Lauren Kate's book signing

I recently had the opportunity to attend a book signing  by Lauren Kate for her new book in the Fallen series. Though I've not read her books, I was interested in hearing what she had to say about writing. I remembered when her mother in law told me that she had written her first book that was to be published. And now she's about to release the fifth book in the series. Her books have been translated into 30 languages and the whole family took a world wide book signing tour last summer.

In a popular time of teen vampires and werewolves, she said that she is known as the 'angel writer'. The main character of the series is a fallen angel, who has chosen to give up everything for the love of a young woman on earth. Lauren took us through her thought process as she perceived the idea for the book and then the research process to gather the background information.

After extensive research, she began to wonder when she would be prepared to begin writing. There didn't seem to be an end to the research. Lauren suggested that once you start questioning if you're ready to write, then it's time to write. She suggested that you could possibly never feel adequately prepared to begin, but that if you were questioning yourself as when to start, then this was her encouragement, to start writing.

Another suggestion she offered was to plan out chapters with an outline. Her plan to avoid writer's block was to write every day. She said that she felt it was better to write seven pages of something she was not happy with than to have written zero pages. She stated that daily writing had worked out so much better for her than only writing a couple of days a week when she was 'inspired'.

The final suggestion reads like instructions from my mother, finish what you start. She said that is the difference between people who say they are writing a novel and those who have a finished novel sitting on the shelf. The published author finished what they had started, then had the courage to send it out into the world.

She said that she received 67 rejection letters before publishing her first novel. Her words of encouragement, were it only takes one person to say yes, then everything can change instantly.



http://www.blogher.com/nablopomo-soup-add-your-march-posts