Who’s on Fourth: YeahWrite Interviews Laura of the Unraveling Yarn

YeahWrite on YeahWrite: Arden interviews Laura

A while back, a young writer saw one of our badges at the end of our very own Nathan James’s post. Clicking through, she discovered our little corner of the Internet, and luckily she stuck around for a while.

I remember being curious, then testing the waters by submitting a short story I’d been working on to the Weekend Writing Showcase. The week after, I submitted a piece to the nonfiction grid, and it won the editor’s pick. It was such a big deal for me, because it was the first piece of writing I’d shared with the public in my recent adult life. What keeps me coming back to YeahWrite is the supportive and encouraging community. In the beginning of my time at YeahWrite, I was living in Germany and had a conversation with a writing professor that really derailed my confidence. I was new to YeahWrite, but I emailed Nathan to talk about it, and I was really taken aback with his thoughtful, honest, and encouraging response. It totally put me back on track. That was my first personal interaction with a member of the group, and there have been many since. I’ve made some priceless friendships through YeahWrite, and although I’m more of a lurker these days than a regular contributor, I am always welcomed back with open arms.

You can usually find Laura on our nonfiction grid. She loves creative nonfiction and is working on honing that side of her writing. As always, i wanted to know what advice she would give to any other lurkers out there waiting to dive on to one or more of our grids.

If you’re wondering whether or not to submit something – congratulations! You’ve taken the first step. Just do it. I’ve had love letters and editor’s picks and everything in between. Each piece of writing is different, and the feedback provides you with a valuable lesson every single time you post. You will learn much more if your work is actually getting read. So just get amongst it, and (really hypocritical thing to say) post weekly!

Laura has been writing for most of her life, with a hiatus here and there.

I started writing when I was a kid, about four or five. I used to ‘write stories’ before I could even spell, just wavy scribbles on foolscap pages, mimicking the cursive handwriting of my mother. I wrote my first story in grade 1; it was about a girl who gets kidnapped by aliens but is returned to earth because she gets ‘space sick.’ My Grade 1 teacher ‘published’ the story for me by printing it out (a big deal in 1991 as we only had one printer in the school), sealing each page with contact, and stapling it together. I felt like a million bucks holding that thing in my hand, and I decided then and there I wanted to be a writer. I’ve been published a couple of times since but left writing in my twenties with the misguided idea that I needed to live in the ‘real world,’ though I found after a few years that when I wasn’t writing, I felt like something was missing from my life, so I started again.

Life does have a way of interrupting what we should be doing, but we always tend to find our way back, so while Laura’s blog has taken a slight backseat to her studies, she is currently working on a few essays.

I’m working on a few creative nonfiction essays for university, involving research components. My program will also see me starting a manuscript towards the end of the next year, an incredibly terrifying and exciting prospect!

When Laura isn’t studying or writing, you can normally find her outside, so long as the weather cooperates.

I love the outdoors, and after four years living in the UK and Germany, I never take good weather for granted. When I’m not writing, I could be found out bush, slogging out a trail or up a mountain, on the beach, or chilling in a park somewhere, barefoot and with a good book!

Oh, you want more? Well here are five things you never knew about Laura:

1. She loves carrots and has been known to gnaw her way through 2kg of carrots a week, more if she’s working on an assignment (turning orange from eating too many carrots is actually a thing that has happened to her before; she calls it her ‘winter tan’).
2. She also loves watermelon, and she’s been known to eat an entire half of a watermelon all by herself…in one sitting. It was during a Seinfeld marathon, if that’s at all relevant.
3. She is exactly 6ft tall and has massive feet (size 10-11). They are so big that once she was waved out of a shoe shop in Hong Kong by the sales assistant, right after she walked in. She always imagined that’s what Pretty Woman felt like when she tried to go shopping on Rodeo Drive.
4. She still writes (and rewrites) her first drafts in longform, with pencil. It’s cripplingly slow but the only way she can do it. Typing somehow freezes her creative juices. This is why she really appreciates a good pen, and she seems to collect notebooks at a faster rate than she can use them.
5. Her favourite music is folk, country, and blues; basically anything that sounds like it should be played live in a tent.

Are you ready for the YeahWrite #337 Weekly Writing Challenges opening this week? We hope so! Your badges await in the sidebar. Grab the code, paste into the text or HTML view of your post, and submit your post to the grids for a little friendly competition. We’re glad you’re here.

Early (discounted!) registration for Super Challenge #6 (fiction) is still open, but time is running out! Be sure to sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any announcements for upcoming challenges.

About the author:

Arden joined YeahWrite in early 2014 to operate as its Social Media Manager. She also heads up YeahWrite’s Who’s on Fourth feature, as well as the Weekend Writing Showcase. Working day-to-day as a paralegal, she spends most of her free time writing short stories and the occasional nonfiction essay at her website. She is currently working on the first novel of her Hybrid trilogy as well as a fantasy anthology with three other writers.