Ask the Author: Alan Lampe
Answered Questions (9)
Alan Lampe
My Dad told me my grandfather used to ride the rails from time to time. However, being a Texas farmer, he was rather poor. He rode the rails by hanging on to the bottom of the rail cars. Dad never found out why grandpa did this. However, it could be a plot for a book.
Alan Lampe
I listen to my characters. I do have an idea of where the story needs to go, but if my characters believe it needs to go in a different direction, then I go with the flow. My characters know what they want to do. I just have to corral them into a story.
Alan Lampe
I'm working on my fourth manuscript. I'm calling this a companion novel to "Bill's Cajun House of Pleasure." It's not a sequel, but it has characters from Bill's in the same time period.
Alan Lampe
The world of Faerun in the Forgotten Realms series is where I would go. I'd set up shop in Waterdeep and do some writing and some traveling.
Alan Lampe
Mainly, I read Christian books this summer, but I started out with "Sick Puppy" by Carl Hiaasen, then "One Idiot Short of a Village" by Russell Gayer, then "Bent But Not Broken" by Andrew Butters, "Oh For Heaven's Sake" by John K. Anthony, four Matthew Kelly books, "Pope Francis to Go" by Christopher West and the Spiritual Exercises by Saint Ignatius. A great way to be a better version of my self.
Alan Lampe
Keep writing. Set aside the same time each week for writing. Don't let your friends, family, or job interfere with this time. Focus on writing for this time. Then, expand the time, whether by a few hours, or adding an additional day. This will create a writing habit. Continue to build this writing habit until you have reached your dreams.
Research everything. I'd rather have one person leave a commit saying, "He did his research and it is accurate," then a thousand people saying "You don't know what your talking about, whiskey doesn't do that." If there is any doubt, research and find the correct answer.
Research everything. I'd rather have one person leave a commit saying, "He did his research and it is accurate," then a thousand people saying "You don't know what your talking about, whiskey doesn't do that." If there is any doubt, research and find the correct answer.
Alan Lampe
The great joy it will bring you. If you have fun characters, like I do in "Bill's Cajun House of Pleasure," you'll laugh yourself silly with everything they do.
My second book is a medieval fantasy story. I set the towns in different time periods and places of medieval and Renaissance Europe. By doing this, I'm learning a lot about European history. Right now I'm just skimming the top to get the basics, but as I continue to write in this world, I'll dig down and discover some really cool things that happened. I may not use the information in the story, but I can use it in blog posts, or my other social media accounts.
Be open to learning, and an imagination to putting characters in situations where they have to learn the same thing.
My second book is a medieval fantasy story. I set the towns in different time periods and places of medieval and Renaissance Europe. By doing this, I'm learning a lot about European history. Right now I'm just skimming the top to get the basics, but as I continue to write in this world, I'll dig down and discover some really cool things that happened. I may not use the information in the story, but I can use it in blog posts, or my other social media accounts.
Be open to learning, and an imagination to putting characters in situations where they have to learn the same thing.
Alan Lampe
You mean other than sitting around and waiting for my characters to talk to me again? I use that time to research the details and develop the history of the world. As I do that, new ideas come to mind for a new scene, or a whole new story. Once my characters see I'm spending more time on other projects, they get jealous and start talking to me again.
Alan Lampe
The first idea came from HBO's "Deadwood" series. I thought what if change the setting and the time, but leave the language and throw in some humor, what would that look like? Turns out, it looks a lot like "Bill's Cajun House of Pleasure." My former girlfriend and I would pretend to be several of the characters in the story. Some of what we came up with made it into the book. It was a lot of fun developing the characters and story line.
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