Helpful Habits of a Professional Writer: A Guest Post with Creator and Editor Erin Akiko Shishido
It is Halloween night, about 11:50 pm, and around the table where I am seated are twenty-seven writers bent over laptops in a Perkin’s diner. The din of the eatery seems to insulate in the deafening sound of twenty-seven big stories conjured to life by twenty-seven creative minds. Each year, November first, marks the birthday of new stories across the world because NaNoWriMo has begun.
National Novel Writing Month started as a challenge for writers to air out those important, cooped up stories for the world to enjoy. But writing a novel in a month is no small task. In the years following the first online competition something bigger has grown: a strong, team-oriented force in favor of story publication.
This month as I and many of you are working on completing a novel, I sought the advice and solidarity of a NaNoWriMo winner, Erin Akiko Shishido. This long time professional of the publishing industry also has a bright creative streak. Her passion and vision for a good story is only matched by her developed professionalism. I learned a thing or two from her as we emailed back and forth about approaching your dream from multiple angles.
Erin is well on her way to becoming the new author we all are dashing to the bookstores to buy from. Until then enjoy her encouraging words and go full throttle in discovering your own dream and putting in the hustle to attain it.
MK: How did you get started writing?
ES: It was the time of vampire novels, when I first started college and had a lot of free time in between classes. One day I decided to start writing my own because I felt some were quite bad. I wrote a few chapters and decided to enroll in some creative writing courses. When I transferred colleges, I found my place in creative writing. After I won third place in a schoolwide fiction contest, I knew I had the potential to pursue writing.
But I knew early on that I wouldn’t enjoy writing if I had to rely on it for a career. So I found my passion in editing. There, I could still use my writing skills to help others and editing would help my writing process as well. I was still in the publishing world—closer to it, in fact.
MK: What is the best part of collaborating with other writers, as an editor and designer?
ES: I love working with people who are just as passionate about their projects as I am about my own. It’s so important that writers trust their editors because we’re only looking out for the manuscript’s and the author’s best interest. As a writer myself, I understand how much work has been put into these manuscripts and it’s my job as an editor and designer to help improve it to be the best that it can possibly be.
MK: How was it you came to learn editing was not enough, that you needed to write too?
ES: Early on, I noticed I would become discouraged if I worked too much on others’ projects and not on my own. I fell into a slump. I didn’t feel productive even though I was constantly working. I saw a therapist for about a month until we concluded that I didn’t feel productive because I wasn’t writing. I was spending too much time helping others achieve their dream that I was neglecting my own. I would never feel accomplished until I publish my own book. That’s how I know I can never stop writing.
MK: Is there something you must avoid which is known to zap your creativity?
ES: My editing work is sort of weird in that it inspires me to write but it also zaps my creative energy. If I’m working all day editing someone’s manuscript, the last thing I want to do after that is work on my own stuff. That’s why I have designated days to do work and to write.
I believe writer’s block exists, but I don’t like the advice of putting it away until inspiration strikes. There are many times I feel “blocked”—that’s the only way to explain it. But I force myself to show up and work through the block. It’s important to show up and do the work because you never know what’s going to happen. Nothing’s going to get done if you don’t show up.
MK: Working through the down time is a helpful suggestion for anyone with creative interests. What inspiration do you reserve for your personal writing?
ES: My inspiration comes mostly from music. The project I’m working on right now was based on one song and it grew into two novels.
MK: Wow, from one song! A few years back you took on the 50,000 words in a month NaNoWriMo challenge. And you won! Talk us through your experience of condensing your big story down into a manuscript in one month.
ES: At the start, I had already decided I was going to win—there was no question about it. I felt that winning NaNoWriMo was like a writer’s rite of passage.
But it was hard! Before you begin, you’re like 50,000 words isn’t that much. Just 1,667 words a day. The first week goes pretty well, maybe you’re even ahead. Then a weird thing happens…on that tenth day you start to feel it. You lose steam. Life starts to happen, because time doesn’t stop in November. You’ve missed a day or two—and trust me, those 1,667 words start to add up. In the third week, you’ve gotten used to it and things are starting to flow again…just in time for the Thanksgiving festivities in the fourth week. After you’ve come out of your food coma at the end of the week, it’s panic time because you realize you only have a few more days left. There’s actual physical pain as you try to force words out—you’ve written everything you could possibly think of.
I didn’t have a plan, per se. But I think something really special happened because of that. During that day ten struggle, I started writing backstory. Going forward wasn’t happening and so I went backwards. What was born during that time was my current book, the prequel to the original project. So I not only came out of NaNoWriMo 2017 as a winner, but with two books.
NaNoWriMo is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of determination, stamina, and hard work. Would I do it again? Maybe. I make it a priority to write every week, so I don’t feel the need to binge write. I don’t think it’s in me to do that. But it’s something I highly recommend every writer to attempt. There’s so much to learn from that experience. You get to see how far you can push yourself. You see how much support you have from friends, family, and fellow writers. Most importantly, it gets you into the habit of sitting down and writing.
A funny thing happens on December first for NaNoWriMo writers…they don’t have any word count left, but there’s still a lingering feeling to sit down and write.
MK: What are a few ways you connect to your fictional characters in order to make them relatable to readers?
ES: I think the key to relating to someone is to understand them. Empathy is huge factor in relatability. Because I write contemporary Young Adult, I write very ordinary characters. Nobody’s doing anything heroic, nobody is really special. That’s pretty relatable, for starters.
In order to make your characters relatable, I believe the key to that is to show the “whys.” Why does this character wear his backpack that way? Why does this character respond to that question like that? Why does this character choose not to do the right thing? I believe that every single thing a writer puts in should have some kind of weight to it. Every piece has a deeper meaning.
As the writer, you need to know the backstory in order to write your characters as genuine as possible. I am a firm believer in backstory, but not when it’s just dumped into the story. A friend once told me you have to write everything that happened, then kill it, and let their ghosts haunt the story.
MK: Erin, your experience as a copy editor and writer has really encouraged us. Thank you so much for the helpful tips and good luck finishing your series. We cannot wait to read the books. For more information about Erin and the work she is accomplishing every day, visit her Business Page on Facebook. She also sent over a list of her top favorite reads for when you need a little distraction from life.
Erin Akiko Shishido is a writer, editor, and designer. Born and raised in Hawaii, she left home to pursue a BA in English with a writing concentration and a minor in graphic design from Azusa Pacific University. Now a military spouse, Erin is a freelance editor for Watermark Publishing in Honolulu, HI. She is a proud alumna of the 2016 Yale Writers’ Conference and the 2016 Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Currently, she is working on a YA contemporary two-book series and is participating in the John Truby Online Story Apprentice Program. Erin survives on sushi, video games, and pop punk. She lives in Washington with her husband and their cat, Shadow.
Erin sent along a few of her favorite fiction titles as well as a book to help writers as they prepare for tackling a wordy project. Follow the links on the books below to secure your copy of a new read today!
