questions

Literary Dates

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 6 Comments

Valentine’s Day is on Monday, but for those celebrating, love will be in the air this weekend. (Mondays will never be romantic, no matter what holiday happens to fall on them.) So I thought I’d lead you all into your  weekends – whether full of flowers & candy or spent with a box of white wine & Jagged Little Pill – with a literary fantasy:

What would be your ideal date with any literary character?

Concert and mix-tape swap with Rob Gordon? Trip to the Natural History Museum with Holden Caulfield? European rendezvous with Jake Barnes? Or a Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist-style epic night with the “Nick” or “Norah” of your choice? (I think I’d go with that one.)

Possibilities are endless, and things like logistics, legal ages (hello YA crushes!), and time constraints don’t matter here. Happy planning!

Enjoy your weekend, no matter what you end up doing 🙂

Who Would You Meet?

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 16 Comments

This weekend is SCBWI New York, which means lots of writers are going to be invading this fair city, even more than usual. One of these writers is my client, K.M. Walton, who will be attending the conference for the first time as a soon-to-be-published author, or, as she might put it, an Apocalypsie. Another reason I’m excited she’s coming into town is that I finally get to meet one of my non-New Yorker writers in person! Very cool.

So of course, this got me thinking – what living author would you most like to have a drink with? I say “living” because there are way too many dead ones to choose from and I’m trying to limit the possibilities. Since there are sure to be writers who are recovering alcoholics, we’ll use the term “drink” loosely and include coffee and tea.

I would love to sit down with Stephen King. I have to admit to being not exactly well-read in his fiction, but his nonfiction book, On Writing, is a must-read for any aspiring author. Plus I think Uncle Stevie and I would get along based on his very smart essays on pop culture and books that he wrote for Entertainment Weekly.

I would also say David Sedaris or Kelly Link because I think they’d be fun to hang out with. Or Jay McInerney, even though I’d be too intimidated to speak to him. I might end up speaking only in second person.

What say you? Remember, living authors only.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Parental Units in Fiction

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 22 Comments

Question of the day –

Assuming you’ve encountered a book where the main character’s parents actually remained alive, whose parents would you most like to have had growing up?

Note: aunts and uncles raising the main character as their own do not count.

I want to say the Weasleys, but I think I’d grow impatient with Molly and her overbearing ways. I’d also want Atticus Finch as my dad, but again… I’m without a mother. What gives, fiction? Why are your moms unacceptable to me? Can I borrow Joyce Summers even though she’s not literary? Mother Goose, perhaps? Sigh.

What say you, friends?

Method Writing

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 16 Comments

Last night I read a manuscript – not even a client’s, mind you – that made me cry. Well OK, technically I just teared up a little, but still! It was so true to life that I ended up empathizing with the character as if she were a real life friend. Or, more accurately, a real life “me.” It actually inspired me to return to my nonfiction roots and expand an old personal essay.

This made me wonder if the author had experienced her character’s ordeal as well. How many of you fiction writers become your characters by infusing real life emotions in your work? Are you a Marlon Brando and Daniel Day Lewis when you write? Or are you Cary Grant and Tom Hanks?

Personally, I think I’m a Cary Grant, or a “non-method” writer. (Note: I am in love with Cary Grant, but this is not why I chose him as my writing-equivalent.) Cary and Tom are both great actors (or, were, in Cary’s case); they say their lines, become a character when they need to get the job done, and go home at the end of the day as if they spent it in a cubicle. (Presumably.. obviously I have no idea how they’d go home at the end of the day after a shoot.) This is my approach to writing – to writing fiction, at least. It’s something I’m enjoying at the moment, but personal essays are, at least I’d like to think, what define me as a writer.

Method actors put their entire beings into a character, and in turn, the character fuses into them. There’s obviously great value in this type of writing too. Some might argue there’s more value. Both approaches work in acting, usually with the same results depending on how good you are (I mean, look at Tom Hanks). So, I wonder… is the same true for writing?

What are your approaches to writing fictional emotions? Do you think it matters whether an author experienced them in real life?

What’s Your Genre?

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 9 Comments

A question to ponder on a Monday…

If your life were a novel, what genre would it be?

I’d like to think of mine as magical realism (hey, I can dream) with a hint Salinger-esque coming of age angst, but it’s probably more “literary chick lit.”

What’s yours?

Getting to Know You

~ SarahLaPolla ~ 8 Comments

Where have my manners been? I’ve been so caught up in trying to get the word out on this blog that I’ve forgotten to ask about YOU, my followers, my readers, and (dare I say?), friends. So let me start off by asking: how many of you have been published? Sending out queries? When did you start writing? Or, do some of you not yet consider yourselves writers? When does one make that distinction, do you think? For me, I think you’re allowed to call yourself a writer, even if you haven’t been published, once you think of writing as more than a hobby.

I used to call myself a writer, to the point where I’ve even answered the question, “What do you do?” with “Well, I’m a writer, but right now I’m working in a coffee shop.” Which brings me to my next question, how many of you have used that exact phrase before? Today, though, I do not consider myself a writer. Like many MFA graduates, I used my degree toward getting a job I could have gotten without the MFA, but thought it sounded fancy. Writing as a career choice took a backseat to my actual career, and now if someone asks me what I do, I might answer, “Well, I used to be a writer, but now I’m a full-time publishing assistant…. who also still works at a coffee shop.”

The cool thing about all of these writing/publishing/editing blogs is that writing no longer needs to be solitary (well, as solitary). I like the idea of writer’s communities being formed, but what do you all think? Do you think these websites have improved your own writing? Even though I don’t really write anymore, I must admit that the reading more of these blogs, and starting my own and seeing your submissions, have inspired me. I even recently dabbled in fiction last weekend! But so far that’s remaining safely hidden on my laptop.

A few more things I’m wondering this morning:
Did Friday creep up on anyone else? I think this week went by FAST!
Is anyone participating in NaNoWriMo this year, or has participated in previous years? Please tell your experience/how you’re preparing because it sounds intense!
How excited are you for this? my answer: “extremely!”

Hope I didn’t bombard you too much; I get a little overzealous sometimes.

Enjoy your weekend!