I fell in love with Laura Wiess’ writing after reading her novel, SUCH A PRETTY GIRL, a gripping story about a young girl attempt to remove herself from past pain that makes an ugly return in her life. Now, Laura is back with a new novel due out in January, LEFTOVERS, and it’s just as powerful and as poignant as SUCH A PRETTY GIRL.

I had the opportunity to ask her a bunch of questions about her writing, her goals, her books, and other LIGHTER things…

Head over to SDGIRL on MYSPACE to read the full version of the interview and to leave a comment.

An excerpt of the interview is below:

::EXCERPT::

SDGirl: Do you have a standard process to your writing? Are you an outliner or a jump-right-in writer?

LW: Hmm, I think I’m more a muller and a stewer (that sounds terrible, doesn’t it?) than an outliner or a jumper. I see or hear something that intrigues me. It sticks in my head, gets mulled over, examined and played with, then it sits and stews. Sometimes it turns out to be nothing, sometimes it becomes only a small part of something bigger, sometimes it grows into the main event and births a main character.

There are always a few wildcards that show up and catch me by surprise, things I only discover as I go along. Weird but true.

What I need is to care desperately about it (whatever *it* is), to love the characters and be dying to discover what kind of story they’ve brought me.

Then I become a jump-right-in writer, and follow wherever they lead.

SDGirl: As a published author, what advice might you offer to writers hoping to get published?

LW: Read and write because you love and need to

Love stories, love details, love ferreting things out, asking questions, exploring answers.

Be open. Try not to box yourself in, thought-wise. No emotion is negative or wrong, all are part of being human.

Bad/challenging things must happen to good characters because if nothing happens, you have no story.

Be willing to keep writing and learning in spite of rejection.

Write the stories you’re passionate about, write characters that make us root for them, laugh and cry with them, make us wish we knew them in real life. Scare us, thrill us, enchant us.

Have fun. Enjoy it.

It’s all about the story.

::END OF EXCERPT::

Want to read the rest? Then come over to SDGIRL on MYSPACE today: http://www.myspace.com/sdgirl_club (or you can go directly to the interview on the blog: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=210537819&blogID=318646718)

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**NOTE: If you are an artist (writer, producers, singer, etc.) that produces works that will appeal to young females – 13 to 18 – then considering e-mail SDgirl about promoting your work on SDGIRL on MYSPACE!!