I look forward to reading your interviews!

Hey Gnorb — How nice to see you here! I was so busy stamping out that inappropriate smiley face I didn’t see you’d been by. I’m looking forward to these interviews, which, once I digest all these amazing comments, I’ll start sending around for responses. Fun!

http://deannacameron.blogspot.com/

(She might actually be a good one to interview at some point, since the debut perspective is always interesting.)

Hope all is well, cheers, Lisa

Second, I applaud your choice to do author interviews with both published authors and the aspiring. All too often people forget that while lessons learned can only really be imparted after reflection, those ephemeral insights gleamed during the time spent in the trenches before any recognition are often the most poignant.

Finally, I applaud your color choice. Orange is a wonderful color, all too often abused, then derided because of (or judged according to) those abuses.

Litlove (how did you sneak that comment in there without me seeing it?) — I agree, peripheral is most interesting, because that kind of thing tends to be about stuff that’s everyone wants to know about. How do you perservere being first among those questions.

Mollie, That is a fine idea. Thank you. And welcome by the way!

Rhian, Like you, I have always wondered what committee came up with Mothers Who Think. Someone once gave me a subscription to it, and it was just fine — no, in fact, it was quite good. Me, though, I want to read the magazine called “Mothers Who are Just So Damned Tired and Irritable That They Yell at People all the Time and Feed Their Children a Steady Diet of Take-Out Food and Haven’t Bought a New Bra in About Six Years” As for interviews, aww! Are you sure? I mean, don’t you ever fantasize about chatting away with someone about writing — maybe not specifics about your writing, but about general stuff?

Stories about perserverence are wonderful, DBD Writer, I agree. I love hearing things like, I stabbed all those rejections onto a three inch nail and it felt good.

W,R — OOOOO. That’s one of those questions that Rhian finds sort of scary. Still, it’s an interesting one to ponder, as a writer and a reader, the issue of how much biography informs fiction and whether and why a reader needs to know more about that kind of thing. I like writer biographies, which is why I enjoy interviews. Mostly, I am interested in process –the work itself I prefer to think over on my own.

Rob, And after I ask “where do you get your ideas”, like, 500 times, I’ll ask “how did you get published” and “can you give me the name of your agent.” That should do it, don’t you think?

Ella, Like you, I love hearing about what else people do. The only place I don’t like knowing about that is the movie theater where, at the one we go to anyway, if you get there too early, you have to watch the same “legends of the silver screen” loop where you learn that George Clooney’s nickname as Handsome George and he tried out for the Cincinnati Reds and didn’t make it, before he turned — dejectedly, I’m sure — to acting.

U-Dad, Good question! I’ve always wondered that myself. I don’t know how many drafts I write, because everything I write I change some at some point.

OP — It’s quite clear that I need to read Steven King’s book. It sounds like it’s really got you (and a lot of other people) thinking.

LINDA! You and Jacob, you are unstoppable interviewing machines. Thank you! (And welcome, if I haven’t already formally done so.)

Jacob, I know zip about music, but I do like hearing her talking about it because she’s clearly happiest in that environment. How can you not be on my links, dude? It is a matter of incompetence rather than intention, that is for sure. I’ll rectify that pronto.

Hi Lisa, Hope you had an inspiring and restful fourth. Like you, and many others, the whole question of what keeps a person moving forward in what is a really tough business interests me very much. I’ll be sure to include stuff like that.

Worse, though, is giving them. Never again! And I mean it. So horrible to have one’s un-thought-out words floating back…

That said, there’s something wonderful about putting pen to paper and just letting the words flow out. I haven’t done it for a while, but sometimes if I’m stuck, I’ll pull out a good ballpoint and a notebook.

Interview questions? One of my favorite things I’ve read was in Stephen King’s On Writing book, when he said that he would put his rejection letters on a 3-inch nail in his basement and it was completely full before he sold his first one. So, questions about authors’ perseverence are great. Most people don’t sell a novel their first time out.

Also, where do you find your characters? What’s the backstory on particular books, characters? And then there’s always the standby: What was the best piece of advice you ever received?