Ask the Author: Ann Chamberlin
Answered Questions (6)
Ann Chamberlin
Equal time spent researching and doing something physical, like spading in the garden, are ways I break the block. I write long hand, so the notebook comes with me and often gets quite muddy.
Ann Chamberlin
My first piece of advice is, if you can find equal pleasure in anything else, do it. Writing is hard. It hurts. People either don't care or they hate you. Yes, find something else. Stock car racing. Tight rope walking. Ditch digging in the rain. Nude modeling. Writing has aspects of all of these.
My second piece of advice I heard from someone else: if you're meant to be a writer, nothing I say will stop you. And if you're not, nothing I say will offer the secret bullet that will do it for you.
Third: I think it helps to have all kinds of people trying to stop you. Like the high school writing teacher I had who believed to his core that girls couldn't write. Half of my days are spent trying to prove him wrong. Like my parents who think fiction is a wicked waste of time. Thanks, Mom, anyway for all the hours helping with spelling and grammar.
Fourth; I do believe that perseverance is 90% of the battle. If cleaning house or playing tennis seem more your idea of a vacation, writing is probably not for you.
My second piece of advice I heard from someone else: if you're meant to be a writer, nothing I say will stop you. And if you're not, nothing I say will offer the secret bullet that will do it for you.
Third: I think it helps to have all kinds of people trying to stop you. Like the high school writing teacher I had who believed to his core that girls couldn't write. Half of my days are spent trying to prove him wrong. Like my parents who think fiction is a wicked waste of time. Thanks, Mom, anyway for all the hours helping with spelling and grammar.
Fourth; I do believe that perseverance is 90% of the battle. If cleaning house or playing tennis seem more your idea of a vacation, writing is probably not for you.
Ann Chamberlin
The Goddess comes, hits me alongside the head and says "Write!"
Ann Chamberlin
I have six completed manuscripts looking for homes and the start of at least six more.
Also, I'm working on the Historical Novel Society Conference, of which I am chair, and I have my dear book shop at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. And I have a "real" job, as a librarian.
Yes, I need to focus, but the minute I say one word about one project, it will kill it, I'm sure. In my superstition.
Also, I'm working on the Historical Novel Society Conference, of which I am chair, and I have my dear book shop at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. And I have a "real" job, as a librarian.
Yes, I need to focus, but the minute I say one word about one project, it will kill it, I'm sure. In my superstition.
Ann Chamberlin
Keeps me sane. Sort of.
Ann Chamberlin
My most recent book, The Choosers of the Slain, is based on the Nibelungenlied, as in Richard Wagner, the Ring Cycle. It continues my exploration of women in the foundation myths of different cultures which has included everyone one from Eve in Leaving Eden to France's founding heroine Joan of Arc in the Joan of Arc Tapestries. I spent a lot of time in Germany as a girl; Brynhild and Signy and the rest are founding myth for me.
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