Ask the Author: Gordon MacKinney
Answered Questions (6)
Gordon MacKinney
Stephen King was right in his book On Writing that you cannot trust your friends and family to critique your work. So I went to www.sixfold.org and submitted a short story, and then another. You're evaluated by people who don't know you, sometimes brutally, sometimes constructively, sometimes positively. When it finally happened to me, I received a shot of adrenaline that pushed me to writing my first novel.
Gordon MacKinney
"Writer's Block" is always with me. It's a wooden cube about two inches on each side. It sits on my desk. Because I have it there, I don't have it in my head. But seriously, although my wooden block is real, I believe writer's block is a consequence of one of two things: laziness or impossibly high standards. I needn't elaborate on the first. As for the second, I find it helpful to assume that my first draft is going to be complete crap, which is in sync with Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" lesson from her book Bird by Bird. Just put something down, even if it's garbage. The act of doing so MAY lead you to something that isn't garbage.
Gordon MacKinney
This quote by Anita Desai answers better than I could: "All of us who have ever written, composed music or painted know that when we performed these acts, we are not in touch with the world, we are completely withdrawn from it and in our own world. We are re-creating an inner world."
Gordon MacKinney
Read this book from cover to cover, and then repeat, and then put into action: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Tools-...
Gordon MacKinney
The new book is speculative fiction, imagining a time "a few decades" into the future when state-sanctioned euthanasia has gone mainstream. I explore what that feels like for a protagonist ushering people "across the bridge." The story explores what it means to be alive, both here and in the next life. No, it's not a religious book.
Gordon MacKinney
The fictional town Willigsville is largely based on the small Missouri town, Higginsville, where I spent much of my childhood. The pros and cons of small-town America, such as loyalty and gossip, respectively, came from those memories. Not based on my history: opioid infestation and brutal murder. Fortunately, those only appear in my fiction.
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