Ask the Author: Jim Andersen
Answered Questions (6)
Jim Andersen
Shortly after we finished the walk recorded in "Sometimes a Great Notion...Isn't, so much" in 1974 I knew I had a book in there. It just took a while to get around to it, is all. It might never have come to fruition if my daughter, who wasn't even close to being born back then, hadn't told me last year that she wanted to repeat that walk when she turned 30, which happened just this year. So I wrote it all down for her and we made a book out of it. Now her sequel is about to start as she and three others are setting off to Mt. Whitney on September 23rd, 2017. They're also walking to Badwater, some 143 miles of pretty awful hiking. This time I will be leading the support party, which seems much more agreeable.
Jim Andersen
I give up. How, indeed?
Jim Andersen
I'm currently working on what I'm going to write next. In the meantime I read a lot, hoping that will refill my head with another load of words.
Jim Andersen
Keep right on aspiring but go easy on yourself. Don't bang your head against the wall when you run out of words. I don't know about anyone else, but if my writing is forced it comes out sounding like I'm being held at gunpoint. Submissions of that caliber beg for a reject slip. Better to just go visit the refrigerator and let the piece percolate for awhile.
Jim Andersen
I wish I knew. I gave up trying to be a writer--that is, making a living from it--a couple of decades ago. Successful writers apparently have to do an immense amount of writing every day, a feat I've tried several times. I can do it for a few months, even a couple years once, but eventually my writer self just dries up and blows away. So far it's always come back but it generally takes a year or two.
Jim Andersen
I don't. I go do something else.
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