Ask the Author: Debra Bailey
Answered Questions (6)
Debra Bailey
A historical fiction called "The Reluctant Hero." It's about a young man, Caleb, in the early days of the American Revolution who desperately wants his father's approval but can't abide his father's Patriot politics. Caleb just wants a roof over their heads, food on the table, and security for his family. He can't understand why his father and brother would risk everything for an ideal. Yet he will be confronted with a situation that will require him to confront his struggles and choose a path.
Debra Bailey
In the beginning it may not be easy because you may not be sure what exactly is your writing genre or purpose. You sense something pulling you and you have to "write your way" to clarity and direction. For others, they know right from the start. But either way, the most important thing is to show up. Whether it's putting words on paper in an organized plan and you know where you're going, or free-writing to get past the confusion, show up and put words on paper. Eventually, the clarity of what your real purpose is will show up.
Debra Bailey
You don't ever feel at a loss for purpose. You are creating something, whether a memoir, a fictional world, a nonfiction project, and that becomes a sense of meaning and a source of peace for the soul. Also, you get the satisfaction of knowing that not only do you find your own answers and peace through writing, but your words may do the same or more for another.
Debra Bailey
There are the usual sorts of suggestions like write every day, have a schedule and never deviate, etc. But I think there is no one size fits all. You have to do what works for you. For me, I feel like I "have to write" about something, and even if I don't start right away, it's there in my thoughts, my subconscious, my dreams. It gives me no peace until I write. So for me, it is not so much firing me up to write, as something demands in me that it wants to be spoken and I must write, and finally do.
Debra Bailey
For me, writer's block means I don't know what it is I want to say. If I find myself unable to continue, I go back to basic free-writing, or interviewing myself, in an effort to get to the core answer: what is this story really about? and what is it I am trying to say. If I can't sum that up in a sentence or two, then I don't know where I'm going, and that is the source of the block, at least for me. I can't speak for others as to why they get blocked. But once I do some free writing and answer those questions I pose to myself, I usually find my answer and can then go back to working on my project again. That or I take a shower....answers always come in the shower when my mind is clear. That's why I keep a waterproof pad of paper and pen in the shower -- for all those insights I don't want to forget! :)
Debra Bailey
My book--A Colonial Williamsburg Love Affair-- is both an exploration of soul -- mine and Colonial Williamsburg's -- as well as a celebration of a place I fell in love with at age 10. My parents let my sister and I run free to explore CW on our own for a day in 1965 and it set a fire in my heart for that place. Looking back over the last fifty or so years, I began to ask myself what is was about CW that caught my heart and what keeps me coming back again and again? I also thought about the more universal question -- why do people love the places they do? So I started writing the story of my visits, figuring I would find the answer to my own question, as well as the universal one. As an added bonus, I included a second part with tips I picked up from my years of visits, in the hopes that maybe others will visit CW and fall in love with it too!
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