Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
So I’ve been writing stuff for the past eight years. I kind of just naturally fell into YA Fiction, though I do like to experiment. I like to write mostly realistic stories, like stuff that you could imagine happening in real life, and then throw just a touch of fantastical in there. I like to have it be almost poetic in a way.
I mean, I guess I’ve “written” a lot, but I’m kind of just getting started with the whole “publishing stuff” thing. My debut, Forget Me, was just published this past May.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Forget Me was my latest book. It’s about Sabine, a troubled teen who feels like life and God and all that mumbo-jumbo don’t really have much to offer her. She finally gets so fed up with it all that she ends up killing herself, but she doesn’t find the peace she thought she would.
Writing this story was a rather cathartic experience for me. While a lot of stuff in the story is fictitious, many of the elements were based on my own experiences with depression and feeling like an outcast. The story is centered around a pretty flawed character, and in the end Sabine begins to see herself not as worthless but as a work-in-progress, doesn’t love herself perfectly but starts to see the possibility of that. It was meant to be a realistic depiction and something I hope will resonate with my readers that are going through similar situations.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I talk to myself. I do this often. Sometimes I do it to think through plot points or something, because it’s just easier to think through out loud, but other times it just happens naturally. I don’t know, I might be insane.
Sometimes, when I’m getting writer’s block or I’m trying to think of what to write next, I’ll backspace the last letter of the last word I typed, type it again, backspace it and type it again. I do this quickly and repetitively. Sometimes it’s the whole word; “the,” backspace, “the,” backspace. Not really sure why I do this, but I can tell you I’ve been doing it a few times as I’ve typed this interview.
I also have a whole binder for character information. I call it my “character binder.” How original, right? It has those plastic inserts that a normal person would use for a photo album, and I’ll have four slots (one sheet) for each character. I’ll put a picture I think looks somewhat like my character (I find these on Google or Pinterest, there’s another unusual writing habit for ya), another little square of paper with basic info like height and weight and such, and then the other slots have pieces of paper with the character’s positive and negative traits written on them. It’s kind of like a “character-at-a-glance” sort of reference guide for me.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I mean, I’ve read plenty over the years, but it’s hard to pinpoint any authors or books that have specifically influenced my work. I can say, however, that William Sleator is one of my favorite authors, and he may have had some impact on my writing style. I will say this: we have a character name in common, a name I think is pretty unusual and unique, not something I’ve seen very often. It’s no Becky or Lisa, it’s Sabine. I mentioned earlier that the main character of my latest novel is named Sabine. Sleator had a character named Sabine in his novel called The Boy Who Couldn’t Die (one of my favorites, by the way). Totally not on purpose. It could be a coincidence, but I’m not so sure. I’m just saying that his writing could have influenced me in ways I don’t realize.
What are you working on now?
I’m actually working on a book for writers about developing characters. It’s supposed to be a sort of quiz/interview/game book that really helps you get to know your characters (and even, you might say, spend some quality time). Developing characters is one of my favorite parts of writing (and I’ve been told my character writing is very deep and realistic), so I thought I could share some tips.
I’m also writing another fiction piece. It would fall under the LGBT category. Less of a “coming out” story and more of a “self-discovery” story. My main character Emily is of the “difficult” breed. Seriously. Sometimes when I’m working on this story, I feel like a parent dealing with their teenage daughter. We’ll see if I can manage to get her to cooperate with me.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m still kind of testing the waters at this point. Goodreads is pretty cool though. But yeah, jury’s still out.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t try to publish the first thing you write that you think is “decent.” This goes double if you’re an indie author like myself. I’ve had a few false alarms where I got an idea, got about half-through writing it, thought it was super-great and thought to myself “y’know? THIS is gonna be the one I publish, I just know it!” And then proceeded to tell my friends and family that I’d be publishing a book in the near future. You wanna know what happened to those books? Most of those books are still unfinished, and they’re all sitting in a folder on my flash drive labeled “practice books.” Luckily I realized they were craparoo before it was too late.
So, bottom line? Don’t be in a rush to publish something, especially if you’re going the NOT traditional route. And edit the book a bunch of times. Give it to test readers. Edit that bad boy some more, and realize that the story might change itself on you and make you realize that you had some things all wrong. Yeah, don’t be afraid to change things! The key to the whole story might be hiding under one little stupid thing that’s gotta go, a thing you don’t wanna let go and are latching on to like a piranha on human flesh. And get your fine self a proofreader. Get a proof copy and read and reread it, marking up the errors you find. Make it the best you can. After all, this is your baby. If you don’t care enough about it to give it the treatment it deserves, how can you expect your readers to care?
All that being said, don’t get wrapped up in being perfect. Don’t try to make this book the best thing you’ll EVER write, because if it is? Well… you’re done. Getting published is a journey, not a destination, because someday (best case scenario) you’ll write a book even better than the first book you wrote. You might reread your first book one day and realize you made some mistakes, or you missed a consistency issue, or you could’ve broadened a plot point. But to realize those things is okay, and you wanna know why? Because 1. You’re not perfect, and writing is all about learning to realize and accept this about yourself, and 2. Seeing these things means you’re a better writer than you were before. So don’t get hung up on being perfect. Sometimes you have to just pull the trigger and say, “I’ve made this the best I could, and now I’m giving it to the world.”
And one more thing, and I’ll keep it short: BACK UP YOUR WORK. Seriously. It’s all fun and games until your computer dies and won’t turn back on. And back it up in more than one place, please would ya? Take it from the person who once spent an hour digging through garbage bags in the rain to find their flash drive because the cat knocked it into the garbage can somehow.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Uh, BACK UP YOUR WORK. I really can’t stress it enough.
But there’s some other great advice I heard once, though I don’t remember where. It’s that the only rule for writing is that there are no rules. I would even extend this to say that the best writing breaks the rules. My opinion is that writing should be daring or at the very least passionate, or frankly it’s dead. Writing is supposed to question the status-quo.
What are you reading now?
My to-read list is miles long! But right now I’m reading My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult.
What’s next for you as a writer?
The character development book I mentioned earlier? I’m hoping to release that by the end of the year. I’m hoping to have another fiction release ready by early- to mid-2018. I’ll see how things fall together; one thing I’ve learned as a writer is that you can’t rush a story.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Boy Who Couldn’t Die, William Sleator
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
The Duplicate, William Sleator
My own, of course! I love it so.
Author Websites and Profiles
Chelsea Vanderbeek Website
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