BY MEGAN OLIPHANT
I have to say I have a really hard time writing a blog post all about me. It may be because I’ve spent most of my life trying to live in the shadows, using what I have to support others: my husband, my children, other writers. I could give help and direction, but it wasn’t about me. It was about them. The shadows are comfortable. In the shadows, you don’t have to shine.
So telling you about me is challenging. I don’t have the education that others have, having dropped out of college after being sexually assaulted. (And yes, I’m okay now.) But not having a Ph.D. or an M.A. or even a B.A. after my name ever kept me from reading. I always have, and always will, read. I love to immerse myself in another world, walk the dusty streets and wonder how I would have reacted in similar situations. A good book is a wormhole to another person’s universe. No wonder when we’re done with a fabulous book, we feel like we know these characters, and sometimes the author, intimately.
As I’ve grown, however, I have learned to be more discriminating. Where in my teens and twenties I always “had to finish the book”, I don’t have time for that anymore. If it doesn’t hold my attention, I have a million other things to do. With a husband, five kids, two cats, my own stories to write, a house (that always seems to have dishes to be cleaned, laundry to be done, and garbages to be emptied), not to mention working here at Xchyler, I am busy. That story better suck me in right away and keep me there, or it goes into the “Eh” pile, never to be opened again. My Kindle is full of these.
I have worked and studied to perfect my craft and my understanding of good writing over the years, however, and found that joining a writer’s group like ANWA (American Night Writers Association) was key to my continued movement forward. You have to be willing to get your writing out to people to see what works and what doesn’t. You may not be ready to send it to an editor or agent or even publish it yourself yet, but you need a second opinion. Or five. Just like you look in the mirror before you leave the house to make sure you don’t have turkey tails or a makeup smear, you need your work mirrored back to you by someone else so you can see the flaws and know where to repair.
No book is perfect. Even the most scrupulous editorial staff will miss a homophone once in a while. But it had better be pretty darn close, because every mistake or slow moving scene or cliche filled character will kick your reader right out of the story. And that’s why I’m here at Xchyler, to help you get that book as close to perfect as we can. And maybe together, we can step out of the shadows.
Unless you’re writing a book about shadows, of course. In that case, welcome home.
Megan Oliphant has studied creative writing since college, taking classes from the founder of LTUE, Marion K. “Doc” Smith at BYU and will attend Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp in late June. Her primary interests are in fantasy, ranging from dark urban to high epic, but she’s a sucker for a good mystery that she can’t guess the ending to before she gets there. She divides her time between reading, writing, and “familying” with her husband and five children in North Carolina.
Megan joined The X Team in May of 2014. Her first project, Accidental Apprentice, by Anika Arrington, is slated for release in September of 2014. She is project lead on Darkness Rising, a young adult fantasy by Elizabeth Lunyou, slated for release in 2015.
