Ask the Author: Michael B. Neff
Answered Questions (4)
Michael B. Neff
I believe WB to mostly be an outcome of two major circumstances: 1. Believing bad advice that insists you never plan your fiction story in any way but simply create a character and turn them loose to chart a path across the paper-white wasteland; 2. Having insufficient story telling skills from the onset and thus being stuck on how to organize, sketch, or conceive the story path going forward. Only sufficient doses of inspiration filtered by a knowledge of technique will solve this problem.
Michael B. Neff
Learn from the onset how to become a good writer by seeking the right sources so you won't spend years or even decades struggling to achieve mediocrity. Choose your universe (academic, commercial, or independent), your genre niche (SFF, mystery, thriller, historical, etc.), and immerse yourself in those environments. If commercial genre or upmarket, join Publisher's Marketplace to learn all you can about what is selling, who is selling and who is buying. Get your work in front of professionals. Be very skeptical of feedback from amateur writer groups working sans any real criteria or experience. And most of all, shelve the narcissism and accept you know nothing and must become an apprentice to your craft, and that this will take years. An author friend of mine was told at a cocktail party by a neurosurgeon that he would take the summer off and write a novel, whereupon the author responded, "Good idea. I'll take the summer off and work on a few brains."
Michael B. Neff
Inspiration to write derives naturally from an inspiration to tell others about whatever you feel is important or vital for them to know.
Michael B. Neff
The "idea" took form over many years, beginning with a dawning realization after years of working in Washington that the American treasury had become a private feeding trough for corporate America, and that anyone who challenged the corruption was typecast as a whistleblower out to embarrass the president or harm America.
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