Please welcome Emma Pass, award winning YA author, both to the blog and to the series of letters-to-our-younger-selves.
Emma is here as part of UKYA Extravaganza - a nationwide event celebrating books for young adults and the writers behind them.
When I volunteered to host a YA author I knew I'd ask my writer to write to their teenage self, and luckily Emma took up the challenge with gusto, penning a terrific letter of advice which speaks not just to herself, but to any aspiring writer.
Emma is also very kindly giving away a signed copy of her latest book 'The Fearless' (nominated for the Carnegie Medal 2015) to UK readers. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is leave a comment on this post by midnight Sunday 4th October, or RT any of the tweets from Emma and myself about this blog and the giveaway. All names will be out into a hat and I'll do a 'taking-a-name-from-a-hat' video post early next week.
Over to Emma-now speaking to Emma-teenager - who desperately wants to be a writer.
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Dear Emma (aged 13),
So you've decided you want to be a writer.
You're sure about that, right? Because it's not
going to be easy. At all. There's still time to change your mind if –
OK. OK. I can see I'm not going to be able
to convince you to do something sensible with your life. So let me offer you a
few pieces of advice:
1.
It's not going to be easy. Yes,
I know I already said that. But it's not. You've got this secret hope that the novel
you're writing now is going to get published. It's won't. It's going to take
you – are you ready for this? – twenty years. Yes, you heard me right. And
you're going to doubt yourself over and over again. But there's only one way through it. Keep writing.
2.
Don't get frustrated. You know,
deep down, that the stuff you're writing isn't very good, but you can't get
better by skipping the crap – you have to work through it. Keep writing.
3.
Don't let other people
discourage you. That English teacher who laughed at you for writing a 30 page
thriller when he told the class to write stories for homework? Don't listen.
He's a frustrated luvvie who's bitter no one's spotted his genius and offered
him a part on the West End stage yet. And that careers advisor who, a few years
later, will tell you no one ever makes a living doing something creative?
Ignore him. He's got a mullet and an earring. Even in the late nineties, that
wasn't cool any more. Keep writing.
4.
Learn from other writers. Not
just the ones who write stuff that's like the stories you think you want to
write, but from all of them, in every genre. When you reach your
early twenties, you'll pick up a book which will take you in a surprising – but
rewarding – direction. Keep reading.
5.
Don't throw anything away.
Those stories you've given up on after ten pages – those half-finished novels
that dwindled into nothing – you don't know when you'll come back to them. In a
year or so, you'll write a story that will come in very handy in another 18 years. Keep everything.
6.
Don’t think it gets any easier if
you do get published. It doesn't. There will be tough times ahead even after you have a book on the shelves.
But things have a way of working themselves out. Keep writing.
7.
Write the stories you want to write. When you've fallen in
love with something you've written, it will show – and when you haven't, that
will show too. So why waste time on stories you don't care about? Keep it real.
8.
Don’t give up. You'll get
there. Keep writing.
Lots of love,
Emma (aged 35).
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Emma Pass has been making up stories for as
long as she can remember, and wrote her first novel when she was 13 in maths
lessons with her notebook hidden under her work.
Her debut novel, ACID, was published by
Random House in 2013. It won the 2014
North East Teenage Book Award, was shortlisted for the Doncaster Book Award and
a Silver Inky Award, longlisted for the 2014 Branford Boase Award and nominated
for the 2014 CILIP Carnegie Medal. Her second novel, THE FEARLESS, was
published by Random House in 2014, and was also nominated for the Carnegie
Medal.
Emma lives in Derbyshire with her artist
husband and crazy greyhound G-Dog. She owns far too many books and dreams of
having her own library one day. When she's not writing, she runs workshops in
schools and community settings and a young writers group for Writing East
Midlands. In 2013 she helped found the popular Author Allsorts blog, and she is
co-organiser of the UKYA and UKMG Extravaganzas.
For more on Emma:
Visit her website: www.emmapass.com
Stop by her blog: www.emmapass.blogspot.com
Follow her on Twitter: @EmmaPass
Look her up on Instagram: @EmmaPassAuthor
Like her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/EmmaPassAuthor
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