ON BEING A WRITER
WHERE do ideas come from?
Where do I get the ideas from? Well - It could be from a newspaper clipping, or something I see, perhaps a name that sparks an image or an idea or a pre-formed idea that simply needs writing. Names quite often pop into my head - I make a list of them so I can transcribe them later, look and perhaps watch them hatch into characters with their stories yet to unfold.
The book cover is crucial to the tone of the book and I usually start with that . I create all jackets and promos myself (graphic design background) and then once I have my visual I can start.
WRITERS are SPONGES
I like to think I soak up everything I hear, see, experience or that which lies dormant in my own psyche. Sometimes it’s dark, very dark and at other times light.
COMMON THREADS
Hope, always Hope, and a sense of balance/justice perhaps or better Justification, Humor, great characters, good story telling, a History of the settings and time frame (both in political and geographical context), Entertaining and hopefully thought-provoking in ways.
METHODS
Every writer has a method to their madness - some use cards and put them up making a story board. I always start with a TIMELINE, CHARACTER NAMES, BOOK COVER, and a story that has a beginning, middle and an end. Writing, for me, is a process of exploration with guide lines and an end goal but quite often the characters take on a life of 'their own' and dictate a change of pathway. I go with the flow if it is justifiable and rethink ~ as NOTHING IS WRITTEN IN STONE unless written IN stone ! a creative writer writing mystery crimes in a contemporary gothic age ~
WRITER'S BLOCK
Do I ever get writer’s block? Well, frankly I’m not sure what that means exactly . I think and then I write and then take time away to mull the words, the story and the characters to see and hear if they ring true (in my mind’s eyes) and then I write some more.
I usually write two books at the same time as the flow can shift and for me it is good to let my mind shift. I write every day, whether it is physically ON the computer or by pen OR whether it is in my head, running the scenes over and over editing as I go, seeing what works and what doesn’t or where it would better be directed. Writing is not simply applying fingers to the paper, as it were; it is an internal process. Each book takes about one year from beginning to end and then there are those that start off with a bang only to simper and stew over time before they are picked up again (but even in that ‘down time’ they are being worked on, re-read and re-configured over and over again).