Interview with Melanie Shawn

Books-n-Kisses is pleased to welcome Melanie Shawn to the blog today….

Melanie & Shawn, can you please share with us a little about yourself

We’re a writing team of two sisters, which is a bit unconventional.   Our pen name (Melanie Shawn) is a combination of our two first names, Melanie and Shawna.

Melanie’s the one answering these questions (hey, y’all! :D), but I did ask Shawna for her input on some of the topics where we diverge in taste and opinion.  I guess you could say that she’s a little bit country, and I’m a little bit rock n’ roll when it comes to our literary sensibilities.   My taste in reading materials runs to the grittier side than hers does. 😀

We grew up in a small town in Northern California, about an hour east of San Francisco.   We live in Southern California now, and we are avid collectors of small dogs! 😀

Can you share with us your typical writing day.   Is there anything you have to have while writing?

Well, since Shawna and I are a writing team, it works a little differently. We have perfected a system that really plays to each of our strengths, and works well for us.

We come up with the setting, overarching plot, and characters together.  Shawna then fleshes out the plot, creating the timeline and the individual scenes that take place within the plot.  She writes an incredibly detailed accounting of each scene – what happens,  what people are thinking about, what their motivation is, what they’re saying to each other.

I then take that and write the scenes into prose.

Finally, we edit the book jointly!

Have you always wanted to be an author?

Yes, I’ve always wanted to be an author, from the time I was a kid.  However, life got in the way, and it took me until I was in my late thirties to put out my first book.

I was very inspired by author Marc Acito, whose debut novel How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater is one of my favorite books of all time.  He wrote the early draft longhand, in his car, in moments that he was able to steal between sales calls at his day job. When I found that out, it really sunk in to me that it DOES NOT MATTER what else you have going on in your life – if you can even steal five minutes to write a couple of sentences, then you can move your book along a couple of sentences at a time!

The real magic came, though, when Shawna and I started working together.  It would NEVER have happened without her!  I’m a super artsy type – I sort of float along in my creative process, starting new things when ideas occur  to me and excite me, abandoning old starts when I’m not excited about them anymore.  That’s no way to finish a novel!

Shawna keeps us on track, keeps me upbeat and motivated, and – most importantly – comes up with all the super-awesome, romantic, beautiful scenarios that people love in our stories.

What is your most interesting writing quirk?

Aside from our unconventional writer-team process, I’d say that my other quirk is that sometimes I record my writing into a digital voice recorder and then transcribe/clean up the prose afterward.  It just depends on what feels right for the scene.  Sometimes I think better with my fingers, and sometimes with my voice!

Most challenging or rewarding part of writing?

The most challenging part is sticking to the punishing book-per-month schedule we’ve set out for ourselves.  There are a lot of reasons we decided to come out of the gate strong that way, but the most compelling one is that we have SO MANY stories to tell, ones that we are incredibly passionate about, that we really want to get them out into the world as quickly as possible.  Still,  it takes both of us writing for 8-10 hours per day to meet that deadline, which can be exhausting.

The most rewarding part is definitely the fan reaction to our books.   We are big social media users, and we get such a huge thrill from interacting with readers  who enjoy what we put out!  It’s incredibly satisfying.

Can you please tell us about your latest book?

Our latest book, being released at the end of March, is called Home Sweet Home, and it is the story of Lauren and Ben.  Both of these characters are high-powered real estate professionals, and they both have extremely strong personalities – in fact, they clash at the outset of the story.

They’re both high achievers in a competitive profession, so they are each used to being on top. Their journey brings them to see past the barriers which hold them at arm’s length, and to find out that they really are meant for each other, despite a rocky start.

How did you come with the idea for this story?

Well, first off, even though Lauren and Ben are somewhat antagonistic to one another at the start of the novel, we didn’t want the relationship to be truly hostile.  Shawna and I like our stories to be upbeat and funny.   Even when characters face difficult realities, we don’t want the reader to feel angry and depressed themselves as they move through the story.

Because of that, we were inspired to shape the evolution of their relationship in the direction of a Tracy-and-Hepburn dynamic.  They are a bicker-y and annoyed with one another initially, but in more of a banter-y way than an overtly hostile one.

It’s a departure from the first three books in The Hope Falls Chronicles, where the hero and heroine – while they did each have obstacles to overcome – genuinely liked one another from the start.

Can you share with us your current work in progress?

We are VERY excited to be moving on to a new series after Home Sweet Home!  Don’t worry, though, it’s not the end of The Hope Falls Chronicles. We’ll be returning to Hope Falls in a few months! 😀

The next four books we are putting out are part of our Crossroads series, which is based around the theme of big life changes.  Every character in the series is facing a major decision, a significant crossroads in their life – a move, a career change, etc.

Look for the first four in this series (My First, My Last, My Only, My Everything) to begin being released in April.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

My reading tastes and Shawna’s could not diverge more! 😀

Shawna is the big romance fan between the two of us.  She loves all the contemporary romance greats, people like Carly Phillips, Jill Shalvis, Kristan Higgins, Victoria Dahl, Susan Mallery, Susan Anderson, Lori Foster, Rachel Gibson, Deirdre Martin, Susan Donovan, and Christie Craig.  Her two newest faves are Macy Beckett and Kendall Ryan!

I do enjoy romance, as well – in fact, one of my favorite books of all time is Dancing at the Harvest Moon by KC McKinnon.  The language and the sense of place are so beautiful, and the connection between the characters is quite lovely and delicate.  For the majority of my pleasure reading, though, I will admit to being drawn to mysteries and thrillers. My favorite authors are folks like Michael Connelly, John Sandford, Lee Child, Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, Kathy Reichs, Chelsea Cain, Stephen White, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Jonathan Kellerman, and two authors whose passings I deeply mourned, Robert B. Parker and Stephen J. Cannell.

Do you feel that any of your favorite authors have inspired your writing style?

Here are some of the things that I try to incorporate from writers that I love.  My level of success will be up to the readers to judge! 😀

Michael Connelly: His prose is so spare, yet affecting.  He chooses his words carefully for maximum impact.  He tells a story in the prologue of his book Crime Beat about a homicide detective he was writing about as a reporter.  He noticed that the cop hooked his glasses into his mouth and bit down when he examined the victim, and that his teeth had worn a groove there.  Connelly uses that detail to express the connection that the detective felt with the souls for whom he must get justice – how omnipresent that responsibility was, and how seriously he took it.

I try to look for small character moments like that when I write – chances to have the character do small things that tell a much larger story about who they are.  Letting the reader infer things about a character based on their tiny, seemingly insignificant actions is so much more emotionally impactful, and it’s a skill that I’m sure I will be working to improve until I die!

Elizabeth Berg and Anne Rice: Although very different stylistically, the thing I admire about both women is the lushness of the way they write.  Their descriptions and internal character monologues are delicious.  Diving into one of their books feels like lowering yourself into a warm bubble bath – luxurious, indulgent.  I dream of being able to command language that way!

Caryl Rivers: If you haven’t read her novel Virgins, you are doing yourself a huge disservice! 🙂  What I try to emulate about her writing is her use of humor to move characters forward.  Her books are raucously funny, but the jokes are never there just to get a cheap laugh.  Every funny thing a character says reveals something deeper about who they are, and what they feel about the other characters and the world at large.

Stephen King: I think horror writers and romance writers have this in common – they don’t get taken seriously as true geniuses of contemporary literature, no matter their brilliance, and this is true of Stephen King.  He is utterly mesmerizing.  The thing I try to emulate most about his writing is how he connects the character and the reader nearly instantaneously.   A character may exist in the story for less than a page, but as a reader, you still feel that you know them. They’re memorable.  They’re relatable.  You know who they are.  If they are in danger, you feel the stakes.

What is in your To Read Pile that you are dying to start or upcoming release you can’t wait for?

Here’s another answer for which I’ll separate out my response from Shawna’s. 🙂

Shawna is keen to read Rush by Maya Banks, and Gone Girl by GIllian Flynn.  (Which I’ve been pushing on her since summer! LOL.  But she’s gonna love it!  IT’S SO GOOD!)

As for me, I’ve been (im)patiently waiting for almost two years for the fourth book in Greg Iles’ Penn Cage/Natchez series, The Bone Tree, to be released.  The author was in a car accident (Thank God he’s OK!) and it has delayed the release of the book.  It’s being released, I believe, this December and I’m so excited to read it, I can barely stand it. COME ON, DECEMBER!!!

What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone that wants to get into writing?

I know the common wisdom is “Just write,” and that’s true, but I will go even beyond that.  I would tell them that being a writer is amazing.   It’s better than I ever dreamt it would be.  Are there challenges?  Of course.  But the rewards are worth it.   Sending your writing out into the world, hoping it connects with people, is terrifying.  But scary as it may be, it’s the best feeling in the world when someone reads your book and gets it.  You’ll never experience that if you don’t take the risk.

Lastly, if what is holding you back is the feeling that your voice and your art don’t have a place in the world because they aren’t yet perfect, let me leave you with the wonderful, wise words of This American Life’s Ira Glass:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Learn more about the ladies here: 

Website: http://melanieshawn.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/melanieshawnbooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/melanieshawn

Learn more about the The Hope Falls Series HERE