Name, Age, and State: Amanda L. Davis, 20, Tennessee

Job-title: Author

Web/blog site URL: www.amandaldavis.com and www.amandaldavis.blogspot.com

Give us your job description in 25 words or less. An author is someone who writes—a composer of a literary work. In my case, I write novels, works of fiction, which I hope other people will find enjoyable and encouraging.

Describe a typical workday. Most authors have workdays unlike every other author. We’re all different and like to keep our own schedules. Mine starts early in the morning, depending on if it’s summer or winter. In the summer I’m up at 5:30 to beat the heat and go running. After devotional time, I get to work writing and write all morning. Usually, I try to get about 2,000 words written before lunch, but if I’m working on editing a book, I try for two chapters of editing.

After lunch all writing stops and I have to work on my other job. See, I’m not a fulltime author. I write only half the day. The other half is usually devoted to my spinning and wool processing work. I take raw fleeces from sheep and clean, pick, and card them until they’re ready to be made into wool yarn. Often I spin the yarn myself, but usually I sell the carded wool to other spinners.

That’s my day in a nutshell. I try to stay busy all the time, because I get bored and restless otherwise!

What led you to realize that you wanted to do be a writer? I think what probably most made me want to be a writer was seeing how writing affected people’s lives. My dad, Bryan Davis, is a well known Christian fantasy author, and I’ve seen how his books have changed people for the better over the years, and I decided I would like to try to do the same through my own stories.

Also, since I have dyslexia, I hope to show people that they can accomplish their dreams, no matter how unreachable they seem. Dyslexia is a learning disability that makes it difficult to learn to read and write, because of it, I didn’t write coherent paragraphs until I was about fifteen years old, just four years before Precisely Terminated was published. If I can overcome something that so directly affects my career, then other people can to.

Did you have any mentors in the writing industry that you admired? I definitely have a mentor! My father, Bryan Davis, has taught me everything I know about writing. I’ve attended his writing classes and seminars about a thousand times and have even taught the same classes a few times myself. Without his tutelage, I’d have never become the writer I am today.

What type of education or training was required to land your job? The only education required to be an author is to know how to write and how to get published. One doesn’t have to go to college to be an author, but writing classes in one form or another are usually necessary. I have not yet attended college, and I am already published. What I did do was attend writing conferences where published authors and editors from publishing houses taught writing classes. I learned a lot from those as well as the writing seminar my father teaches.

What do you love most about your job? Getting to hear how my book has affected people is one of the coolest parts of my job. It’s great to hear how people have enjoyed my book and what they learned from it.

What one part of your job do you wish you could hire someone else to do? I wish I could hire someone to do the scheduling part of my job! Fortunately for me, my dad does a lot of it, but he would like someone to do it for him, too. By scheduling I mean when and where we go to book signings, what schools we visit and when, etc. A lot of people assume that the publisher does this, but not in our case. We get all of our events ourselves. My father and I often visit schools and book stores for author talks and book signings.

What advice would you give to teenagers wanting to be writers? First of all, they need to learn the craft. Many people just assume that anyone can sit down and write a book. While this is true, it’s likely that the book they produce isn’t going to be any good and no one will want to publish it. So if someone wants to be published, they first need to know what makes a good story, and to do that, it’s best to go to classes and learn from someone who is published.

How does your job allow you to use your God-given gifts? I believe it does. Writing is something I struggled with when I was younger because of my dyslexia, but for the most part, comes easily now. Being an author definitely lets me use my writing skills.

Do you have any hobbies or off-hours pursuits that teenagers would find of interest? Hobbies are something I collect. Whether or not they would find them interesting or not depends on the person! I spin yarn, sew, embroidery, quilt, and run. Running isn’t so much of a hobby as a ‘I do it because it makes me healthier,’ but spinning and the rest are some of my favorite past times.