Ask the Author: Kevin Ortegel
Answered Questions (7)
Kevin Ortegel
The Christian fiction genre has a lot of potential. I'm hoping to create stories that expand the selection beyond what is out there today. My biggest challenge will be defying the rule that I have to stay in the same sandbox in order to not lose followers from book to book. I want to create stories rooted in Christianity but in subtle fashion so as to not cram the obvious down the throats of readers.
Kevin Ortegel
My goal is to write my next book over the summer, so when I'm in writing mode, I prefer short stories so I don't get too involved with reading instead of writing. So I'll probably be reading short works by Hemingway, Orwell and Dahl. Since it's a baseball book I'm working on, I will probably check out "The Sportswriter" and "Independence Day" by Richard Ford, one of my favorite authors.
Kevin Ortegel
One thing I was always told (and I believe it to be true without any actual evidence other than my own experience) is that even when you're not writing, your mind is always working on your story in the background. In practice, however, I never sit down without having something to start writing about. If I get stuck I just walk away and trust that my brain will think it through while I'm not writing.
Kevin Ortegel
Don't write what you think other people want to read. Write what YOU like to write about and always write what you know. The writers who really pull it off well are those who know the worlds they create on the page because they lived it in some way in real life.
Kevin Ortegel
I'm writing a comedy about my experiences as a little league coach with our sons. There is so much material to write about the way parents have ruined youth sports, and I plan to caricature the many real-life characters who made it unbelievable. People will probably be shocked to find out that my over-the-top retelling is based on real-life events.
Kevin Ortegel
Writing is a pleasurable experience because it's an outlet for me the same way exercising would be for someone else. Writing helps me escape the everyday problems for a while. The downside is that when I have a really good writing experience, I don't want to think about going to my regular job the next day.
Kevin Ortegel
I studied writing 20 years ago but never felt like I was ready to tell stories until I lived a little more. That all changed when I was fired from NASA for whistleblowing. It wasn't long before I felt that I HAD to write this book. The difficulty was knowing when it was time to start because we were still in the storm of it all. I felt that I couldn't write a book without knowing how it ends.
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Apr 26, 2018 04:59PM · flag