Ask the Author: Adrienne Chinn
Answered Questions (6)
Adrienne Chinn
I write a chapter that has a letter. I find these easy and fun to write and they always help to unblock me. Also, I write out of sequence if I'm struggling with a chapter. That way I feel I'm still progressing, and I go back to the difficult chapter at another time when I'm ready to tackle it. The key thing for me is to write something.
Adrienne Chinn
Freedom. Self-fulfilment. Being creative. Accessing your real voice. Communicating to readers through your books.
Adrienne Chinn
Carve out regular time to write. Don't worry if it's not every day, but do prioritise it, otherwise everything else will crowd into your writing time. I have a big 1 page wall-calendar and I block off my writing days each month and organise work and socialising around these days. Also, take short courses, attend workshops and writing events, hire a writing mentor if you're stuck, read books on writing (Take Off Your Pants! by Libbie Hawker and On Writing by Stephen King are both great), keep writing and re-writing and honing your craft. Don't give up. It took me 8 years to get my first novel published.
Adrienne Chinn
There's nothing like a deadline!
I love exploring my characters, giving them problems to solve (or not), putting them into new countries and situations. I love to travel so I'm always thinking about how I can incorporate the places I visit into my books.
I love exploring my characters, giving them problems to solve (or not), putting them into new countries and situations. I love to travel so I'm always thinking about how I can incorporate the places I visit into my books.
Adrienne Chinn
I'm currently researching and writing the third book in The Three Fry Sisters series which is set from 1932-1939, and explores the Great Depression in Canada, the Spanish Civil War and Hollywood in the Thirties.
Adrienne Chinn
Hi,
For the current Three Fry Sisters series, with Love in a Time of War being the first book, and The Paris Sister (coming out in February) being the second book, I was very much inspired by the lives of my great-aunts Ettie and Jessie Chinn and my grand-mother Edith Fry Chinn. My grandfather was a professional photographer so I have quite a few photographs of them in the 1910s and 1920s. My great-aunt Ettie was a British Army nurse in Egypt during WW1, Jessie was a bohemian milliner who lost her German fiance in the war and never married, and my grandmother married a war veteran and emigrated to Alberta in Canada in 1922. So much happened to women in 20th century and I wanted to explore that through the lives of these three Fry sisters in the books.
For the current Three Fry Sisters series, with Love in a Time of War being the first book, and The Paris Sister (coming out in February) being the second book, I was very much inspired by the lives of my great-aunts Ettie and Jessie Chinn and my grand-mother Edith Fry Chinn. My grandfather was a professional photographer so I have quite a few photographs of them in the 1910s and 1920s. My great-aunt Ettie was a British Army nurse in Egypt during WW1, Jessie was a bohemian milliner who lost her German fiance in the war and never married, and my grandmother married a war veteran and emigrated to Alberta in Canada in 1922. So much happened to women in 20th century and I wanted to explore that through the lives of these three Fry sisters in the books.
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