Ask the Author: Rush Leaming
Answered Questions (8)
Rush Leaming
Just saw this question. It's a good one. In the mid-90's, I lived in a haunted house in Atlanta, GA. Some weird stuff happened. Don't know if enough for an entire novel, but definitely a good short story!
Rush Leaming
I see you didn't specify "romantic" couple so that gives me a bit of latitude!
Happy-ish couple: Elizabeth and Darcy
Doomed couple #1: Winston and Julia from "1984"
Doomed couple #2: Romeo and Juliet (of course)
Tragic friends: George and Lennie from "Of Mice and Men"
Literary couple: Henry Miller and Anais Nin
Anarchist couple #1: Thing 1 and Thing 2 from "Cat in the Hat"
Anarchist couple #2: The Narrator and Tyler Durden from "Fight Club"
Theatrical couple: Stanley and Stella
Comic Book couple: Peter Parker and Mary Jane
How's that?
Happy-ish couple: Elizabeth and Darcy
Doomed couple #1: Winston and Julia from "1984"
Doomed couple #2: Romeo and Juliet (of course)
Tragic friends: George and Lennie from "Of Mice and Men"
Literary couple: Henry Miller and Anais Nin
Anarchist couple #1: Thing 1 and Thing 2 from "Cat in the Hat"
Anarchist couple #2: The Narrator and Tyler Durden from "Fight Club"
Theatrical couple: Stanley and Stella
Comic Book couple: Peter Parker and Mary Jane
How's that?
Rush Leaming
Be honest, I've never really had it, but then again, I'm not an "everyday writer". I don't follow a set schedule or have a certain page count. I often go months, sometimes years in between writing. I only write when I can't keep it inside anymore. And when that happens, I can write anywhere. It doesn't matter. When the story is gushing out, I can be sitting in the middle of a crowded football stadium, and it wouldn't stop me.
Rush Leaming
Let me answer it this way: I spent years working in film and video production, trying to raise money for my own film projects to tell my stories that way. I came close a few times to everything falling into place, but it never quite did. The best thing about returning to my "roots" and just being a writer is that I HAVE TOTAL CONTROL! I don't need millions of dollars or hundreds of people. I don't have to worry about investors, or completion bonds, or union contracts or weather delays. It's just me in a quiet room (or on my porch), spinning out tales on my own.
Rush Leaming
I'm an aspiring writer! Though I've been writing short stories my whole life since I was five years old, it was always more of a hobby. I had always said "one day" I'll try to make a real go of it. That day is now!
Rush Leaming
Recently finished the first draft of my next novel entitled "The Whole of the Moon" about a group of young international aid workers in the Congo at the end of the Cold War. It's a prequel of sorts to "Don't Go, Ramanya". This fall I have a few short stories I plan to work on as well, and I'm already making notes for my third novel entitled "Tales of an Interplanetary Dishwasher". With a title like that, you can imagine it will either be one of the coolest books ever written or a complete and total disaster!
Rush Leaming
I write from the gut, not the head. It's always something burning within me that has to get out or I'll explode: a place, a character, an emotion, a theme or anything that won't leave me alone, that screams at me until I put it down on paper. Sometimes those screams can last twenty or more years. It can be exhausting!
Rush Leaming
Of course when writing fiction, you never want to reveal exactly which parts are true and which are not. That's part of the mystery. But for "Don't Go, Ramanya", my first novel, I will say that I spent time in Thailand teaching English to Buddhist monks who were refugees from Burma. One of my students was a man named Ramanya, and one day he showed me a photo of when he had been a soldier in the Mon Rebel Army fighting against the military dictatorship in his country. I'll leave it at that :)
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