tough. Because of that, I intentionally created a channel that would speak to writers like me. The Write Better Fiction with Shirley Jump YouTube channel is all about delivering how-to information in an easy-to-understand way, with short, quick videos so that you can get back to what you love to do—write. My goal is to provide all the tools I wish I had when I started out, so I can save other people those 8 years I spent trying to figure it out. I have a ton of beginner videos, but also a number of intermediate-level writing craft videos full of Pro Tips, to help those who have been at it for a while and want to go deeper with their books. The channel is very much a mirror for my career. I started out in category romance, moved into young adult, women’s fiction, and now romantic suspense. As I wrote bigger books, I wanted to write deeper, richer stories, and had to learn how to take each novel to that next level. Now I’m teaching others to do that, too, so that there are more great books for us all to read!

Posted by LUV Team at 2024-10-14 19:00:22 UTC