Unlocking Books discussion

I've contacted author Lisa Mangum of the The Hourglass Door to do a Q&A with us. She said that if I compile all the questions and send them to her, she will send the answers back to me.

So if you have any questions, please post them here.

Awesome! What genre will her next book be in? And does it have a title yet? I know some people have titles really soon after they choose their next project.

The responses from Lisa Mangum:


1. Do you keep a backlog of projects you plan to write?
Yes, I do. I’m never at a loss for ideas of what to write about, but since I can really only work on one book at a time, many projects are patiently (and sometimes not-so-patiently) waiting their turn. I have a running document called “New Ideas” that I use to collect all my ideas.

2. What genre will your next book be in? And does it have a title yet?
Next up will be another YA novel. Contemporary setting; a stand alone book. My working title is Hello, Good-bye, but since I just discovered a recently released YA novel with the same title, I’ll probably end up changing it to something else. The story will be about Sam and Sara and the single day they spend together at the beginning of their relationship.

3. Why did you decide to become a writer?
I always wanted to be a writer, but for most of my life I just dabbled in it. A few short stories. Some good beginnings, but I’d never finished an entire manuscript. And then five or six years ago, my friends and I decided to start a writing group. That proved to be the spark I needed to make the transition from dabbling to really doing it. My writing group provided the deadlines that kept me motivated and the feedback that kept me growing. Ultimately, I decided to become a writer because Abby and Dante jumped into the car with me one day and said, “You have to write our story!” It was an invitation—a command—that I couldn’t turn down.

4. Where did you learn so much about classical literature? What inspired you to reference material like Shakespeare, The Odyssey, Dante?
I have my bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Utah and that allowed me to take a lot of classes from the Humanities department—including a class just on Shakespeare and another class just on Dante’s Divine Comedy. Plus, I’ve read a lot of classical literature on my own. One of the driving forces of the Hourglass Door series was actually Dante’s Divine Comedy. I loved the relationship between Dante and Beatrice and when I started writing, I knew I wanted to draw from that source. Knowing I was going to have so many ties to Italy, it was easy to include references to Much Ado about Nothing—which is set in Italy—and The Aenied—which is a wonderful Italian epic poem. I think I referenced so much from classical literature, in part, because I love it and in part because it worked so well with the theme and story.

5. Which Shakespeare play is your favorite?
Oh, do I have to pick just one? I do love Much Ado about Nothing, but I also love Hamlet. And I recently saw Othello on stage, which was amazing. Taming of the Shrew is great. And Henry V has some of my favorite speeches in it.

6. What is your writing process? Are you a pantser or a plotter? How many times do you edit?
I’m a plotter. One thing I learned about myself after writing three books is that I do better when I can outline obsessively and write once. That’s not to say that I don’t revise or edit—I do. But I tend to revise as I go, and then when I’m doing writing, I step back, turn on the editor part of my brain, and go over the entire thing in detail.

7. How much research did you have to do for your first books?
I did a fair amount of research regarding the life of da Vinci—hooray for Google!—and about sixteenth-century Italy. I found some great websites for Italian names of the period that I used for some of my character names. I also was able to do some research on apothecaries of the day.

8. What was the process of searching for a publisher like for you?
Finding a publisher was a little easier than it is for most writers. Since my day job is as an editor at a publishing company, I knew right away who I’d like to submit my manuscript to. (Grin) But once I submitted my manuscript, it traveled through the review process anonymously. I was really grateful for that so that when Shadow Mountain said yes, I knew it was because they really wanted to publish my book—they really liked it—and it wasn’t just because I worked there.

9. What advice would you give to writers who are not yet published?
One of my writing friends, Rick Walton, gave me this advice, which I am unapologetically stealing and passing along: “Give up. And if you can’t—do the work.” I love that idea. Writing is hard work. It’s exhausting and backbreaking and more than one person has given up. But if you can’t give up—if there is something inside you that won’t let you give up—then you have to do the work. You have to buckle down and put the words on the page and do the work. But the authors who do that, find success.

My favorite thing she said is in her response to the last question. I've decided to quit many times, and yet the next day, I found myself editing one more time or starting another story or writing another chapter.

A great interview, and I do love that advice. I'm going to post that in my favourite quotes, I think.

I love that! "give up...and if you can't..."

That is so perfect.

That was awesome!