Please welcome Steph Campbell to Books for Company!
I am so pleased to be able to bring such a great post as my first post back to blogging! I haven't yet read Delicate or Grounding Quinn but definitely hope to as soon as possible!
Thank you Steph for this great post, I love finding out more about the books from the authors point of view and has definitely made me very excited to read these books.
I didn’t always want to be a writer. I know that goes against what I’m ‘supposed’ to say, or what most authors say, but it’s the truth. Not to say that I haven’t always written, I have. A lot. I just never considered it as a career until around 2006. I’d tried my hand at writing novels prior to that point, but they were melodramatic adult books with little voice, and I never finished one. Around 2005, I started reading young adult, and after devouring every YA title I could get my hands on for a year, I started writing DELICATE.
I wrote the novel in about three weeks. We were waiting to be able to move into our new home, and my desk was disassembled and packed away, but Sydney, Trevor and Grant were so vivid in my mind, I had to get them out on paper. I hooked my PC up on the floor of my bedroom and sat on the carpet and wrote the entire thing.
As soon as I finished writing Delicate, I began work on GROUNDING QUINN. While Quinn’s voice came easier for me, her story did not. If you’ve read the book, you know that she’s a complex, mess of a character. I really wanted to do her justice, and have people understand where she was coming from. She can be hard to love at times, but I wanted readers to want to stick with her. For that reason, Grounding Quinn took me almost an entire year to complete.
Writing is still that way for me. Some books I am able to churn out in a matter of a few short weeks, while others, I have to let percolate, let their stories unfold slowly for me. Some books I plot out completely, chapter by chapter. Others, I write entirely from the hip. Every story is different. I think that not sticking to a set way of writing lets each story be unique, and each characters voice truer.
It was several years before Delicate and Grounding Quinn were picked up by a publisher. But I didn’t stop writing. I kept at it, creating new stories, allowing new characters into my mind.
I write every single day. Even if I don’t feel like it. Even if I don’t think the words are any good, and even when I end up deleting some of them the next day. If I’m not feeling a particular project one day, I move on to something else—whether it’s outlining a new story or editing one I’ve shelved.
The market is changing so much, so quickly, but I think the main thing most important thing I’ve learned over and over again is that you can’t try to force something to follow a trend. You have to write what’s true to you and to your voice. If you do that, you will find your audience.
I wrote the novel in about three weeks. We were waiting to be able to move into our new home, and my desk was disassembled and packed away, but Sydney, Trevor and Grant were so vivid in my mind, I had to get them out on paper. I hooked my PC up on the floor of my bedroom and sat on the carpet and wrote the entire thing.
As soon as I finished writing Delicate, I began work on GROUNDING QUINN. While Quinn’s voice came easier for me, her story did not. If you’ve read the book, you know that she’s a complex, mess of a character. I really wanted to do her justice, and have people understand where she was coming from. She can be hard to love at times, but I wanted readers to want to stick with her. For that reason, Grounding Quinn took me almost an entire year to complete.
Writing is still that way for me. Some books I am able to churn out in a matter of a few short weeks, while others, I have to let percolate, let their stories unfold slowly for me. Some books I plot out completely, chapter by chapter. Others, I write entirely from the hip. Every story is different. I think that not sticking to a set way of writing lets each story be unique, and each characters voice truer.
It was several years before Delicate and Grounding Quinn were picked up by a publisher. But I didn’t stop writing. I kept at it, creating new stories, allowing new characters into my mind.
I write every single day. Even if I don’t feel like it. Even if I don’t think the words are any good, and even when I end up deleting some of them the next day. If I’m not feeling a particular project one day, I move on to something else—whether it’s outlining a new story or editing one I’ve shelved.
The market is changing so much, so quickly, but I think the main thing most important thing I’ve learned over and over again is that you can’t try to force something to follow a trend. You have to write what’s true to you and to your voice. If you do that, you will find your audience.
Find Steph
Buy Delicate and Grounding Quinn
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