Welcome to Day #5 of The Boy Most Likely To(ur)! To celebrate the release of The Boy Most Likely To by Huntley Fitzpatrick (8/18/15), 10 blogs across the web will be featuring exclusive content from Huntley, as well as a chance to win a YA Goodie Basket in the Grand Prize Giveaway
Today, Huntley shares some writing tips for aspiring authors!
The Boy Most Likely ToAuthor: Huntley Fitzpatrick
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary
Released: August 18th 2015
Publisher: Dial Books
A surprising, utterly romantic companion to My Life Next Door—great for fans of Sarah Dessen and Jenny Han
Tim Mason was The Boy Most Likely To find the liquor cabinet blindfolded, need a liver transplant, and drive his car into a house
Alice Garrett was The Girl Most Likely To . . . well, not date her little brother’s baggage-burdened best friend, for starters.
For Tim, it wouldn’t be smart to fall for Alice. For Alice, nothing could be scarier than falling for Tim. But Tim has never been known for making the smart choice, and Alice is starting to wonder if the “smart” choice is always the right one. When these two crash into each other, they crash hard.
Then the unexpected consequences of Tim’s wild days come back to shock him. He finds himself in a situation that isn’t all it appears to be, that he never could have predicted . . . but maybe should have.
And Alice is caught in the middle.
Told in Tim’s and Alice’s distinctive, disarming, entirely compelling voices, this novel is for readers of The Spectacular Now, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and Paper Towns.
Top Ten Writing Tips
1. Keep a journal. Take it seriously. Find out if the thoughts flow better when you type or write longhand. Find out whether you like ruled paper or open space. Find out what kind of pen works best. Then stock up. Try writing anything at all in it every day. Even if it’s just one thing that happened and one reaction to it. One thought, one fact. But try for more. Write in your journal in all sorts of different moods and places. Not just at the big moments. Elaborate on the small, the passing second, the almost unnoticed thing. Sometimes those capture everything.
2. Besides your journal, always keep a small pad of paper with you. Inspiration strikes in unusual places. Bring the pad on walks, bike rides, to restroom visits at the movies, anywhere, everywhere. Keep one in the medicine cabinet. I’ve jumped out of the shower many, many times to jot down a thought.
3. Use your listening ears. Eavesdrop on strangers. Instead of getting annoyed that people are talking too loudly in lines or on trains or planes—listen to what they’re saying. Imagine what they are not saying. Write it all down. Keep a folder called “Dialogue” and toss it all in. When you are stuck, pull it out and see if you can take one sentence and keep writing on that one thing until it turns into a story.
4. Read books you love, books you hate, too. Try to figure out what makes you love or hate them. Is it a moment? Is it the whole package? Would you feel differently if just one thing were different? Did you feel the way you do from the start, or did the feeling come upon you slowly? When, why, how…write about all of that.
5. Remember all your most awkward moments. Keep a record. Especially the ones you almost can’t make yourself write down. Good writers tell on themselves all the time.
6. If you have one of those "I'll always remember this" moments--write about it immediately. Because you won’t. And if you end up remembering parts about it that aren’t what you wrote down, much later, even better…because then you have the “right then” moment and the “what it came to mean” moments too.
7. Keep an idea folder—any way that works for you. Torn out pictures from magazines. Random thoughts scribbled on anything you can find (see item #2), a file on your computer—just update it constantly, and try to stick a date on everything, just so you know when and where that came from.
8. Find something to do that occupies your body and lets your mind wander (sports are great for this—so is the natural world, animals, boring routine chores…)
9. If your story takes an unexpected turn, follow it. You can always retrace your steps. But in my experience you almost never want to.
10. Never never never compare your writing to anyone else's, except in the case of what they do well that you'd love to rock at too. When tempted to do this, read two great how to write books: Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. Breathe in, breathe out, sit down and write the stories only you were born to tell.
2. Besides your journal, always keep a small pad of paper with you. Inspiration strikes in unusual places. Bring the pad on walks, bike rides, to restroom visits at the movies, anywhere, everywhere. Keep one in the medicine cabinet. I’ve jumped out of the shower many, many times to jot down a thought.
3. Use your listening ears. Eavesdrop on strangers. Instead of getting annoyed that people are talking too loudly in lines or on trains or planes—listen to what they’re saying. Imagine what they are not saying. Write it all down. Keep a folder called “Dialogue” and toss it all in. When you are stuck, pull it out and see if you can take one sentence and keep writing on that one thing until it turns into a story.
4. Read books you love, books you hate, too. Try to figure out what makes you love or hate them. Is it a moment? Is it the whole package? Would you feel differently if just one thing were different? Did you feel the way you do from the start, or did the feeling come upon you slowly? When, why, how…write about all of that.
5. Remember all your most awkward moments. Keep a record. Especially the ones you almost can’t make yourself write down. Good writers tell on themselves all the time.
6. If you have one of those "I'll always remember this" moments--write about it immediately. Because you won’t. And if you end up remembering parts about it that aren’t what you wrote down, much later, even better…because then you have the “right then” moment and the “what it came to mean” moments too.
7. Keep an idea folder—any way that works for you. Torn out pictures from magazines. Random thoughts scribbled on anything you can find (see item #2), a file on your computer—just update it constantly, and try to stick a date on everything, just so you know when and where that came from.
8. Find something to do that occupies your body and lets your mind wander (sports are great for this—so is the natural world, animals, boring routine chores…)
9. If your story takes an unexpected turn, follow it. You can always retrace your steps. But in my experience you almost never want to.
10. Never never never compare your writing to anyone else's, except in the case of what they do well that you'd love to rock at too. When tempted to do this, read two great how to write books: Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. Breathe in, breathe out, sit down and write the stories only you were born to tell.
Huntley Fitzpatrick grew up dreamy and distracted in coastal Connecticut. She flourished in a family of bookworms where everyone always had their nose in a book. She kept an exhaustively thorough journal which frightened her boyfriends but has proved very useful in her career as a writer. Her debut contemporary Romance, MY LIFE NEXT DOOR, was published in June of 2012 by Penguin-Dial for Young Readers. Now she laughs with and eavesdrops on her six children who provide her with perspective and material. She is represented by the amazing Christina Hogrebe of the Jane Rotrosen Agency.
- One (1) first prize winner will receive a YA Goodie Basket filled with all three of Huntley's books (The Boy Most Likely To, My Life Next Door, and What I Thought Was True), Pushing the Limits and Crash Into You by Katie McGarry, Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally, and The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith
- Two (2) second prize winners will receive audiobooks of The Boy Most Likely To and What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick plus swag
- Enter via the rafflecopter below
- US/Canada Only
- Ends 9/18 at midnight ET
- For the blog post comment entry, answer the question: What's the best piece of advice you've ever received (writing-related or otherwise)?
Blog Tour Schedule:
September 7th - Bookhounds YA
September 8th - Novel Novice
September 9th - YA Interrobang
September 10th - A Backwards Story
September 11th - Once Upon a Twilight
September 14th - A Life Bound By Books
September 15th - Alison Can Read
September 16th - Book Briefs
September 17th - Babbling About Books and More
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