Sharon Poppen - Creating Characters: The Heart of Storytelling

In this engaging conversation, Sharon Poppen shares her journey as a writer, from her childhood storytelling experiences to her development as an author. She discusses the importance of character development, drawing inspiration from her life and family, and how writing has served as a means of personal growth and expression. Sharon emphasizes the value of writing groups for feedback and support, and offers practical advice for aspiring writers, encouraging them to write daily and pursue their passion without delay.

Quote:

"Don't wait until you're old. Do it now."

Takeaways: 

• Writing groups provide valuable feedback and support.
• Self-publishing allows authors to share their stories more easily.
• Understanding different perspectives is crucial in writing.

Resources:

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Sharon-Poppen/author/B004OZSQ26?

Books: 

• After the War, Before the Peace: https://www.amazon.com/After-Before-Peace-Sharon-Poppen/dp/1401065465/
• Regardless: https://www.amazon.com/Regardless-Sharon-Poppen-ebook/dp/B0716W914T/

Chapters

• 0:00 The Genesis of a Writer
• 3:20 Character Development and Inspirations
• 6:16 The Evolution of Writing Style
• 8:35 Life Experiences and Their Influence on Writing
• 11:11 Understanding Perspectives Through Writing
• 14:12 The Role of Writing in Personal Growth
• 16:44 Creating Relatable Characters
• 19:14 The Impact of Writing on Readers
• 21:50 The Power of Empathy in Storytelling
• 24:32 Writing as a Tool for Understanding Life
• 27:42 The Journey of a Writer
• 35:16 The Value of Writers' Groups
• 44:26 Daily Writing Practices and Discipline
• 54:40 Tips for Aspiring Writers
• 59:14 WWW Outro

Transcript

Jane Jones (00:29)

Good morning, everyone. We have with us this morning, Sharon Poppin. She was born in Chicago, Illinois. She's lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Simi Valley, and Livermore, California. She currently lives in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, after retiring from a career in telecommunications. Sharon received a graduate degree in English Studies from Mojave Community College. She is an award-winning author with multiple published novels, short stories, and poetry, and holds workshops on journaling, short story writing, and blogging. Good morning Sharon, how are you today?

Sharon Poppen (01:10)

I'm great, and how are you?

Jane Jones (01:12)

I'm very well. Welcome to We Women Writers. We're really thankful for your time and your generosity in sharing some of your writing story with us today. 

Sharon Poppen (01:21)

Thank you. 

Jane Jones (01:23)

Excellent. Let's get started. So, I'll jump in, and the question I'll ask is, please tell us about your writing story.

Sharon Poppen (01:32)

Well, I've always loved to write. When I was a kid, we played paper dolls, and we kind of imitated or tried to copy what our mothers were listening to on the soap operas on the radio. And we had these little stories going, and it was so much fun. It was four or five of us girls. And one day, I had to be gone for something. I don't remember what, something with family. And when I came back, I said, So what happened in the story? And they went, well, we tried, but you're the one that comes up with the ideas. So, we're where we were before you left. And that made me think, know, wow, I'm the one that comes up with the ideas. That kind of moved me along. And then when I got a little bit older, I started. I don't know whether I want to say, these people came to me, but when I do my classes, I say, writers are sometimes, we hear voices. These are good voices. They don't go out and tell us to shoot somebody, but we have voices in our head that say, Tell my story, tell my story. Well, slowly but surely over the years, the story of these four boys in the South came to me and during my first marriage and my years of being single, when I was bored at night, I would sit there at my typewriter and I would go on with the story because these guys would tell me, I need to do this, I need to do that. And I really never did anything with it. It was more for my enjoyment. Like, instead of watching a TV show, I was creating my own in my own house there. And so then I went and I signed up, my husband and I retired. And after two years or a year and a half of being together, we decided that we either had to get jobs, go to school, or kill each other because 24 hours togetherness was just way too much. So, I decided I'd never been to college. So, I decided I'm going to go to college. And I signed up for English class, and I was very lucky to have some wonderful teachers that were really good about motivating me. And very quickly, I had this one teacher tell me, you know, you have a little bit of talent, you have a way of telling a story. So I went on with it, and I was having trouble ending the first book that happened to be, I call it “After the War, Before the Peace.”

I was having trouble. And so, one of my classes, the teacher said, Okay, for our term paper, here's what yours is going to be, Sharon. You're going to write the last chapter of your book. And I said, No I can't do that. I can't do that. She said, Yes, you are. So I sat down and I wrote the last chapter, and at least luck would have it. It really did motivate me to connect it. And then it ended up as a complete book.

And I can't thank her enough. I wish I could remember her name. She moved away, and she was a marvelous teacher. And that was the end of my first book. And I can't tell you after I had to publish how motivational that was to me that these guys actually became real to me, you know.

Jane Jones (05:09)

Okay, as in through the writing, through the writing in the years you were writing this, but it was when you were at college that they actually became real.

Sharon Poppen (05:21)

They were real always. They were always real. 

Jane Jones (05:22)

They were real, okay.

Sharon Poppen (05:23)

And I think a lot of it had to do is my mother was divorced, and she moved back in very, when I was preschool with my grandparents. And at the time, my grandparents had my mother, her sister, who became like a big sister to me, and my grandmother, and her, my grandfather, and their three teenage sons. And my uncles were, absolutely the greatest guys in the whole world. And I really think that that had something to do with my guys in my book, that I was recreating my uncles. And I think that had a lot to do with it. And I can see in my various characters, my uncle Charlie, my uncle Richie, my uncle Ray, and various characters. And so I think that was the beginning of it was my uncles motivated me.

Jane Jones (06:18)

I think what we're doing is we're looking at the genesis of these this these first books that you had. And, and so looking back through for over your life, they started at when you were little going to these groups of women where you guys are essentially, you're creating characters, you're creating little experiences.

Could you explore a little bit that experience and what you did, what were the stories like, and tell us a little bit about that experience of creating those stories when you were little.

Sharon Poppen (06:52)

First of all, I'm what they call an omniscient writer. I write in the thoughts of all my characters. I don't write mysteries. I don't write sci-fi. I don't want things where my reader is gonna say, Ooh, I wonder what that means. No, mine are going to be, you know exactly what Michael's thinking. You know exactly what Jim is thinking. And you know the people that they're reacting to, what they're thinking because I want to create characters that get into people's soul. Some of my favorite writers are Leon Uris. I'm having a brain flake now, but Leon Uris is one of my favorites, and the one, Mitchner, those are people that when you finish their books, they've told you a story. It's a wonderful story, but the reality is Shakespeare ruined it for all of us. He told every story there is to tell. So, you know, mystery, comedy, suspense, whatever, he wrote them all. So, what I think we writers have to do now is take those plots that Shakespeare left us with and create our own room of characters. And that's kind of what I did with mine is you know, I just, I loved watching them come to grips with the fact that they were no longer wealthy plantation owners. It had all been destroyed in the Civil War. So how were they gonna, how were they gonna find any peace in their life? How were they gonna find any love in their life? How were they gonna become cowboys instead of Southern gentlemen? And so every time I would think about them, those thoughts would come to my mind.

Jane Jones (08:35)

Okay, so that's in writing the the books, right, with the three brothers, okay? So, when you were, what kinds of stories were you telling when you were little that the other kids couldn't continue with?

Sharon Poppen (08:54)

Boyfriend, girlfriend stuff, something from like the soap operas. Suzy liked Tommy, and then Tommy, she saw him flirting with Joani. They were all innocent. Radio in those days, everything was quite innocent. And those were the kind of stories that we were doing in our paper doll things.

Jane Jones (09:15)

Gotcha. So, these were coming from the radio shows that you were listening to, that you heard. And so, when all these ladies would get together and you would play all the kids all together, and then you would make up your own stories, you weren't recreating the soap operas, the radio things. You were creating your own. Okay. So you were taking something in that you had experienced, and you were now recreating something else, which is the same thing, now to come full circle around. You have this experience with your uncles, and you're now recreating them in these books. Yes. But they're different. They're some of the things that they're doing. Yeah.

Sharon Poppen (09:57)

As my uncles were born and raised in Chicago, and you know, they had different jobs and stuff. And my boys were from South Carolina, and they were plantation, you know, it's totally different from my uncles. But the way they handle things was very similar.

Jane Jones (10:16)

So the real life comes out, there's these, real, the deeper I'm going to want to say, comes out in the writing and that deeper in the characters, that comes through in multiple people, multiple situations in life and the challenges that they face like you say with Shakespeare, we're recreating in lots of different ways, but in different characters, the same things that he wrote about. 

Sharon Poppen (10:50)

Yeah.

Jane Jones (10:51)

And, okay, for the listeners in listening to your story, and you're playing this game as a child. How did that move through your school years?

Sharon Poppen (11:11)

Well, by the time we were out of grade school, we were no longer playing paper dolls, and we were in school. It was probably when I was in my adolescence, when I first realized there was boys in the world. And you get attracted, and you see this one and that one, and how boys and girls relate to each other. I think that's how eventually I began to think, huh, I wonder what it would be like. And then these characters started coming to me, you know, the oldest kind of ruled his three younger brothers in a nice way, but he ruled. And I could see my grandpa as he got older, how the boys kinda, you know, still respected grandpa in every way, but they became their own men. And I think that's how, when these characters started coming to me, that's what I did is, I wanted them to find some happiness in their life, and so all the things that they had to go through.

Jane Jones (12:20)

Okay, so you these boys these writing about these boys situations and life that that is your that's the one thread that's throughout your writing journey. That they these boys stayed with you. When did they when did they show up?

Sharon Poppen (12:37)

Oh, probably right after I got married. Yeah, right after I got married and I had some time to think, and all of a sudden I liked everything. I liked Westerns, and I liked country music, listening to country music, and the stories that they all told. All of a sudden, I'm thinking, here's the South and here's these guys, and how are these men? And I think it was probably helping me understand men when I was going through a period of time trying to become a wife and a mother and all of that kind of stuff.

Jane Jones (13:22)

Okay, so these boys show up when you are married, and life was a little bit difficult learning to be a mother and a wife, and that can be quite challenging, or that is actually. Now you talked about when you were going into middle school, or what is now called middle school, or junior high, and then going into high school, there's all of these experiences. Were you writing at that time?

Sharon Poppen (13:50)

No, I really wasn't. No, I really wasn't. I had a wonderful childhood where everything seemed perfect to me. My life was basically perfect. I had the best grandparents, the best aunts and uncles, everything. And as I'm going through, I see other families with their problems. Especially when I got into high school, and all these different things that were going on in various people's lives. And I started realizing maybe life isn't perfect. Maybe there are things that, you know, and then when I got married and I had time to really think about it, I think I started putting it all together that there's good things in life and there's bad things in life, and it's how you cope with them.

Jane Jones (14:39)

Okay, so because there's gonna be a great number of listeners and, you know, me included, who have different degrees and situations that happen in life from a very young age that are not perfect, that can be really awful and horrible. And so, you have this experience which is just, for me, it's just like, man, somebody had it perfect. So, like, yes, it was like, could have been, but it wasn't for a lot of people. But you were able to take your experience of this idyllic life as a child, even though kind of it wasn't idyllic, your mom was divorced, and you moved back in with grandma and grandpa. And there was somebody else, because your uncles were there. There was a brother or a sister there with their kids.

Sharon Poppen (15:33)

No, just that my mother, when I was nine, remarried and she married one of the most wonderful men that you would ever want to know. He took my brother and I on, like, it was wonderful. And in fact, he's buried up in Needles. He and my mother are buried up in Needles, California, which is about a half an hour away from me. And on his birthday, and her birthday, and Christmas, I go visit them.

And when I was talking about finding out that your life's not perfect, here I have these uncles and grandpa, and we did stuff together. and never was I ever in any doubt of how men were good people. And I was in high school one time, and I think I was like in the 11th or 12th grade. And the girls at the table, we were having lunch, one said, if my stepfather walks in on me one more time when I'm not dressed or touches my, and he says, I'm sorry. I'm gonna, and blah, blah, blah, she went on, and my eyes are wide open. I'm going, people do that? Men do that? And that was a real shock to me that life is not perfect.

Jane Jones (16:44)

And that happens a lot. And unfortunately, that's the way a lot of the world is. 

Sharon Poppen (16:56)

Absolutely.

Jane Jones (16:56)

But you have this experience where you're just gobsmacked, surprised, like, wow, that really happens, because that never happened to you. You just would never even enter your mind. You then take...all of these experiences, and you said that you're able to look at life is not perfect, but now how do people deal with that? But you didn't write about it at the time. It was just something you're just going through these experiences and living through and learning more. And then you get married and now you're like, yeah, this is difficult, and without going into anything that was unhappiness or anything, but you're able to now take all of that idyllic life and then this experience, although, it wasn't your direct experience. You're looking at it and you're seeing other people. Now you're going, how do people make a life for themselves of their own choosing now out of those experiences? And then you start to do that through these boys. And it occurs to me that you are writing about these boys and the experiences they're going to have. And, but you're writing about them from the characters and the experience of your uncles, which each individual, and I'm going to take a leap here, but a person can look at their life and find a way to find the part of them that is wanting to find another way, another expression of life.

Sharon Poppen (18:52)

I don't think that ever happened to me. I was happy with what I had. And like I say, when I read my books and I read these different things, I guess I loved to see the good side of people. And then when I started learning more about the Civil War and more about war, and then I ended up with my divorce from my first husband after eight years. And I began to see that life is not always good. And that kind of helped me with develop my characters as they went along. I had one that was, he just was like the boss. And then the next one, life was wonderful to him. He just whistled about everything. He could care less, you know, and if no matter what happened, Joe always had a good way of looking at things. And then Michael was more like his brother. It took things seriously. And then Danny was a spoiled brat, and he, he could do pretty much whatever he wanted, you know, and there were some parts of my uncle in them. And then there were some parts of my experiences of going through a divorce. And then the learning about war. And as time went on and I learned more about war, you know, I think that helped me with my characters that life is not always just perfect.

Jane Jones (20:18)

Okay, so does this, or did the experience of writing support you in your life?

Sharon Poppen (20:30)

I don't know that it did. I know it was, you know, when I was, especially, you know, when I got really serious about writing, when I was single, and I had 10 years alone raising my kids, and they'd go to bed at night. I'm not sure, I'm not much of a television person. So, I loved visiting with my guys, you know? I mean, like I used to, like I told you before, when I had my classes, it's almost like these people that are, what do they call it? Where they have people in their head, and they take medicine for it. Well, I didn't want any medicine from my people in my head. I love these guys, you know? And as each one was learning, and it was helping me, especially when I started typing, it was helping me take a character and want somebody else to understand that character and learn how to do a presentation of a character. And to be honest with you, I want them to like my characters, but I want them to feel like they know my characters. I want them to a certain, my readers to put a certain amount of their experience into what I'm telling them. And it brings them more into my books, I think.

Jane Jones (21:46)

Right. And so, I guess what I'm trying to do is move the, or be aware that what you did was you were living your life, and it gave you focus. It gave you connection. It provided a personal time outside of the stresses of raising children and working and raising.

Sharon Poppen (22:20)

Sharon Poppen (22:21)

Yes, it put me in another world.

Jane Jones (22:23)

Yes, okay. So, and I think that can be a huge benefit to anybody who's trying to find a way through something. Just the simple writing of them is important. That it can provide something genuine, something really wonderful. And then in the end, you end up with these characters. So, you're writing through all of this at a difficult time where it might have been not been the same traumatic experience that other people have, you're vicariously looking at sorrow and trauma through the war, learning about war. And you're able to sort of weave this together and find some purpose, not find some purpose, but find going through all this, you're carrying this with you. Maybe not so it's not working you through it, it's you're carrying this with you, and it's like a solace, it's like a comfort, it's something that you enjoy.

Sharon Poppen (23:34)

Yeah. Yeah, I enjoy. Yes. That's a good word for it. And when I finally, you know, I was telling you about the teacher, that helped me finish my book, and I finally published it. And I tell you, one of the best things that came back to me was people said, Oh, I know, I know everything ended, and I understand, you know, what happened, but I really did like Michael and Lita. Can you tell me more about what her, their life went? So, I ended up writing a sequel because everybody liked Michael and Lita. And just really quickly, but that happened with every book that I wrote for end up seven books. Every time I finished a book, they'd say, Oh yeah, I understand. But now you left Deborah down in Mexico. What do we, you know, do I care, you know? And I have to write about that. And finally, the last book takes the... great great-granddaughter of one of the characters in the first book, and she's an astronaut who ends up going to the moon. Like I say, I write about characters, I write from their point of view. Everybody knows what everybody else is thinking. So, I feel like my writers really get into it. When we formed our writers group, one of the things I absolutely loved is we did critiquing. People would take our work home and read it, and then bring it back the next week, and we would critique each other's work. And one of the things I liked about one time I had these two characters that disagreed on how they should live their lives, their husband and wife. And we had like teams, this team said, she's right, this team said, he's right. And I absolutely loved it that, you know, because I wasn't making a decision as to who was right or wrong. You know, and I was trying to prove that they still loved each other despite their changes. And then the other thing that really helped me with this group is we decided that we had to turn in our writing each month, 500 words, where you had to take a topic, and you had to create a story, and you had to give, hook the people, give them plot, and give them closure. And I'm telling you to do that in 500 words, that really helped my writing because prior to that, I was like everybody else. I'd have to explain things a thousand times and over, tell what color a rug was, and all of this other stuff. So, my writers group really pulled me together and helped me not change my mind because I like to write the way I like, like a lot of people don't like them listen, but it helps you look at your work and see how it affects other people. And it's a good feeling.

Jane Jones (26:36)

There's a few things I want to poke at, not poke at, but go back to, but just this last statement that you made about that it gives you a really good feeling. And do you feel like it helps you to understand different people's points of view as well? As a reader comes, and, they can understand the characters very well. But when you're writing them, or do you just have this innate ability to understand different perspectives?

Sharon Poppen (27:13)

I try, yes. And I think it does help you when you look at both points, and you're inside the body of somebody. The two that they were arguing about, one was a poor girl who grew up to be a doctor, and it was important to her to be a doctor. The other boy grew up fairly wealthy, and he went off, and his brothers and him ended up in a rock and roll band, and he traveled all the time. It was very hard on their marriage. You know, people felt that she should give up and be with him and they felt that he should be more, you know, of her. But everybody had how, how, how they were thinking. And that's what I like. I like to get into people's heads.

Jane Jones (27:57)

And I really love that, that the writing allows a person, so say I'm writing or anybody's writing, and so in terms of journaling, because you teach journaling too, and I'd like to get into that a little bit, is we might have to have you back a few times because there's like, oh my gosh. But when a person's got something that's a that they're trying to sort out and they're trying to understand about somebody they're dealing with. So, say somebody at work, there's a lot of things currently on YouTube about toxic work environments and things like that, and my experience of them is that they're presented from in a very clinical kind of way. And so, if I'm in that difficulty, then if I can look and find that other person's perspective, my father used to say, everybody has, he'd say, My Dear, everyone has their own peculiar perspective. And it would help me to, like, if I'm getting mad at somebody, he'd go, essentially try to understand them. And so if you're writing about that, you can do that. And if you're trying to, if you, maybe you don't have to write about a coworker that's like, really sort of gets your goat all the time, but you create a character who's kind of like that and explore it and understand. And then maybe you can come at your difficult situation that way. So it's, and you are able to create that in your stories with characters where somebody really understands that character.

Sharon Poppen (29:48)

And the other thing is that I like about writing Omniscient and reading my characters is I love turning a character. See how my readers accept it, you know, to be a really bad person that everybody really dislikes. And that person has a come-to-Jesus moment and or over a period of time, and becomes a different person because a lot of people say you can't change. I love doing that and see if it works with my readers, whether they believe it or not. And nine out of 10 times, I've been successful with it. But I like that being able to work within a person and feel what they feel, because that's what I'm feeling when I write about them, how they change. You know, I had one character, Deborah, that everybody wanted to just strangle, that was so bad. And things happen with her, and she has to cope with the fact that she was bad for the rest of her life. But she comes around.

Jane Jones (31:02)

Yeah, and that can mirror real life. We're not writing another person's script. We're not writing the life of the people that we're interacting with. But we can appreciate that there are some difficulties, and we can be kind and compassionate, and maybe we have to not interact for while or whatever. But we can be loving them and waiting for something to come that helps them get it, and that they begin to turn around, and then we can, you know, that person can live a different life, and maybe we interact with them, maybe we don't, I don't know, but giving people space to change. Because we're not writing their script, whereas when you're writing a character, you're writing that character’s script. And we can write our own script. We can write about how I wanna feel when about things that I've done, things that I, you know, things that I might otherwise be ashamed of. And I can come to understand them and own them and now become, now choose how I'm going to interact and choose to become different. And that's really powerful in terms of writing. So, to have the experience of writing a character and creating that script for that character, do you think it helps?

I'm going to use me. What do you think would help me or any of the listeners to now create, do that, and then reinforce changes within myself? Without turning into a psychologist. But if I had that experience, it would reinforce my freedom to now make different choices.

Sharon Poppen (32:49)

Can I give you an example of what my book changed? didn't change her, but it made her understand. I have this book that's a gay sci-fi. It's about two men who fall in love in the future. And one is from another planet. He is, I call him H.S., homosexual. Then there one from earth who is straight, and he's H.T. And they fall in love for whatever reason they fall in love, and it's how people react to the way what happens. If anybody reads the review of this book on Amazon, most people leave the book crying. It has emotional moments, let me just put it that way. Well, I have a friend who when I was writing it, when I wrote all my books, she would read them before they were published to help me edit and look at how they've made sense and all that stuff.

And she wanted to read it. And I know that she was very, very homophobic. I said, no, Betty, you can't read this. I want to read it. I go, finally, I said, all right, you can read it. But here's the deal. Tell me where I missed a period or I used a word twice or I misspelled a word. I don't want your feelings on it at all because I know what your feelings are going to be. When she brought the book back,

Jane Jones (34:09)

Ooh.

Sharon Poppen (34:12)

She actually had tears in her eyes, and she said, I still don't approve, but I do understand how two people can love each other despite what the world thinks. And that just moved me so much that, you know, she said, I'm still don't approve, but your book made me understand how that could possibly happen. And I really felt good.

Jane Jones (34:40)

That is this really powerful to help understand life that other people are living. And well, it's sci-fi, it's in the future. There are actual real applications to today and the past, and whatever days come before us. And that she's able to retain her...perspective and honor it, and but not change it because it's not making it okay. It's I understand, and that's really, I think that's incredibly powerful. What's the name of that book?

Sharon Poppen (35:16)

It's called “Regardless.”

Jane Jones (35:18)

Okay, “Regardless.” Okay, perfect. All right. Okay, so what I'd like to look at now is the writers group from the perspective of, because this is what you talked about earlier, was the support that it gave you.

Sharon Poppen (35:35)

Oh, absolutely.

Jane Jones (35:36)

Can you talk about the value of writers' groups for you?

Sharon Poppen (35:40)

Yes, when I was taking my classes at MCC, I met a couple of other ladies who wanted to be writers like I was. And so, we talked about starting a group. Well, one of the gentlemen wanted to have a group where we read to each other. Two ladies specifically, Lois and Jane, Jane, unfortunately they've passed away since.

The three of us, felt we weren't really good talkers, actors, whatever. We wanted people to read our stuff, not be a performance. So, we formed a group, and there was like three or four of us to start with. And we would bring in up to, I think, at the time, it was a thousand words. And then we would take it home, read it, critique it. And then at the next meeting, everybody was given five to 10 minutes to listen to your critiques. And my gosh, it was just wonderful, absolutely wonderful. And I think I told you about the assignment, we ended up having the assignment to write the short story on a specific topic. And it was always amazing to me. It could have been about leaves, falling leaves. And I mean, we had stories all the way from Christmas to vacations to South America. You know what mean? It was really wonderful the way people's minds went, but showing us how to write succinctly. But that whole experience, and they still do it to this day, I no longer am in the group because they've added poetry and nonfiction and so on. And all I want to do is write fiction. I'm not with the group anymore. I have another group that we do the same thing. We take it home and read it. But the things that I learned from that group really put me over the edge. It was listening, and actually, it was people that were the harshest that helped me the most.

Jane Jones (37:55)

How so? Help us understand what you mean by harshest.

Sharon Poppen (37:59)

You know, so-and-so would never do this. So-and-so would, blah-dee, blah-dee, blah, you know, so-and-so would never react to that kind of thing. And then maybe the person sitting next to them would say, yeah, I kind of agree, but on the other side of the coin. And so, what that would make me do is go back to my book, and I didn't make the reader understand why that character did what he did. And so, I would sort of expand on what that character and I think that really helped me is having that person say no, and the other person say, well, maybe if they all said no, then I definitely changed it. For a while I was on an online group where we didn't know each other, and that was really a very helpful group because they're now looking at your face and they can say anything they damn well please. But that was also very good. And oddly enough, I ended up with one of my stories that they were reading online that I had two people fighting over it and writing back to me saying, This had never happened in the way. What are you talking about? Of course it would happen. And they were, and I those are the kind of things you just love as a writer.

Jane Jones (39:09)

Yeah, so you're not, it's not personal. 

Sharon Poppen (39:12)

No. 

Jane Jones (39:13)

So I'd to, you know, maybe I don't know if we'll do it today, but this is not it's not personal is important because we very often do, we're attached to our writing and there are times where that's really important because we're writing about something that's very close to our hearts, and it can be loaded it can be and so, you know people that are critiquing, it's wise to understand if a person is, if it's as personal, if they're gonna take my criticism personally. And sometimes if they are, then sometimes things best not be said. But as the writer, if we can understand, I'm taking this personally. and then I need to make adjustments or just, yeah, and just make sure we're not, to be able to get the most out of the…the response that we're getting from people. 

Sharon Poppen (40:08)

Absolutely

Jane Jones (40:09)

And like you saying earlier in the conversation, it's like understanding that other person's perspective, where they're coming from. It's not, they're not doing it to hurt me. They're doing it to, just because they're expressing something. And maybe that maybe they are, maybe they do try to hurt some, I don't know. But, but for the person that's receiving the critique, we can just not take it personally.

Sharon Poppen (40:33)

When people would join our group, we would say, The thing you have to understand is you have to be ready to get some critique. We're not necessarily going to tell you that you wrote the next greatest book of all time, and it's going to be a bestseller, and you're going to win awards. I mean, the thing of it is, you're going to hear from us the good and the bad side of it. So be prepared for the bad side of it. Nobody ever left our group offended, that I know of anyway.

Jane Jones (41:03)

Yeah, well, that's important. That's really incredibly valuable for listeners to when you're looking for a group, when you're looking for somebody to connect with, that it be somebody that can be honest with you, but then you actually get the information, the response that you need as a writer. Yeah, because I know we've had a, a time where there was one issue where we kind of, this person wrote a chapter for a book and we all kind of looked at each other with deer in the headlights and we're just like, oh no, what do we say? What do we do? You know? And we just, and apparently there was lots of other, some other people that had the same response, and it wasn't her, I don't mean, we don't even know, one of us said, we don't even know where that came from. Like, I don't know what to tell you.

But it's not you, it's like, I don't know. And so, she ended up putting it aside. She had us, she listened to us, she understood, she knew our hearts in the right place, and everything. And then she got some advice from somebody that she took that was somebody very close to her. And so, she let it go for a while, and then she came back with something that was perfect. we're all, none of us still, she didn't even know where that came from. We just put it in the past.

Sharon Poppen (42:27)

The other thing that we always told them was we're writing different genres. So, you may not like rom-com or rom-romance. You may not like sci-fi. You may not like mystery on different things. If the story offends you to a certain amount, you know, and it's just not your kind of thing, do the, do the English part of it. Tell me where I left off a comma where you should maybe too many L-Y words, too many adjectives, do that kind of critique. If the genre just not is, you can't accept it, or you don't understand that kind of genre. And that worked out too. We had people who were, you could count on them to do your grammar for you, help you with your grammar. And there was others who did get involved in the actual plot of the story. So, if you can get a group that can do all both kinds of things, it's really good.

Jane Jones (43:30)

Yeah, and that brings out the point that as the critiquer, as the person that's doing the critiquing, be really aware for me, because that's very helpful, for anybody to be really aware of their response to the writing. And is it just because it offends my sense of whatever? Or if I... Whatever, you know, and so if it, but then for me to then kick over into the grammar and not comment on the other because it's not coming from a place of critiquing the writing. It's critiquing the it's judging the the subject. Yeah. And like you said, with your book, Regardless, your friend Betty was able to she read it and she was able to retain her perspective and her own internal values, but then understand with some there will be some people who wouldn't be able to do that. That is pretty amazing. So yeah. All right. I'd like to pick up something you said a long time ago, is that when you were writing on your divorce, and you're raising your 10 kids, and you're writing, you said you were writing on a typewriter.

Sharon Poppen (44:37)

Right.

Jane Jones (44:53)

Okay, so did you ever write with your handwriting or was it always, tell us about that experience of actually.

Sharon Poppen (45:00)

Always use typewriter. I never wrote by hand.

Jane Jones (45:05)

Is that what you still do now?

Sharon Poppen (45:08)

I, my computer, when I, I write on a daily basis that, that same teacher that had told me about writing the final chapter, she asked me one time if I thought I was a writer, and I said, Yes. And she said, Do you write every day? I said, No, I’ve got things to do. She says, Then you're not a writer. You need to write every day, and your life is going to take precedent in many times, but you take a half an hour every day. And some days you're going to be able to write all day. Some days you write your half hour, get up and walk away, and pay your bills, go to your meetings, do whatever you have to do. But every day for half an hour. So ever since she told me that, I sit down, I read what I wrote yesterday, make corrections to it, and then I set myself a timer for 30 minutes and I write. As the reading of yesterday's puts me back into whatever the scene is and whatever's going on. And I'm able to sit there at my computer, and 90 % of the time I write with my eyes closed. If I'm in a bar, I'm in a bar. If I'm in a boat, I'm in a boat. If I am in a family meeting, I'm in a family meeting. Whatever the case may be, I try to write with my eyes closed and put myself into the moment of wherever my characters are.

Jane Jones (46:37)

So, you actually type with your eyes closed? 

Sharon Poppen (46:41)

Yeah

Jane Jones (46:42)

I just, don't even know how anybody does that, but okay. You are an incredibly good typist, which I...

Sharon Poppen (46:50)

Nope, because that's why I correct the next day. Okay. I find out when I went, meant to write a spike, and I wrote spoke or something,

Jane Jones (46:53)

Gotcha! Gotcha. So, that's helpful. So, it's because one of the things for we women writers is for me, it's this program for me is to write for at least five minutes a day. And it's to write a prompt, just to write about something, put the timer on for five minutes. And then when timer goes off, close the book, don't dot any i's cross any t's, don't finish the thought, just close it and walk away. Right. And then you do that for five minutes a day. And it's to sort of priming the pump and just getting people into the habit of writing. And you were, this advice comes from this teacher who at this point in time, you're already writing and some days you write, sometimes you're not, she's saying, no, you gotta write every day and 30 minutes a day. You're working on a project, right?

Sharon Poppen (47:53)

It was a, a great, it was, you know, I'm not a bestselling author by any means. I've tried a couple of times to go through agents and stuff, but I've given up on that. I like my self-publishing. I like getting my books out there. I do local, you know, book signings, and I have a little bit of a local following and some online, but that doesn't matter to me anymore. I realize that being a best seller is pretty hard to do, but I love my writing. I love visiting with my characters. And when I write the end on a book, it just is the greatest feeling in the world. And so, just the writing, at least a half an hour every day is mine to do what I want, how I want in everything.

Jane Jones (48:50)

And you're creating something that's different from the rest of your work-a-day world.

Sharon Poppen (48:55)

Yeah, and you know, when I was raising kids, when I had the job and all those other things were going on in my life, I had no control. And so that half an hour every day gave me a certain amount of control to my life. And then now that I'm retired, I could write all day if I want. The problem is once you retire, you get involved in so much stuff that you're almost like you're near working, but yeah, it gives me a moment to just be Sharon and have my characters visit who, even if I don't like them, I like to visit with them.

Jane Jones (49:33)

I really hugely appreciate everything that you've said. What you just said is that in terms of giving me some control to my life, and that it's time just for you to be yourself and to invite people in to where you are and interact with them. Even if you don't like them, you're going to interact with them. And it's your time to do something that you want to do that nobody else is going to say, have any say over what it is that you are writing or what you create in that half an hour.

Sharon Poppen (50:16)

That's exactly right and I so value that. I really do value that.

Jane Jones (50:22)

How often or do you ever write a lot longer than the 30 minutes?

Sharon Poppen (50:29)

Periodically, I wouldn't say on a daily basis, maybe a day or so each week, but at least my 30 minutes.

Jane Jones (50:43)

Okay, so when the timer goes off, what do you do?

Sharon Poppen (50:47)

I go to my save and save what I wrote. And then I go to my review, and I check for spelling. And then I make a copy of those pages that I just wrote. And then I put it in my book. And then tomorrow, when I do my half hour, before I do my half hour, I reread it again and see if John would say what I said he said, or if Susie would do what I said she said, and then I do my half hour writing, but that's the way I do it.

Jane Jones (51:26)

So, okay, so, that's an added dimension there. Is it the timer goes off, so you just go, do you hit save first? Okay, so you save it. So, it's saved here and you have a, we could get in another time, however, you're gonna save your files, you know where to come back, where it's gonna save to. And then you review, you just do the. Do you use Grammarly or something like that? Or you just read

Sharon Poppen (51:50)

No, I just use my spell check. I don't have Grammarly. I use my spell check.

Jane Jones (51:53)

Spell check. Gotcha. Well, and then I've got some writers that don't particularly like Grammarly because it changes the writing.

Sharon Poppen (52:05)

You know, I'll tell you, we had a school teacher, an English teacher that was in our group for a while. And I used to drive her insane because I would use a sentence, and maybe, and I'd put a period or an exclamation point or whatever. And it might be dialogue, and it might just be, you know, a presentation. might, you know, whatever. But she'd say, This is not right, but it works, don't change a bit of it. So, and I love Gina for doing that because, you know, sometimes a thought comes to you, and when we're thinking, we don't think in sentences, you know, sometimes you just, you know, blurt it out. And so, I drove her insane with that, but I did love the grammar. She would say, You, know, you really should have had a blah, blah, blah and a bleh, bleh, bleh or whatever, but don't change it because it works perfect the way you did it. You know.

Jane Jones (53:06)

Yeah, and there's, yeah, I absolutely appreciate that because some people will, I find it in the business, my business world that I do, my work-a-day world where I write something and it wants me to change it. And I go, no, that's the way I talk. Sorry, it's just going to be that's the way I say it. And I have to dismiss all the time. And, you know, with all due respect to Grammarly, I have considered turning it off. 

Sharon Poppen (53:37)

Yeah.

Jane Jones (53:38)

Yeah, so, you know, I've got, I'm not, you know, I’m no PhD in English. So, you know, why should I try to pretend to be like one?

Sharon Poppen (53:47)

And I'm not perfect. I had a good Catholic education, and those nuns were very firm about dotting your I's and crossing your T's and putting your periods in and all that. And I learned about verbs, and adverbs, and adjectives, and all that stuff. But I still make mistakes, and I love it when they catch me, you know, and I have to change it. But I don't want some Grammarly or whatever it is, you know.

Jane Jones (54:12)

Yeah, no, right, right, absolutely. Okay, so we're gonna wrap up a little bit, but I was wondering if you would, you know, could you provide just maybe the first or the first two tips that you would give to a person who is writing? Some people don't, well, if you could give, let's do it this way. Could you give a tip for somebody who doesn't write very much, and how to... how you think they might be useful for them to get started, and then one for people that are currently writing, and how it could help them.

Sharon Poppen (54:49)

Okay, when we had people that came into our group, I would ask them, always ask them, do you really want to write? Do you really want to be a writer? Yes, I want to be a writer. And most everybody when they're writing their first book are writing the next biggest book ever, the best seller, whatever. And I'd say, then do me a favor. Do not wait until you're like I did, retired, and start writing. If you're writing all the time, finish what you're writing. And then if you have to self-publish it, but get yourself a book out there, at least one, you have no idea how good that's going to feel. And, so that's what I tell them when they're really interested. Now, a person that is just there to see what it's all about and they're not sure, I just tell them, basically, a lot of the same stuff, just say, you know, until you make up your mind, you need to write a little bit every day. And then if you really enjoy it, maybe writing is your thing, but maybe you should be crocheting, or maybe you should be doing mosaic, or maybe you should be doing sculpting, or maybe you should do watercolors. You know, maybe writing is not your real format, but find out what you really wanna do, what when you finish it, you're gonna say, man, wow, look what I did. You need to get that feeling. And if writing is gonna do that, good, but make sure that you don't try to do seven different things at a time. Find your focus. I mean, do a little bit, but find your focus. But those that are really serious. 

You know, I tell them you've got to write every day, you've got to get involved, and you got to finish it and publish that first book. And now with Amazon, it's so easy to publish a book. You could have one book published. And let me tell you something, there is nothing in the world, there's, well, holding your first babies, your babies. But other, that is one of the, it's almost like holding a newborn. You look at that book and you go, I did this. I did this, and it's a wonderful feeling.

Jane Jones (57:15)

And to the somebody that's going to be trying their hand at it, and then they realize that they don't, it's not really writing that's for them, that it's for sculpting or knitting or crocheting. When you finish that project, it's really satisfying.

Sharon Poppen (57:38)

Yes.

Jane Jones (57:40)

I especially appreciate what you said is to get that feeling, whatever the activity is, get that feeling.

Sharon Poppen (57:50)

Yep. And don't wait till you're old. Do it. Do it now. You know, because like we've had a lot of kids, they're working. I said, I understand you're working. I understand that. But take some time when you get home each day to work on your thing and then get it published. Just do it once. And I think that you'll find that that's maybe your niche in life. But don't wait to be old like I did.

Jane Jones (58:17)

Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, it's a little bittersweet for you. At the same time, that's an incredibly powerful statement to anybody that's listening. Thank you. Thank you, Sharon. 

Sharon Poppen (58:37)

Welcome and thank you.

Jane Jones (58:39)

Yeah, you think we had a really, really good conversation. As we move along in the We Women Writers, and different topics come up and things that might pop up that you would have something that really value to add. If it's okay that, I would sort of send you a little jingle once in a while to see. thank you. You're absolutely a gem. I appreciate you very much.

Sharon Poppen (59:00)

I would love it.

Jane Jones (59:07)

And, but for today, we'll end the podcast and thank you again, Sharon.

Sharon Poppen (59:12)

Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.