One Writer’s Process: Sherri L. Smith

Over the past seven years, Sherri L. Smith has managed to produce award-winning novels for young adults while juggling a full-time job as well as making time for her family.

“Writing for me is catch-as-catch-can,” writes Smith, whose first novel, Lucy the Giant, was selected for the 2003 Best Books for Young Adults list by the young adult division of the American Library Association.

“This year, I’m back to doing morning pages,” she says, “so I try to write three random pages every morning.”

But that doesn’t mean she’s done with writing for the day.

“My book work usually comes at the end of the day, after dinner and family time,” she says. “If I’m lucky, it’s an hour or so after 10pm. Otherwise, it’s as the spirit --or the deadline-- moves me.

And if she finds herself without time to write?

“My dark days come when I’m not writing,” she explains. “When I deny myself the act—through procrastination, other obligations, or doubt on where to take the story next—I tend to get angry.”

And then watch out.

“I’m growly towards everyone and fantastically surly. I eat too much, and I do it savagely. And I fold my arms across my chest and glare. It’s really stupid. Especially since I know how to stop it.”

How? The way most authors manage to stop it.

“Just sit down and write,” she explains.

And, eventually, when Smith sits down to write, she finds herself with the most wonderful stories emerging from her pen.

After writing Lucy the Giant, Smith penned Sparrow, which was voted a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age in 2006 and nominated in 2009 for a Louisiana Young Readers Choice Award. And then came Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, a 2008 release soon to come out in paperback, which has been described by Kirkus as a “funny, entertaining gumbo of cultural collisions and discoveries.” Her newest novel, Flygirl, received a starred review in Booklist and was named a Spring 2009 Indie Next List pick for Teen Readers.

Smith, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband (and his cat), took a few minutes from her work-in-progress to talk about her writing process with Wordswimmer.

Wordswimmer: If writing is like swimming...how do you get into the water each day?

Smith: If the water’s cold, the best thing to do is just jump right in. I admit I’ll dip my toes first with a little journaling. Three pages of free writing tends to warm me up. When I sit down to work on a project, I’ve usually worked out the kinks in my journal and I’m ready to go the distance.

Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat... for short work? For longer work?

Smith: For short pieces, usually it’s the initial inspiration that keeps me going. Poems and short stories tend to appear in my mind, and I find myself sprinting to catch them. On a long project, I will write down the initial spark that made me excited to do the novel in the first place, and I will revisit it, read it over if I find myself flagging. I also have a system to pace myself—a certain number of laps I must do to call the day successful.

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells?

Smith: That system I mentioned above of pacing myself gets me through the tough spots. I tend to write from an outline for my books, so I just keep going, point by point and hope that inspiration kicks in while I’m going through the paces. It usually does. You just have to keep swimming along.

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

Smith: Finding the time to do it! There’s nothing worse than sitting in your car or at your day job with your swimsuit on under your clothes, just waiting for the time when you can dive in. I’ll stay up late if I have to, and risk exhaustion in the morning to get those laps in.

Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?

Smith: You can’t write a book in a vacuum, so I talk to my coaches—my husband and a couple of other trusted readers. When I’m really stuck sometimes it helps to discuss it in detail, or more often in a vague, hypothetical kind of way (to keep my secrets—don’t want to ruin the surprise of reading a full draft later on!). Usually one of my coaches can unlock a good idea. Otherwise, I read and daydream and eventually an answer comes to me.

Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?

Smith: When you get into a flow—it’s like surfing more than swimming. A wave picks you up and you are zooming along and for a minute the energy of the entire ocean is your energy. The story just flows through you instead of from you and it’s exhilarating. I love it!

For more information about Sherri L. Smith, visit her website:
http://www.sherrilsmith.com/index.htm

And for more interviews with her, visit:
http://theyayayas.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/sherri-l-smith-on-flygirl/
http://shelfelf.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/author-interview-sherri-l-smith/
http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=1141
http://slayground.livejournal.com/341140.html
http://thebrownbookshelf.com/2008/02/28/sherri-l-smith/
http://the5randoms.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/random-interview-sherri-l-smith/

The Bond Between Reader and Character

How does Sherri L. Smith create a bond in her new novel, Flygirl, between her main character, Ida Mae Jones, and the reader?

She shares a secret with the reader-- a secret that, if discovered by any of the other characters, could mean serious injury, shame, or worse for Ida Mae.

What Ida Mae wants most in this novel, which is set in the South during World War II, is to fly planes to help her brother fight the Japanese after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

But Ida Mae is black, and, though the WASP–the Women Airforce Service Pilots–is seeking capable women to help fly planes from manufacturing plants to the men who’ll fly them into battle, the WASP won’t accept black women.

So what does Ida Mae do? She passes herself off as white during the initial interview and in the training sessions in Texas that follow.

Here’s how Ida Mae describes the interview to her Mama after she returns home:

“Just listen to me. Listen to me!” I all but shout, and Mama stops in her tracks. I’ve never raised my voice to her and gotten away with it. But I’m not a little girl anymore.

“Somebody has got to do something. So I went. I put my name on Daddy’s license and I went and got an interview. And you know what? I wasn’t hiding anything when I went into that room and sat face-to-face with an actual woman Army Air Forces pilot. And do you know what she saw? Not a Negro woman, not a white woman, not a high yellow. But a pilot, Mama. A good pilot that they need. Don’t you see? This is what Daddy used to fly for. The chance to be everything other than the color of his skin.”

It’s a very risky move for a black woman like Ida Mae to take during a time of segregation, but that’s what gives the story its source of tension.

Will Ida Mae succeed or fail in her role as a woman pilot?

And, more pressing, will her secret be discovered if she happens to forget her act or when someone recognizes her?

Smith shares Ida Mae’s story in such a way that readers can’t help feeling sympathy for her... and that’s the secret of the bond that is created between Ida Mae and the reader.

We understand--on an emotional level--Ida Mae’s love of flying. How? Because we know it’s in the air that she feels closest to her father, who taught her to fly his crop duster before he died in a farm accident.

And we understand on an emotional level, too, the unfairness of a society that treats people differently simply because of the color of their skin.

It isn’t easy to build a bond of sympathy between character and reader, but it’s crucial if you want to develop a character who can touch your reader's heart.

For more on developing sympathetic characters, visit:
http://www.deannacarlyle.com/articles/springboard.html
http://www.svic.net/pearl/sympathy.html
http://www.amypadgett.com/2006/09/creating-sympathetic-characters.html
http://bethestory.com/2006/01/16/the-power-of-sympathy
http://character-development.suite101.com/article.cfm/fix_unsympathetic_characters
http://writing-about-writing.blogspot.com/2008/07/creating-sympathetic-characters.html
http://bookintheoven.blogspot.com/2009/01/creating-sympathetic-characters.html

For more on Sherri L. Smith and her work, visit:
http://www.sherrilsmith.com/

For more on Flygirls, visit:
http://www.readingrants.org/2009/01/10/flygirl-by-sherri-l-smith/
http://writingya.blogspot.com/2009/01/guest-blogger-sherri-l-smith-on-passing.html
http://theyayayas.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/sherri-l-smith-on-flygirl/