Advice from the Experts: Liz Adair (Wife, Mother, Mentor, Author)

By Lessa Harding

Once again, I find myself wishing I could take a poll when introducing the expert of the month. I would love to hear who your favorite authors are and why. I would love to hear whom you look up to, who your heroes are, and how you would react if you met one of them.

A few months ago, a friend recounted the first time she met her favorite author. My friend talked about going weak in the knees, not being able to form coherent thoughts, and stumbling over her words as she attempted to ask the author questions. I giggled as my friend said she had a “writer’s crush” on the author.

I have to admit that this month’s article was extremely difficult for me to write because of my writer’s crush on our expert. Liz Adair is one of my favorite authors, and I admire the depth that her characters have, the wit and humor they display, and her ability to write a story that both entertains and captivates. I also admire her as a person.

The first time I met Liz, I experienced what other aspiring authors experience when they’re lucky enough to meet Liz: the overwhelming feeling that I could do anything I wanted to do. One of the writers she has mentored described the experience by saying that Liz “helped me see that I have something to offer and encouraged me to grow beyond myself.” Another confided that Liz “made me feel like a real writer for the first time ever.” And another said, “She breathed into me a belief that I could write books.”

Liz has written 10 novels and 3 novellas, has received the Whitney Outstanding Achievement Award for mentoring writers, has owned and operated a bakery, and has helped found more writers’ groups and conferences than I can count, including the American Night Writers Association’s Northwest Writers Retreat and the Kanab Writers Conference. But the thing I admire the most is the effect she has had on the lives of people she has met along the way, including her husband of 58 years and her 7 children. I love this description of Liz given by someone who has known her for over 10 years: “Liz . . .  becomes your true friend and just loves you. If she can share something she’s learned along the way, she does. She rarely asks for anything in return, [but] those who walk . . . the path with her . . . are forever changed. Liz makes you want to be a better person and to achieve great things by just being Liz.”

As you read the following insights she shared for this article, I hope some of the encouragement and confidence Liz exudes will leap off the paper and help you walk your own path.

• You don’t need a rigid writing schedule. “I have no typical day of writing. I have things that have to get done, things that may get done, and writing. I try to write after doing the things that have to get done. I’m more of a mosey-along writer. I stop and smell a lot of roses.”
• Associate with other writers. Her “tip for those trying to publish for the first time [is to] hang out with writers.”
• Need ideas about writing rituals? Here’s Liz’s: “[My] process is to sit down “process is to sit down with a pencil and notebook and block out the plot points in each chapter. Then I sit at the computer and write about a half a page about each chapter. After that, I begin the first draft and grind it out to the end.”
• “I’ve learned a lot about three-dimensional villains from watching Turkish films.”
• If you want to publish but haven’t yet, “start learning the craft now. You’ll be so much further ahead when the barriers that are keeping you from doing it are no longer there.”
• On writer’s block: “I think fallow times are useful in the creative process. When I’m ready to write again, I’ll know it. That’s why self-publishing suits me so much better than working with a traditional publisher. I don’t have to force anything.”
• On rejection: “I think time and perspective are the only things that help.”
• “Let others read and critique [your] writing. I mean, hard critiques. I belong to a critique group that has met for two hours a week for a dozen years now, and we pull no punches. It has made me a much better writer than if they loved everything I sent to them.”
• Her personal motto: “‘Pull up your socks.’ I had that as a personal motto long before compression stockings became a part of my daily routine.”
• “Writing is its own reward.”
• “Write! Write! Write!”