I write. I always excelled at writing. In a different version of my life, I stayed in the challenging school system where I started, was pushed to excel, and found a mentor who guided me into a writing career before I graduated. You already know my name.

In this version of my life, I spent the last three years of high school in a small town school where the guidance counselor apologized because they didn’t have a decent English teacher. I was fifteen and thought she was weird. I had fun and life took an entirely different path with many moves, careers, and relationships. Life’s been interesting – and it’s all material.

In 2005 I was paid to revise a screenplay. In 2007 I self-published my first novel and I’ve been editing and helping others self-publish since 2013. My short stories, novels, and screenplays have been finalists or honorable mentions in Kindle Book Awards, Emerging Screenwriters, Sacramento International Film Festival, Amazon Breakout Novel Awards, Writer’s Digest International Self-Publishing Book Awards, Writer’s Digest Short Story Writing Competition, and the Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. An art book I edited and designed was runner up in the San Francisco Book Festival Photography/Art category.

With the book I’ve just launched, I’m focusing on doing a better, more sustained effort at marketing. That has included figuring out the unifying factors in my novels: They’re stories with strong, propulsive plots and engaging characters – with substance to fuel conversation.

What inspires your writing themes (either as a whole or for each book)?

(SM): While writing a gripping story with characters that stay with you is the structure, I do slide in themes that fuel conversation, too. The inspiration always comes from real life one way or another, and resilience is always a factor. My family and I have had a variety of experiences; I’ve worked with at-risk adults, children, and teens in different ways; and people talk to me. I’ve had a stranger give me their life story in a fifteen-minute bus ride. 

All for One: Love, War, & Ghosts – the first draft was completed in 1981, when Vietnam vets were experiencing a lot of problems and a lack of support. I didn’t recognize a positive rejection from an NYC agent as encouragement to work on it. When I got back to it decades later, I wanted to check on some details – and had trouble finding any Vietnam vets who wanted to talk. Knowing the problems didn’t just go away with time made me decide to have my characters age before the scary stuff begins. 

Running Away: Maggie’s Story – when I got my first check for writing in 2005 and decided to take writing seriously, her issues were more pressing. I’d worked with many girls who’d been molested but either didn’t think anyone would believe them or they’d misbehaved in anger so much that no one would believe them. The story is told in her voice and her mother’s to show how communication got broken and mends. 

Peg’s Story: Detours is her mother’s story. Readers asked for it because the mom mentioned she’d run away at the same age and her parents thought she was dead for ten years. I did some meandering in my twenties and thought her story would be like that, until the character took over at the bus station and shocked me. I put it away, embarrassed that someone might think it was about me. Then I saw an interview program with women who were putting their lives together after being trafficked, and I realized that was her story. 

Tough Times started life as Michael Dolan McCarthy, which was a terrible title for a book geared for teenage boys. Michael’s just a regular kid whose life falls apart one piece at a time, but he toughs it out and takes responsibility for his young white siblings – the kind of character my “tough” students would understand. Making race the reason they’ve never met his mom’s parents was just one more layer and brings in family communication issues again.

Alice is a quite short novel. A group in Vancouver puts on a 3-Day Novel Contest every year. I entered the weekend with an idea of a situation with the bank, because that sort of thing was common at that point, and the three main characters in mind. Once Jack, Alice’s father, showed up, the two of them started dictating the dialogue in the voices of Helen Hunt and Jeff Bridges. They had me laughing out loud and the initial draft was done by the end of the weekend. Sometimes the characters take over in a fun way. Yet it’s been described as a modern day ethics story.

What was your favorite part of writing All for One: Love, War & Ghosts?

(SM): That’s tough. I enjoy the whole process, even revisions on revisions, braiding the plots together. And the little bits where character show through – like when the bad guy flashes on a moment from his teen years. But overall? It’s a bit mean spirited, but I may have gotten the most satisfaction out of the gossip’s faint.

How would you compare your screenwriting process versus books?

(SM): I tend to be very sparing in my description when I’m writing books – I usually stick to details that are essential to understand something else. That makes converting one of my books into the screenplay relatively easy. You give the essential description before the dialogue and let the producer and director add the rest. In both cases, the characters and the story have got to work.

Your educational background covers a wide array of writing capabilities, from research and grant proposals to fiction and nonfiction. Which would you say is your preferred writing vice and why?

(SM): There is great satisfaction when a non-fiction project makes a substantial difference in lives. However, I’ve been making up stories since I was a little kid, so storytelling is me having fun. I grew up in a house full of adults – I was the oops seven years younger than the after-thought who was seven years younger than the family. The after thought’s train was set up in the attic. I was not allowed to run it, but he trusted me to play with all the little people and buildings. And that’s just one example. My mom and I made up my bedtime stories, I helped write our class plays in elementary school, and I researched my first novel the summer I turned ten…

What piece of advice would you give to women aspiring to become authors?

(SM): Love the process – write, share, revise, repeat. If you love the process, you will produce your best work. If you love the process, success doesn’t hinge on numbers.

Sheri McGuinn is an award-winning writer of fiction with strong, propulsive plots and engaging characters that provide substance to fuel conversation. With Master’s degrees in Education and Professional Writing, she also writes and edits for hire and helps people through the self-publishing process.