Ask the Author: Ted Dunphy
Answered Questions (2)
Ted Dunphy
I don't experience writers block.
My problem is being blocked from writing by incidentals like people needing something - always urgently, work that must be completed by a deadline, falling asleep, making time to eat and stay healthy and wondering where on earth my time goes.
In each of my books - completed and those I am working on - a character will act up at some point and refuse to fit into what I thought the story was about. The behavior if left unchecked will wreck the plot. I give time for that character and the others in the story to sort out where they think the story is going. I ease off writing and let them get on with working out how to go forward. All this seemingly takes place in my subconscious. I just write the story, I don't dictate how it will develop.
Within a day or two, the characters have found a solution and they shove the way forward into my conscious mind. I take up the writing again, following where they lead, pretending that I am in charge just because I am the named author.
While all that sorting out is going on without me, I have plenty of other writing or publicity to turn to. I always have more than one piece of writing going at any one time and there is normally a new book stirring somewhere in those dark places of the mind that is the seedbed of imagination and creativity.
Writer's block? If only I had the time for it.
My problem is being blocked from writing by incidentals like people needing something - always urgently, work that must be completed by a deadline, falling asleep, making time to eat and stay healthy and wondering where on earth my time goes.
In each of my books - completed and those I am working on - a character will act up at some point and refuse to fit into what I thought the story was about. The behavior if left unchecked will wreck the plot. I give time for that character and the others in the story to sort out where they think the story is going. I ease off writing and let them get on with working out how to go forward. All this seemingly takes place in my subconscious. I just write the story, I don't dictate how it will develop.
Within a day or two, the characters have found a solution and they shove the way forward into my conscious mind. I take up the writing again, following where they lead, pretending that I am in charge just because I am the named author.
While all that sorting out is going on without me, I have plenty of other writing or publicity to turn to. I always have more than one piece of writing going at any one time and there is normally a new book stirring somewhere in those dark places of the mind that is the seedbed of imagination and creativity.
Writer's block? If only I had the time for it.
Ted Dunphy
Over several Sunday nights I saw a group of retired men taking a late night drink in a local pub. Each of them had a rich working background but were now put out to pasture. It seemed such a waste and I wondered what would happen if they decided not to take their forced retirement lying down. From there, the story took off by itself and the title grew out of the situation of the men and was summed up in the message of 'Don't Poke the Fire', because if you do, sparks will fly.
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