Ask the Author: Mark R. Harris
Answered Questions (5)
Mark R. Harris
Well, I've been pretty steadily inspired since I got the idea for my first novel. What inspired me to write it—that’s pretty cool, actually. My son had been doing NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month—for a year or two, where you try to draft a novel of 50,000 words in a month. One November I decided to do it too. We went to a little café in a bookstore for the first “write-in,” and I had a song in my mind—I’ve always loved popular music, and I’m an auditory person, so music is often floating around in my head—anyway, I had in my mind this song about fire and how it can actually clean or purify things, make them better. And I started to picture a scene I vaguely remembered about a little boy sitting in a little country church, fanning himself with one of those rectangular picture-fans on a stick that little country churches in the South used to have (maybe they still do). And the words started to come. That turned into the first scene/chapter in the book. The next three or four chapters of the book I based on other early memories or early stories I had heard. Then as the plot and the characters started to take shape and develop, it became clearer and clearer where to go with the story.
Mark R. Harris
I am current in-progress with my third novel, the final one in the Luke Gray trilogy. I am also starting to work on a nonfiction book.
Mark R. Harris
(1) Write about what you know--unless you're writing fantasy rather than realism.
(2) Don't write with the idea that it's going to make you rich or famous.
(3) Write because you love it and feel called to do it.
(2) Don't write with the idea that it's going to make you rich or famous.
(3) Write because you love it and feel called to do it.
Mark R. Harris
For me, it's probably being able to share a bit of who I really am with others, in a creative and (hopefully) entertaining way.
Mark R. Harris
Thankfully, I don't get writer's block a whole lot. The hardest part for me is getting started. Once I have an idea and some characters, I don't run into too many roadblocks. But I also take a lot of breaks, so that probably helps!
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