Who: Amanda Lovelace

Claim To Fame: Amanda Lovelace is the author of the celebrated Women Are Some Kind Of Magic series. She is also the two-time winner of the Goodreads choice award for best poetry, as well as a USA Today & Publishers Weekly bestseller.

Where To Find Amanda: Her Website, Amazon, Twitter

Praise For Amanda: “Amanda Lovelace’s balance of a sharp, hard reality paired with her fearless optimism and unwavering belief in the resilience and strength of herself and all women has me returning to her work again and again and again. Her poems are a powerful testament to self-recovery.” — Courtney Summers, bestselling author of Sadie

When and where do you like to write? Are you the same-thing-every-day kind of writer or can you write anytime, anywhere?

I like to write at home! While I’m blessed enough to have an office in my current house, I do also sometimes write at my dining room table, perhaps out of nostalgia. I wrote my first poetry collection, the princess saves herself in this one, at the dining room table of my childhood home as well as inside my car while I was between college classes.

I’m somewhere between a same-thing-everyday kind of writer and a write-anytime-anywhere kind of writer. I find myself writing down little bits of inspiration throughout the day, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, and then later on I like to sit down at my computer and make sense of it all—whether that means expanding my thoughts into a poem, deciding it doesn’t work after all, or tucking it away for a different project. When I’m on deadline, you bet I’m sitting down to do this exact thing almost every day!

Do you have any pre-writing rituals or habits before you sit down to write?

No matter where I decide to write, I always light a candle to invoke inspiration, and somehow it always works! Perks of being a witch, I guess 😊

What do you do when the writing isn’t coming easy? Do you struggle at all with that dreaded enemy of writing: writer’s block?  

All the time!

People often assume I don’t experience writer’s block because my publishing schedule has been pretty consistent since my debut, but that’s just how it looks from the outside, I promise. I struggle all the time—with ideas, with poems, with narratives, with titles. I try not to see it as a travesty but as part of the overall creative process. If I didn’t have something to work through, I’m not sure the end result would be so satisfying!

In terms of what I do to move past a bout of writer’s block, that really depends! Sometimes I just need to get through it by freewriting a bunch of bad or semi-okay poems, because, if nothing else, I find this really helps me get into the flow of writing again, and the inspiration usually follows shortly thereafter. Sometimes I need to get out there and get re-inspired by reading new books, watching a movie, or going for a walk in nature. Other times, I’ll meditate and pull a tarot card to see what I need to do next.

How do you judge a productive writing day or an unproductive day? What’s the sign of a good day for you?

I call it a good day depending not on the amount of poems I’ve written but if I’m genuinely happy with what I’ve written and where the book is going overall.

On the less inspired days, I give myself brownie points for sitting down at the computer and trying my best. Always go easy on yourself! Writing should be fun, not laborious, but it’s not always going to be easy. Let yourself have a human moment.

What’s your process for editing and refining a poem? When do you know that the poem is finished?

I usually get the bare bones of the idea down and rewrite it (at least 5 times, sometimes more than that) until:

[*] It makes logical sense. (I always try to read it from someone else’s perspective.)

[*] The line breaks capture the tone or the “mood” of the poem. (I always read it aloud!)

[*] I’m convinced it conveys exactly what I was trying to say or the general feeling I was trying to get across.

[*] The poem is written as simplistically as possible, because I truly believe less is more and I favor accessibility above all else!

The poem never feels truly finished until I have a title I’m 100% happy with. Sometimes it comes to me right away, sometimes during self-edits, sometimes during beta edits, sometimes during Serious Editor Edits, or sometimes right before the book is going to print! It’s a dangerous sport, because my titles usually come after the piece in the form of a tagline, so it can make or break the whole thing.

What books or writers have most influenced the way you think and the way you write?

As cliché as it is, the Harry Potter series! Not only did it show me that I could survive my circumstances, but it showed me that I could make my own magic in the form of words. Which is why I dedicated my first book to the boy who lived. 😊

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Write the thing. The world needs it.

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