Young Writers Society

There was hardly any traffic out, and the night was still and peaceful. Olive turned on the radio, eventually finding an instrumental Christmas station. The song was “Away in a Manger”. It made Olive smile as she sung along.
“When I was four years old, I sang this as a solo in church,” Olive explained. “I’m not making this up, but I remember someone telling my mom ‘she’s going to be a star someday.’” Her eyes were watering. “I know this is going to sound strange but I miss what things were like nobody knew my name. When I was just a kid with a guitar and a notebook and a dream.”

It's the winter of 1990 in suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Olive Sherman is a sophomore in high school, spending all of her free time writing songs, practicing guitar, acting in school plays, and dreaming of something more. She's might be the prettiest girl in school, but she still doesn't quite fit in. Her heart, mind and soul are elsewhere. When she gets an opportunity to perform in a community talent show, she doesn't think much of it. But important people are in the audience.



So, I am still not committing to write a full novel this month, not yet anyway, as it is a big undertaking. But, I know that I want to write this novel, and I know that I have a story here, and at the very least want to spend time figuring out what that story is going to be. When it comes to writing, I am most definitely a pantser. I was forced to outline all throughout college, and I don't like doing it, it doesn't inspire or stoke my creativity.

That being said, there are a few things I want to figure out this month. I posted before about finishing a draft of So Long, Farewell, but that's already done, but the fixes I wanted to make turned out to be a lot easier than I had anticipated, and I want to get feedback before I can do more, and maybe start writing some chapters, or maybe just go full chaos.

A few things I need to figure out:

1) The narrative structure of the book. Right now I'm leaning towards either a third-party biography of Olive. There isn't a equivalent word for "Mockumentary" but for a biography, but yeah, basically that. I don't think I'll want it in first person but I still want to keep things structurally fairly similar to All Our Yesterdays so they feel like they're in the same universe. I get the sense that this a non-linear narrative, I don't think I'll go first but we'll see. I know I want to end in 1998 or 1999 (after the December Star Oscar ceremony, so that Cole isn't even a factor.
2) Olive's rise to fame, and the specifics of her career. All Our Yesterdays is perfectly very non-specific about what Cole's music actually is, and it's less so for Olive. I think she always acted and wrote songs and played guitar. It makes sense that someone like her would get her break a Disney channel type show.

What I know for sure

1) Her daughter, Amelia, is not the first time she was pregnant. I think she probably had an abortion when she was a teenager, but I need to figure out the details of this.
2) She's from a working class, "white trash" family. I need to think about how this would affect her and bleed into her music. I do know that this would essentially be her character's path in December Star, so she'd be able to relate to it for that reason.
3) She has ben through hell in life, and I think was probably sexually assaulted at least once. I want to tread very carefully along social issues
4) She was probably introduced to alcohol and drugs very young
5) Her real name is Olive Sherman. I played with the idea of having her birth name be Olivia or have Olive be her middle name, but honestly, I like the idea of her having a unique and punchy name that showed she was born to be a star.
6) I'm leaning towards her having a Black boyfriend that the parents aren't too thrilled about, who I think is a great love of her life before she meets Ryan (her husband in AoY) and probably her muse for her songs. I think he is "the one that got away" and I want to make sure this portrayed with nuance and depth.

In regards to abortion and SA, I want to be very, very careful about how I tread with this stuff. I don't want to throw it in there for the sake of including social issues, only I know they're things she likely would have experienced, and I want to make sure it's represented properly.

Goals for this month

1) Live in the 90s a bit more -> The One I Loved alternates between 1989 and 1996, and All Our Yesterdays is 1999-2007, and this will be 1990-~1998/99.
2) Figure out the key characters and framing device/structure of the story, and post here as I do for accountability's sake
3) Research more into the personal lives of famous female pop stars, specifically Britney Spears and do some deep dive into fame in general
3) Write some? We'll see!

Anyway, it's going to be fun. It'll be a fun way to further develop this world while also creating something that can completely stand on its own. There's a part of me that feels like maybe I should be doing a completely original work instead of this. However, I also felt guilty for going so deep into the Eagle Rock world when I wrote the two sequels instead of something else. If anything I think this world is going to be stronger for it, like that series is.

I'm also still making it my goal to finish a draft of the feature adaptation! 42 pages in. Let's go! Whatever happens with all of this, I'm submitting the novel to the editor in January and publishing next summer. Things are going to happen no matter what.

More to come...

All Our Yesterdays Stuff
Cole's poetry
Pinterest
Main Spotify
Olive's Mixtape
Which All Our Yesterdays character are you?

Okay, so the more I think about this the more I like the idea of this being mock biography. Not sure if the author would be a character, or able to be a character, but it depends on when the book was "written". I might have to push it to be a little more recent. Even if I do include Cole, I'd be so nonchalant about it that it could still stands its own. I think there's a very natural arc of Olive from obscurity to Oscar win, so, we'll see.

I will add to this list.

The Characters
Olive Sherman - A singer, songwriter and actress, an ardent fan of Disney princesses and fairytales. She's the prettiest girl in school, but she doesn't really fit in. Everyone knows there's something different about her, that she's meant to follow a different path.

Isaac Mellender - A classmate of Olive's and her love interest. From a middle class family, he's on the football team and an aspiring actor himself. In present day, he works at an accounting firm. Olive's song have always had that personal touch, as if they were about someone. In Cleveland, the trail quickly leads to Isaac.

Erik Sherman - Olive's older brother. A musician himself, Olive takes up the guitar because she wants to be more like him. Gifted at math and science, he gets a scholarship to Ohio State and goes to study there.

Nora Sherman - Olive's younger sister. A tennis player and all around gifted athlete, Olive and Nora are close when they're younger and start to drift apart as the two get older. The sisters are fiercely competitive.

Julie Kaminski - Olive, Erik and Nora's mother. She and their father divorced when Olive was four. She works an administrative job at a local school.

Russ Sherman - Olive, Erik and Nora's father. He works a corporate executive job in Chicago. Other than regular child support checks, he is estranged from the family.

As I posted about on my wall I've been doing some important plotting. This is the revised passage from All Our Yesterdays.

I couldn’t help but smile back at her. Olive was a very public Disney fan.To the rest of the world, she was about close a real life Disney Princess as one could. Born to a working class family in Cleveland, she was plucked from obscurity at a talent show when she was just sixteen. Her performance of “Feed the Birds” was the stuff of legend. Not only could she sing and play guitar, but could write, too. Ever since then, she’d been a star. She’d always spoken about how Disney had saved her life and gotten her to believe in magic. It was a little thing that always made her feel more relatable to girls like me.

One thing I did figure out, this is for sure going to be a mock biography. I might have to say that was "written" in present day, but that means I'll at least to have a scene with Cole, as the two would have stayed friends. Writing him as older adult could be an interesting exercise. Besides, the perspective on events will be different enough that I don't worry about retreading the same round. If Marcy is mentioned at all, it's going to be a very passing "my girlfriend at the time".

Things I've been reflecting on more (since, like I said, I don't outline, but a lot of my planning is sitting with my characters and figuring out what they have to tell me)

Part I

1. Olive was very close to her older brother, Erik, who got her into music and teaches her how to play the guitar. He abandons his dreams to pursue a stable career in math/science (need to figure out exactly what this would be). She has a more complicated relationship with her younger sister, Nora.
2. At some point, Olive visits her father in Chicago, and it's uncomfortable.
3. Start off with a description of Cleveland, and possibly the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (there's a reason I have Olive from there). Short interviews with the people knew Olive in high school talking about how driven she was, even then.
4. Establish the relationship between Isaac and Olive, which starts off very innocently and sweet at first and then complicates as Olive starts to get noticed.

What I need to figure out: What Olive's artistic pursuits look like at this stage, since I want the talent show to feel like the endpoint of a journey rather than an overnight thing

Part II

Still in the early stages, but I think Olive is put in a supporting role in an iCarly/Hannah Montana-esque TV show that needs a singer, and from then on, quickly blows up. Her alcoholism would start around then as well, though she was probably introduced to do it back in Ohio.

I'm really excited to discover what comes of this!

I'm always impressed with how much you can write within each of the worlds of your stories! I am OBSESSED with the idea of a mock-biography style book. 10/10

3) Research more into the personal lives of famous female pop stars, specifically Britney Spears and do some deep dive into fame in general

Perfect timing with the release of her memoir!!

Best of luck this NaNo!!

I am... going back and forth on whether or not I'm going to officially declare. On one hand, it might be the best thing for my mental health to dive into a project like this.

THE WRITER: This is a thing I'm really going to need to figure out. In the two third music person bios I've read intimately, the writer is a character. Plus, if I made the writer a character I could do a little "foreword" or something like that. Or, usually there are guest forewords, I could have Cole do it, but regardless! I need to figure out who the "writer" of this is". My thinking is that the book would have been written in 2021/2022-ish, but it probably makes the most sense to be a completely new character unrelated to anyone else. While a completely different field, there's something really compelling that Into the Wild does where it's clear that Jon Krakauer feels a spiritual connection to Chris McCandless, which explains why he's so called to tell a story of someone he never met. Maybe something similar could work here. The thing is, either the writer should probably be an established journalist, or they'd have to be someone connected to this world (ie, to get interviews with everyone, and also be respected), ideally a family member or someone close.

I toyed with the idea of having it be Nora, her younger sister, but that might be too similar to something else.

Spoilers for Daisy Jones and the Six


STRUCTURE

This is going to be divided into parts. Part I will be Olive's early life.

The writer will travel to her hometown/suburb and interview:
-- Her siblings (Nora and Erik) and her mother
-- Her dad will have refused to be interviewed for this for reasons that will crystallize throughout the story
-- Isaac Mellender, her first love, will also be interviewed

Summary: Olive is a bright, bubbly and friendly teenager, even if her head is in the clouds. She's always acting in the school plays, listening to music and practicing guitar, and doesn't really have friends. She starts lessons, but they have to cut them because of money. Erik takes over and teaches her how to play, and the two bond about music. Out of time, she plays a lot of Connie Francis, Lesley Gore and Carpenters, and has a beautiful singing voice. At school, she meets and starts getting closer to football player Isaac Mellender. The two start dating, but their relationship is fraught with tension. Olive finds out about a local talent show, where she performs "Feed the Birds". A record executive hears her, is entranced, and wants to meet to discuss her future.

Part II/III

??? - TBD

Day 1: 1773 words

So far, I am feeling good. That being said, as inspired as I am, the biography format isn't the most conducive to writing a lot in a short period of time. I felt like I was in flow as I was writing and even then it slowed me down. But, oh well. It's good to me right now, but who knows how I am going to feel by the middle of the month. It's been a hot minute since I've actually read the type of biography I'm trying to reproduce so there's probably going to be some inaccuracies/stretches, but that will be a revision problem. I wrote the Foreword from Cole, the author's note, and a good chunk of Chapter 1!

I've decided the writer is Angie, Kelsey's partner/eventual wife in All Our Yesterdays. I wanted her to be someone connected to the events and Angie is the natural answer because she's the only character that's the right age to write a book like this. Plus, she's disconnected enough from everything to look at it objectively, but she also has the connections to make something like this happen as a passion project. I think I'm probably just going to have to add some sort of line in AoY about Angie also being a writer and being excited to see Olive live in her scene at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade.

Excerpt from Cole's foreword.

Congrats on getting your word count for day 1! I love that you included a foreword from another character; it's very reminiscent of Taylor Jenkins Reid's style.

Day 2: 3341 Words

This day was a bit more challenging, but hey, I hit goal. A lot of it was sitting the scene, introducing Olive's mother, brother, and her interest in music. I still feel like I'm writing more slowly than I would writing a normal novel, but it is what it is. Onwards!

Day 3: 5046 Words

I introduced Isaac. This one's going to a big chapter.

Day 4: 6669 Words

Added to the scene with Isaac, and I'm still not close to being done. I wasn't kidding about saying it was going to be big. Then, I skipped ahead to when Angie finally does interview Olive, which won't be until later into the book, and added more of her personal reflection/a framing narrative. How good is this is as a biography? Will I do anything with this? No idea, but I have 6669 words that I didn't have four days ago, and I'm positive I can keep going with this. My next few days are going to be pretty open, so I'm hoping I'll even be able to get ahead of goal.

Day 5: 8336 words

Eugh... today was rough. Feeling myself starting to burn out and it's only five days in. I think what it is is that the Ohio stuff is starting to get kind of stale and I'm eager to move on to the next phase of her career. Onwards!

Day 6: 10,437 words

Productive day. It was hard to write emotionally, for a few different reasons.

No excerpt today, but I will share a teaser cover. I want it to look like an actual biography, but still aesthetically similar to what I'm doing for All Our Yesterdays.

Day 7: 12,106 words

Things are getting more interesting. I actually had some discoveries while I was writing, which is always the best feeling.

Day 9: 16,239 Words

Whoops, forgot to update the thread yesterday. But I'm moving along nicely! After getting the good news and finalizing plans to go to Los Angeles in the new year to record her demos, Erik, Olive and Nora visit their father in Chicago for Christmas.

You're AHEAD!!!!