Ask the Author: Tom Puetz
Answered Questions (1)
Tom Puetz
What is the best thing about writing? For me, it's that first edit. The part where I get to not publish the bad stuff. While putting down the rough draft I always remember I can write anything without fear of being corrected, ridiculed, embarrassed or humiliated because I am the only one who is going to see it. I get to pick the best stuff to publish.
Knowing I get the first edit opens the door for another best thing about writing – flights of fancy. To put into words those imagined conversations, those great comebacks, those might have beens is a sheer joy. My characters let me try out being someone else; being a prince or a pauper. I can examine my own character in those make-believe worlds of what if . What would I do? What would my mother have done? I can have a character do and say what I would if I thought no one would ever find out. Needful things are revealed in my dialogue.
The narrative exposition is fun. I don’t know why but I get tremendous satisfaction when I describe a setting so it comes alive in the imagination. Sometimes when I describe a specific part of a scene the rest just starts to appear in my mind’s eye. That’s fun. Sometimes my characters will see something I didn’t put there, or hear a door open out of the scene. That’s my muse telling me another character is about to appear.
Always letting the words flow is my only rule. I can pick the words that fit the book later. If I write without thinking, there’s enough good writing to pick from. The bad stuff just doesn’t count, because I get the first read.
Knowing I get the first edit opens the door for another best thing about writing – flights of fancy. To put into words those imagined conversations, those great comebacks, those might have beens is a sheer joy. My characters let me try out being someone else; being a prince or a pauper. I can examine my own character in those make-believe worlds of what if . What would I do? What would my mother have done? I can have a character do and say what I would if I thought no one would ever find out. Needful things are revealed in my dialogue.
The narrative exposition is fun. I don’t know why but I get tremendous satisfaction when I describe a setting so it comes alive in the imagination. Sometimes when I describe a specific part of a scene the rest just starts to appear in my mind’s eye. That’s fun. Sometimes my characters will see something I didn’t put there, or hear a door open out of the scene. That’s my muse telling me another character is about to appear.
Always letting the words flow is my only rule. I can pick the words that fit the book later. If I write without thinking, there’s enough good writing to pick from. The bad stuff just doesn’t count, because I get the first read.
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