Best Selling Author Angela Ackerman

Angela Ackerman

Your writing thesauruses are such a help to writers, how do you feel knowing that thousands of writers use these resources in their own writing?

It is pretty surreal, and something I may never quite get used to. But it feels wonderful to know that we are helping writers in a very concrete way, and that more are achieving their dreams as a result.

 Do you have any more thesaurus books in the works?

Becca and I are working on two volumes for The Setting Thesaurus. Like our Positive and Negative Trait books, the topic of setting is just too huge to fit in one book. We’re very excited about this collection and have researched the sights, smells, sounds, tastes and textures for nearly 250 different locations. It will be a great resource, I hope. We’re looking to release those in late spring of 2016.

How is it working with your co-writer?

When I think about working with Becca, I really need to use my Emotion Thesaurus because so many good feelings burst out of me. She is a terrific partner, both as a co-author and as a business owner (we own two companies together). We have strengths that really complement one another, which means we are an effective team with a unified vision. I think we make great writerly music together!

How long have you been writing? And how long did it take you to get your first major book contract?

I have been writing since 2007 in the middle grade and young adult area, and then in 2012, Becca and I self-published The Emotion Thesaurus. We followed that up with our Positive and Negative Trait Thesaurus books in 2014. Since choosing self-publishing we have turned down several traditional deals, finding there to be more advantages by remaining in control of our books. That said, we have sold foreign rights for The Emotion Thesaurus to publishers in Korea, Romania and are currently inking a deal with one in Japan.

How long does it take you to write a book?

I would say all told about a year, tip to toe, but it really depends on the content of the book. The Positive and Negative Trait Thesaurus books are deeply rooted in psychology, and so we had to spend a lot of time understanding human behavior and motivation in order to teach it as a character building principle. Likewise, the Setting Thesaurus books require a lot of travel, as Becca and I have tried to visit the locations featured whenever possible to ensure the details are authentic.

What’s your writing work schedule like?

Busy, so busy! I go full out from the morning to later in the evening, juggling book writing, teaching, marketing and getting new projects off the ground. Our most recent one was to take all of our thesaurus collections (the ones in book form and those found at our Writers Helping Writers blog) and create a website to house all the content. One Stop For Writers released October 7th, 2015, a joint collaboration between Becca, myself, and Lee Powell, the creator of Scrivener for Windows. We are so thrilled to see all our descriptive content enhanced and so well organized at our One Stop site, and know this will become a game-changing resource for many writers.

Do you have an interesting writing quirk? If so, what is it?

I write slow. It is such a pain because I have a lot to share, so many books I would love to write. Oh well, slow and steady wins the race, right?

What has been your greatest joy(s) in your writing career?

I absolutely love hearing from writers who have used our books or our site and being told the difference our resources have made in their writing. That will always be the biggest joy for me. But I would say being the international guest speaker this past August in Australia was pretty amazing as well. It was also really neat when foreign rights agents started contacting us. I’ve been lucky and have enjoyed many great moments, too many to name. But I am looking forward to the day when my time opens up a bit and I can get back to my fiction, because this is still my dream.

What has been your darkest moment(s)?

Probably the frustration of being so close to a traditional deal (with my fiction), and still not managing to get one. It is hard when you do everything right, you have an agent, your book is going to acquisitions, and you still don’t leave with a contract. However, that was the old Angela. The new one has realized that the need for that type of validation is really harmful, and I know that no matter what happens with my fiction moving forward, I’ll never end up in that same dark place again.

Which of your books is your favorite?

Such an unfair question, ha-ha. This is like asking a mother which child is her favorite. I think The Emotion Thesaurus will always be special because it was my first, but I know The Negative Trait Thesaurus holds the most value for elevating one’s writing craft. There is a lot of meaty content in that one. So I’m going to say it’s a tie between those two.

Who is your favorite author to read?

Again, I have many, but I really enjoy Martina Boone (Compulsion), Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke and Bone), and Rick Riordan (his Percy Jackson Series).

What advice can you give aspiring writers that you wished you had gotten, or that you wished you would have listened too?

Please don’t be in a rush to publish. There are so many books out there to compete with, so to succeed you need to really hone your writing first. Take the time to read, write, and study the craft so your first book shines on the shelf.

What is the single greatest tool you believe a writer should have in his or her toolbox?

One Stop For Writers, definitely. We’ve only just started adding to this online library, but already it is a powerhouse of writing information geared to help people elevate their storytelling. With so many resources in one place, writers will become stronger quicker, and spend less time trying to find the right details for a story and more time actually writing it.

Where do you get your ideas?

For fiction, it often starts with a sound, or a smell or something sensory. A plastic bag caught on a branch, flapping in the wind. The scrape of dead leaves being pushed across the sidewalk. The smell of cinnamon. For me these things will trigger a flash, an image of a scene to come, and there’s this feeling that there’s a great story there if I dig at it.

For our thesaurus books, I simply think about what writers need most, and what I need most! And then I seek to build it.

 

Bio:

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach, international speaker and co-author of several bestselling writing books, including The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression. She loves building communities, and her newest project, One Stop For Writers, is a powerhouse online library like no other, filled with description and brainstorming tools to help writers elevate their storytelling. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook and at her website, Writers Helping Writers.

http://writershelpingwriters.net/author/angela/