But once I’ve got that skeleton, having a good opening line is all I need to jump in and begin. In other words, I have a literal compulsion to pick or bite my skin (in my case, the skin around my fingernails)–so I laughed out loud when I read this question! I manage it by a strict regimen of weekly homemade manicures, and keeping a clipper in my purse at all times to prevent incidents.Īs for what you really wanted to know, for me, a plot has to be entirely mapped out in skeleton form before I can write that first scene. So, ironically, and if you’ve only read my Mangoverse novels and not my short contemporary erotica “Wet Nails”, you’d have no way of knowing this, but this question is meaningful on a literal level because I have a disorder called dermatillomania. How do you stop biting your fingernails and write that first page? I just try to do that as sleekly as possible, so people won’t start to tune it out to get back to the plot.

Creating a tropical, Jewish world that’s a cross between my upbringing/current life and an idealized version of my childhood home is the backbone of the worldbuilding for my books. So anything that’s described is something that was important enough to me to fit through my “aaack, description!” filter. I’m a little impatient with myself when I write and almost underdescribe, for fear that if I spend too much time on description people will skip it. In worldbuilding, how do you decide how much detail is enough? The physical landscape, economy, day to day life, and religious practices of Perach and its neighbours emerge throughout each story over the series.

Fun fact: a glorious abundance of artwork depicting the main characters created by fans and the author can be found here. The Olive Conspiracy, a fourth Mangoverse novel, has just been released.

The Second Mango, Climbing the Date Palm, and A Harvest of Ripe Figs are the first three installments in a fantasy series starring a nerdy young lesbian queen and focusing on feminist themes, family of choice, and all the different types of female (and sometimes male) strength, not just physical prowess. The setting is a world with dragons, wizards, magic spells, and shapeshifting witches, and most of the characters are Jewish. Author Shira Glassman is best known for her Mangoverse series, which begins with The Second Mango.

The second mango by shira glassman