Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ellen O’Clover. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Ellen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I can’t remember a time when I *didn’t* know that I wanted to be an author. I was always a reader and writer, and I was lucky to grow up in Columbus, Ohio, where I attended teen writing workshops at The Thurber House Young Writers Studio and Kenyon College. I moved to Baltimore for undergrad and studied creative writing at Johns Hopkins, but the course of study was really dedicated to literary fiction and poetry. It took me a couple years after graduation to realize that what I really wanted to write—the stories my heart tugged me toward—were about growing up, and falling in love for the first time, and figuring out what it means to be a person in the world. Young adult!
Ellen, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I write books about finding your people, falling in love, and figuring it all out (or trying to, anyway). I’m the author of two young adult contemporary novels from HarperCollins — “Seven Percent of Ro Devereux” and “The Someday Daughter” — and I live near Boulder, Colorado, with my rocket scientist husband and two perfect bulldogs.
My journey to publication was long and twisty: I wrote three books and was represented by two different agents before finally selling that third book as my debut novel. It took about five years from when I started pursuing traditional publication to when “Seven Percent of Ro Devereux” came out. And those years were *hard.*
Pursuing traditional publishing is opening yourself up to rejection—there’s no way around it. At every stage of the process, from querying to going on submission to receiving reviews of published work, you hear “no.” For some people, only a few times! For other people, quite a few times.
I’m the first to admit that I don’t have a thick skin: I feel it all, and I feel it a lot. Because our writing is often so close to our hearts, sharing it is incredibly vulnerable, and it can be crushing to watch rejections stack up for a project you’ve poured yourself into.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Jami Gold’s beat sheets! She has so many fantastic, free resources on her website, and I’ve used her Basic Beat Sheet to plot both of my novels. As a recovering pantser, I used to think that plotting a novel to beats would turn it into a formula and strip the process of all its magic. But after writing a couple of books that needed massive, torturous revision because their plots were so erratic—and signing with an agent who likes to see synopses upfront—I knew I needed a better way.
The first time I used a beat sheet to plot a novel, I wound up with a book that flowed so freely—and was so fun to write—that I completed its first draft in 10 weeks. The two manuscripts I’d written previously took over a year each! Knowing exactly where my plot was going every time I sat down to write didn’t limit my creativity; it freed me to be even more creative because I had the security of knowing my story was clicking along as it needed to. That book turned into “Seven Percent of Ro Devereux,” my debut novel.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
There’s an expectation, now, that authors be present on social media. Building a personal brand on the internet did *not* come easily to me — like many writers, I’m an introvert who mostly keeps to myself and the made-up people in my brain. Before selling my first book, I had a private Instagram account that I rarely posted to; after selling my book, I made it public, started a TikTok, and threw myself into the deep end of social media marketing.
At first, to be completely honest, it felt terrible. I was completely overwhelmed by the idea of sharing any part of me with strangers — not to mention *promoting myself* to strangers. But, like anything, social media marketing is a muscle. I’ve settled into a place where I can be as authentic in this professional, public role as I am in my private one. Where I can enjoy social media for its benefits: a direct line to readers; water-cooler connections with other authors. But it took time for me to get there!
My best advice for writers starting out on social media is to be honest–in every way. Be honest with yourself about how many platforms you have the capacity to manage. Be honest with the kind of content you create (if you hate making Instagram Reels, it will show!). And be honest in how you show up. Readers want to know you–that doesn’t mean you have to tell them the private details of your life, it just means you should show up as yourself.
Also, get a Canva Premium subscription. It’s worth every single penny.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ellenoclover.com
- Instagram: @ellenoclover
- Twitter: @ellenoclover
- Other: TikTok: @ellenoclover
Image Credits
Headshot credit (for the first image) to JordanQuinn Photography