Last night, I was featured at an Author Talk. Nobody showed up. This could be because of competing events (like Trick or Treat Halloween events) or the fact that the newspaper publicized the wrong date, but events like Author Talks for a not-well-known indie author happen seldom.
So I’ve decided to interview myself.
How long have you been writing?
I always get this one wrong. I think I have been writing for 13 years, but only started publishing for the last six. That’s because I tried getting traditionally published for a while, but I never got traction there.
Where do you get your ideas?
I get some of my best ones from dreams. I can have very vivid dreams, and I remember the strange and convoluted ones. One of my books came out of a long fever dream I had while sick with a kidney infection. It took me over 30 years to write it.
Observation gives me a lot to work with. I love people-watching and analyzing situations around me. Characters and plots reveal themselves.
The words ‘what if?’ lead to a flurry of ideas. What if there was a secret society of Santas? What if near-immortals carried humans’ cultural memories?
Wow. What took you so long to write that book from your dream?
The Internet had not been invented yet. One of the important features of the book was its setting in the Great Basin, which is cold desert. I needed to know things about surviving in cold desert, especially with limited technology. The Internet let me research to that depth, so the story would ring true.
What is your favorite part of writing?
When the scene clicks. The characters are their best or worst selves, the actions speak louder than words, and the words are indelible.
What is your writing process?
I am a ‘plantser’, somewhere between a planner and someone who flies by the seat of their pants. I lay out my books using Scrivener, a writing platform using functional metaphors of outlines and index cards. I outline the chapters with descriptive chapter titles and write summaries, a paragraph or two, for each chapter. Then once I start writing, I write freely within those parameters.
There are templates that can be used with Scrivener, which help give basic story structure. They help with the timing of a story. I utilize a couple of these so that my stories don’t ramble. So there’s some more planning.
What about self-publishing? How did you get into that?
Self-publishing requires that the author formats the manuscript for publication, secures cover art, and finds a press and a distributor. This process has been made easy with tools and vendors.
I format for publication using Atticus, a web-based editor that allows for drop caps and section breaks. My niece Rachel draws the cover art, and I lay the covers out using Photoshop. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) supplies the permutation into final form — ebook or paperback. KDP also distributes the books through Kindle. It’s amazing what has been put in the hands of the indie author.
Do you use AI?
I use AI in an extremely limited way. I use it to do background research (which I always double-check because AI hallucinates). I use it to proofread. I do not use it for any creation, either in generating ideas or content, or in making covers. I don’t believe AI should be used to replace human creativity, or else creative content will be reduced to a least common denominator.
What advice would you give someone who wants to write?
Don’t get hung up on how good or bad your first effort is. Just write. Only 1000 or even 100 words a day produces results. You will edit later.
Take advantage of Novel November or other November writing challenges. They encourage writers to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That won’t get you all the way through a novel but it will get you close. There’s something about being part of a worldwide effort to write a novel that’s motivating.
