Ask the Author: Mason Dakota
Answered Questions (5)
Mason Dakota
I've discovered a rhythm to myself when it comes to writing. I write better before 3:00 PM. My theory is that insecurity is tied with writing and that the longer the day goes, and the more defeats we face in the day, the more insecure we become as time goes by and as this is linked to writing it affects the product of what we write. So I write best in the morning I believe, listening to some music that fits the mood of the scene I'm working on and usually in an environment away from home like a coffee shop. I occasionally get another burst of inspiration to write in the evenings and try to take advantage of that moment. But my best time to come up with cool scenes and be creative is actually in the evenings. It is strange that my writing is of poor quality then but I can come up with interesting scenes. So I will either make a note of the scene and write it out the next morning, or I will attempt to write it out and go back and rewrite it the next morning. Another avenue I take is setting personal goals for myself in writing with deadlines of when they need to be done, like having a scene or chapter or book done by a certain date and then pouring my energy into accomplishing those goals by establishing a calendar system where I tell myself I have to do this much every day to accomplish this goal by this date.
Mason Dakota
Two things.
1. Remember why you are writing in the first place. I am guilty of forgetting this in the nuance of running a book business and there are so many things spinning around me and the desire to do better and sell more drives me nuts or depressed. But I write because I've got a message and a story to share, and because what I personally get out of writing. I'm a writer and will continue to write and publish even if nobody buys my work because my motivation is first for the personal reward I get. This doesn't mean that I don't strive to do better in marketing or sales, only that the motivation is different.
2. Don't give up. This business of writing is tough. Not many know or understand that. You constantly do battle in your head with your insecurities as well as the characters you create. Sometimes it might even feel like your characters have more control over the things you write than what you write. It's a strange reality we writers live in. But we don't give up, neither do we give up when our book launch fails or we get bad reviews or nobody seems to want to come near our book. Instead, we learn from these things and grow from them as we continue to write. The reason why we write is something unique to every author and something you've got to figure out for yourself.
1. Remember why you are writing in the first place. I am guilty of forgetting this in the nuance of running a book business and there are so many things spinning around me and the desire to do better and sell more drives me nuts or depressed. But I write because I've got a message and a story to share, and because what I personally get out of writing. I'm a writer and will continue to write and publish even if nobody buys my work because my motivation is first for the personal reward I get. This doesn't mean that I don't strive to do better in marketing or sales, only that the motivation is different.
2. Don't give up. This business of writing is tough. Not many know or understand that. You constantly do battle in your head with your insecurities as well as the characters you create. Sometimes it might even feel like your characters have more control over the things you write than what you write. It's a strange reality we writers live in. But we don't give up, neither do we give up when our book launch fails or we get bad reviews or nobody seems to want to come near our book. Instead, we learn from these things and grow from them as we continue to write. The reason why we write is something unique to every author and something you've got to figure out for yourself.
Mason Dakota
I am working on a number of projects. I am working on my third installment of my Dystopian King Series, that I hope to release summer of 2020, I'm working on creating a short stories series that's an urban fantasy set before WW2. And I have convinced my wife to publish her own children's book, which is hilarious and bound to be great, that we hope to publish before the end of the year.
Mason Dakota
The freedom of the creative outlet. It allows me to express myself in a unique way, and in some strange way, I learn a lot about myself and about the world I live in as I write about different worlds. I get to experience the depth of both love and hate in humanity and see how those play out in my own life in ways that control and motivate me. In many ways, writing allows me to pour out any hurts, pains, or darkness I feel in myself on to a page and by doing so it is less inclined to control me or how I act toward others. I've had multiple people find it strange that I can write some dark scenes and yet seem like a happy person most of the time, and the reason being is that writing not only inspires my creativity it always allows me to dump out the negative side of me in a way that's coping and unharmful toward others.
Mason Dakota
Like any writer, I go through seasons of ups and downs fighting writer's block. I can sometimes predict when it is coming so I'll cram as much material in as I can before I feel it set in. Breaking it has always taken different things for me, but what usually helps is that I read a book or watch a movie. It has to be a certain kind of book or movie. For a book, it has to be a really good book, something that excited me or caught me off guard that inspired me. For a movie, it has to be something I've never seen before and it has to be either really good or really bad. If it's good it inspires me to write something just as good, but if it is bad it inspires me with the desire to put better content out there than what I just saw. It makes me think, "Wow if someone thought this was good enough to make a movie, then what's my excuse? I need to put something better out there than this!" One of those two ways usually help.
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