How can one brief encounter change the course of your life?
Find out the answer to this question and more in my interview with Shawn Inmon
Tell me about yourself.
What got you started in writing?
I
was lucky to get an early start on things when my mom took it upon herself to
teach me to read when I was only two and a half. I was reading chapter books by
the time I started kindergarten. My “first book” came about age five when I sat
down at my parent’s old Royal manual typewriter and copied Dr. Seuss’ “Green
Eggs and Ham” one word at a time. I hope I don’t get into a plagiarism scandal,
now that I’ve admitted that!
When
I was a teenager, I wrote stories all the time and was sure that was what I was
going to do when I grew up. Then life and the reality of having to earn a
living hit and I stopped writing for decades.
It
wasn’t until something stupendous happened to me that I realized I had to write
it down, and that was when I ran into my first love completely by accident in
2006. We had been forcibly separated in 1979, and hadn’t spoken to each other
since. That meeting led me to write my first two books, “Feels Like the First
Time” and “Both Sides Now.”
How and where do you write?
Do you prefer a lap top or do you prefer writing freehand?
I
do almost all my writing sitting in an easy chair in our family room with my
laptop sitting on a pillow on my lap, which is not the most ergonomic way to go
about it. I use music and headphones to block out all distractions while I am
writing.
I
do something I haven’t heard of any other writer doing, which is that with each
project, I pick out a single song and listen to it on a continuous loop the
entire time I am writing that book. So, in writing “Both Sides Now,” I listened
to “Whatever’s Written in Your Heart” by Gerry Rafferty over 700 times. For
most people, I know that’s a shortcut to insanity, but it works in a Pavlovian
way for me. Once I’ve heard it while writing often enough, as soon as I hear
the opening notes, it helps my mind drop right back in the groove it was in
when I left off.
I
always write on my laptop. My thoughts jumble out way too quickly to try and
keep up with longhand. I am a fairly quick typist, so I don’t have to spend a
lot of time waiting for my fingers to keep up with my brain.
What’s your favorite part
about writing? Your least favorite part about writing?
I
love the sense of creation that comes through writing. I’ve heard that most
writers dread looking at that first blank page, but because I mull things over
for a long time before I write, I never feel that. All I feel is anticipation
for the opportunity to tell another story. When I’m in the middle of a writing
rush, with my subconscious handing me clues and connections I hadn’t planned in
advance, it is one of the best feelings in the world – as though I am doing
exactly what I am supposed to do.
I
really don’t have a part of the process I dislike. I have a wonderful relationship
with my “team” – my editor, cover designer and layout person – so I look
forward to the process of working with them. I even enjoy the promoting aspect
of being my own publisher. You’ll never see me Tweet or write a message on
Facebook that says “Buy my book!” Instead, I look at social media as a chance
to connect and interact with my readers, and I have been so fortunate to meet
so many loyal readers so quickly in my writing career.
How do you come up with
your characters? Why would readers want to get to know them?
My
stories tend to be character-driven. Both “Feels Like the First Time” and “Both
Sides Now” are non-fiction and so deal with real people, but I still took it
upon myself to make sure that those real people came across as interesting,
flaws and all. When I’m writing fiction, I might have a loose idea of what kind
of story I want to write (say, a story of revenge) but it doesn’t come to life
until I know who the characters are and what their motivations are. For
instance, in my short story “Lucky Man,” I set up a scenario where two
characters have a brief interlude together. One of them forgets about it
immediately, but for the other, it changes her life and she spends 25 years
plotting her revenge. In the short story format, I thought it was most
interesting to focus on Brett Mann, who had forgotten what started things. Now
I’m preparing to turn it into a novella and flesh out the story more and this
story will focus on Mirela Marko, who takes her revenge on Brett, and delve
into why she let one brief encounter change the entire path of her life.
I
think people are interested in reading about people they can relate to, so
that’s what I try to create. I do everything I can to avoid using clichés in
characterization, but instead make each person someone you want to read about
to find out what happens in their life. No person thinks of themselves as a
secondary character. We’re all the star of our own movie, right? I always keep
that in mind when I am writing a story. They may not be our protagonist, but in
their own eyes, the story is theirs.
What types of marketing do
you do to promote your writing?
When
I was first trying to get established, I enrolled my book in Amazon Select so
that I would be able to give away free copies. It seems counter-intuitive to
give away something you’ve worked so hard on, but it has been the key to
becoming known for me. In the last twelve months, I’ve given away 90,000 copies
of “Feels Like the First Time,” and that has led to getting a sizable number of
reviews as well as building traffic to my blog and Facebook page.
I
think the most important thing I am doing right now is building a mailing list
of readers who want to know when my next book is coming out. Because Facebook
and Twitter are in control of their own websites, they can decide to make it
more difficult for me to reach my readers, but with my own list, I know I can
always reach them. I try to do special things for readers on my mailing list,
like giving them a 24 hour jump on the rest of the world when a new book comes
out, sending out a free short story for the holidays, etc.
How do you schedule your
writing time? When do you write?
Because
I have a full-time career aside from writing (I am a real estate broker) I have
to manage my writing time very carefully. I get up two hours earlier than I
have to every morning and squeeze two more hours in each night. I am able to
write at a pretty steady 750 words per hour, so those four hours per day net me
out about 3,000 words per day, which allows me to complete a book in a month’s
worth of writing time. That’s a pretty intense schedule, though, so I let
myself take a month or two off in between books to re-charge my creative
batteries.
What are you currently
working on? Do you have a new book out?
My
new book is “Both Sides Now” which I just released on July 9th.
Writing it was a bit of a gamble, but it is paying off. It tells essentially
the same story I told in “Feels Like the First Time” but from a completely
different perspective. I am fascinated by the way you can look at an identical
event in a different way and it has a totally different impact. To quote from
“Feels Like the First Time,” – “perspective is everything.”
My
Work in Progress is called “Rock ‘n Roll Heaven.” It is the story of a
fictional small-time guitarist who is in an accident and dies early in the book
and ends up in, you guessed it, rock ‘n roll heaven, where he meets Buddy
Holly, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, etc. Music is
so important to me, and I’ve been carrying this story around me for 20 years,
so I am finally putting it down on paper. I’m almost half done with it and it
should be released in October.
Next
up is an untitled romance (Okay, I know the title, but I’m not ready to
announce it yet!) that will turn some of the romance book tropes on their ear a
little bit. I want the skinny, nerdy boy to win the hand of the beautiful girl,
probably because I was once that skinny, nerdy boy myself. I hope to have that
one out in December, but January is probably more realistic.
I
have at least my next three books after that all planned out and ready to write
as soon as I get the time. I always have many more ideas than I have time to
write.
Do you have a project on
the back burner? Tell me about it.
“Rock
‘n Roll Heaven” has been on the back burner since 1993, so it was time to move
that one to the front of the line. It is a labor of love, because I have been
obsessed with the music of the 1950s and ‘60s all my life. Buddy Holly was my
first musical idol. I was born exactly one year to the day after the crash that
claimed his life.
I’m
also looking forward to expanding “Lucky Man” into a longer form. The most
common response I’ve gotten in reviews of that story is “More!” In its present
form, there is a short prelude and then the story skips ahead 25 years. I’m
really looking forward to telling the story of those middle years because I
think that’s where all the drama really is.
What would you tell a
beginning writer who wants to publish but doesn’t believe he/she has enough
talent?
First,
never let those niggling doubts hold you back. The best advice I have for any
new writer is to do two things: read (a lot) and write (a lot.) I know how
scary it can be to sit down to a blank page and think “I’m going to write a
book,” so my advice is, don’t do that. Instead, think of a moment you’d like to
write about, like your first kiss, or what it felt like the day you got your
driver’s license or any of a million small moments in your life. Then pick
another and write about that. Eventually, you might discern a pattern and see a
book developing.
“Feels Like the First Time” didn’t start as a book at all, but instead as a series of
emails between my sister and I. It wasn’t until two years after those emails
that she told me that they should be a book. In the end, she was right.
Thank you Shawn! You can learn more about Shawn at:
