Ask the Author: Grace Mead
Answered Questions (6)
Grace Mead
I regularly switch between personal projects and work. I find I can work on many different briefs and also do some personal writing if I have the discipline to put the drafts down and create some time before turning back to them. I also like to keep notes on my phone throughout the day for random ideas: I think of it as the modern equivalent of the notes that Abraham Lincoln used to store in his top hat. Though I'll never be Lincoln, it seems a good idea to steal useful techniques from the very best.
Grace Mead
Reading the final version of your better works with disbelief that you're the author.
Grace Mead
Read about how to write, particularly from writers you admire. John Gardner's The Art of Fiction is by far my favorite book on writing a novel. I read George Orwell's Politics and The English Language regularly. E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel is also wonderful. But read about writing from those you like to read.
Grace Mead
I'm rotating between work projects and promoting the novel now. I'll wait to gauge reader interest in this book to decide whether to write a sequel. I've thought of many possibilities for a sequel, but I do want to write purposefully. So I'd like to learn from reactions to this book before starting a new novel. I may just pull out a single sheet of paper and write as many topics of interest as I encounter for a month, and then think about how they could be pulled together in characters, a plot, and, ultimately, a novel.
Grace Mead
I'm inspired to write by reading and ruminating on nonfiction of all sorts, as well as observing people around me and inferring, based on too little information, information about what's going on in their heads and their life experiences.
Grace Mead
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