#CleanWIP Articles

Answer

Earl Chinnici February 20, 2020

Today’s #CleanWIP theme and collaborative article is Answer. [More info]

Image by Molly Roselee

~ Jessica Marie Holt ~
Q: Where do you get your inspiration?
A: The short answer is . . . everywhere! The long answer: 1) Details. I notice lots of really obscure details, like the pattern of wrinkles on an old man, the way a note hovers and trills in the air, the number of cans of cat food in the man’s shopping cart behind me. This is bad in the sense that these details crowd out important ones, like where I put my keys, whether I am wearing two different shoes, and whether my son’s face is smeared all over with chocolate. But it’s good in the sense that they feed my imagination. 2) My life. My everyday life is a deep well of delightful absurdities, pathos, and interesting, over-the-top characters, and I draw from it quite a lot. 3) Music. So many of my stories come from music. Some, like On the Other Side, are an attempt to flesh out an existing song into a longer story with greater specificity. Some, like Just Before Dawn, I wrote while playing a specific song again and again, to help me stay within the exact mood and tone I was trying to capture (it was The Stable Song by Gregory Alan Isakov case anyone is curious). 4) Nature. I love using nature–seasons, wind changes, sunlight, storms–to set moods, create foreshadowing, and establish metaphors. I could go on, honestly, but I’ll end here, with my bases mostly covered. 🙂

~ Naomi Musch ~
Q: How long have you been writing, and how many books do you have?
A: When I was a 10-year-old, I began writing my first stories and informed my family, teacher, and friends that I planned to become an author (novelist) someday. Someday finally arrived during my 40s, though I’d been publishing in a number of magazine/newspaper/online venues until then. I’ve written 20 novels/novellas, 13 of which have been published.

~ M. L. Farb ~
Q: Where did you get your ideas for the maze and riddles in The King’s Trial?
A: I wrote the riddles first and then wrote scenes that answered the riddles. It was a fun bit of reverse engineering and discovery. I didn’t know what would happen any more than my main character did.

~ Laurean Brooks ~
Q: What, or who, spurred you to start writing?
A: My 5th-Grade teacher, Mrs. Mary Brann enjoyed my oral book reports. Probably because I left a cliffhanger at the end which caused struggles among other classmates to be next in line to read it. Miss Mary told the class I would one day be an author. She he almost changed her mind after I handed in the essay on Columbus’s Adventures. When the natives tied him up and stuffed him in a cannon, then shot him back to Spain…well, that didn’t set well with her. Miss Mary told me gently to “rewrite your essay, and THIS time, make it more realistic.” LOL. Her reprimand squashed my imagination for a while. But it returned in full force a few years later. I truly appreciate Miss Mary. Without her encouragement, I would’ve never had the courage to take up writing.