Highlights From My Twitter Party

Or, it's my party and I'll kvell if I want to :)

I held a party…held my breath…and my special guests showed up and were smart, engaging, empathic, and humorous—the perfect party people! Lots of other writers attended and even participated, too.

It was my first Twitter Chat (I’d never even heard of one before), and it gave me the chance to raise some of the issues I cover here in Page Fright and invite authors I admire to weigh in. Among them, they’ve published award winners, bestsellers, novels adapted for film/TV, and books printed in 20+ languages!

Here are the questions I posed and a sample answer from each of them:

Question #1: What do you do to self-motivate when you don’t have immediate deadlines or editors breathing down your neck? Write ideas in a journal? Binge-watch Netflix or hulu? Teach or coach other writers and then return to your own work?

Henriette Lazaridis, whose next novel, Terra Nova, is coming out in December: I always create deadlines for myself. And I'm a big fan of breaking a project down into smaller chunks so I can feel accomplishment along the way.

Question #2: What are one or two of your deepest, darkest, hardest-to-admit fears and doubts as a writer? How have you learned to manage or overcome your fears and go on writing?

Randy Susan Meyers, whose recent novels include Waisted: Deepest fears: not being talented, not being a good enough writer, not being emotionally honest enough for my novel. I don't really overcome them; I shove them in the recesses of my brain and then they escape at 3am and become Where The Wild Things Are.

Question #3: Writing can be so vulnerable. Do you ever worry about revealing too much about yourself through your writing, whether it’s memoir, personal essays, or “thinly disguised” fiction? How do you find the right balance for you?

Juliette Dacey Fay, :whose latest novel is Catch Us When We Fall: I’m careful not to make my characters seem like me or anyone around me. That said, readers often assume it’s me. I once had someone ask if my book, Shelter Me, which is about a new widow, was autobiographical – even though she knew my very-much-alive husband!

Question #4: Some writers worry that if they’re not published by 40, they’ve missed their chance. I know some of you, like me, got a later-than-usual start. What’s your advice for aspiring writers, especially women writers, who are "late bloomers?"

Laura Zigman, whose next novel, Small World, is coming out in January: Life is short. Nobody cares how old you are when you do anything. Except you. Also, late-bloomers are the coolest people.

Question #5: Who’s a writer who intimidates but also inspires you? Why them, in particular?

Cali Bird, whose Substack newsletter Gentle Creative is a must read: I love Elizabeth Gilbert, both her fiction and non-fiction. She’s incredibly thorough in her work and I’m not sure I could ever be as good. I’m also intimidated by quick writers, people who can put out a book every few months or even one a year. Mine take longer.

This article is merely a tasty appetizer. For the full, scrumptious five-course meal, go to my Twitter page and scroll down to July 20 and the thread with the hashtag #TheWritersRoom. I hope you’ll tweet your answers to my questions, too!