Ask the Author: Ellie Beals
Answered Questions (10)
Ellie Beals
Hi Joseph - I suspect that you are wrong in thinking you know the answer to your question. I left Emergence unresolved, because I wanted, in my own small way, to reflect reality as I know it. As I know it: Uncertainty prevails, and resolution is rare, and often transient.
So that was the driver for the end of my story, rather than the desire to insinuate a path for a sequel. I am thrilled that you (and others, I'm pleased to say) want to return to Lac Rouge. I have reached the point in my life (I suspect you and I are close in age) where I'm comfortable not knowing what I will do tomorrow, let alone months from now. So I don't know if I'll write another book. Writing Emergence was the most fun I've ever had. But the focus on marketing has been gruesome -- don't know if I wanna go there again/more.
So that was the driver for the end of my story, rather than the desire to insinuate a path for a sequel. I am thrilled that you (and others, I'm pleased to say) want to return to Lac Rouge. I have reached the point in my life (I suspect you and I are close in age) where I'm comfortable not knowing what I will do tomorrow, let alone months from now. So I don't know if I'll write another book. Writing Emergence was the most fun I've ever had. But the focus on marketing has been gruesome -- don't know if I wanna go there again/more.
Ellie Beals
Sadly, the catalyzing incident for Emergence was a real event, and the book is (also a sad reflection on me, I suspect) a law-abiding response to my desire for revenge. I layered onto that a number of other themes I'd been playing with for years, and they evolved into Emergence.
Ellie Beals
I'm pretty wired into personal experience. I keep an informal journal of things that have touched me. Like the upturned face of a little girl, smiling at a stranger in a crushing throng. I saw that a while ago, in Jerusalem. It keeps coming back to me -- her little light in the darkness. I don't know if I'll work it, or how I will, but the fact that that particular image has recurred to me so often since the time two years ago when I experienced it, may mean that it will lead to something.
Ellie Beals
Sadly for me, I'm working on marketing Emergence. This is not nearly as much fun as writing it was. In fact, it is no damned fun at all, but needs to be done. I am hoping that in another month or two this will be more self-sustaining, at which point I can turn to figuring out what to write next.
Ellie Beals
I refer you to my response about how I've avoided writers' block. Just Do It!
Ellie Beals
The best thing about being a writer is the luxury you give yourself to wallow in your own descriptive powers. No one else may ever share your own appreciation of your "voice" -- but for a woman beset by all of the self-doubt so endemic to our sex, the opportunity to simply claim for yourself an appreciation of the best parts of yourself, is wonderful.
Ellie Beals
Happily, I've never had it, either as a novelist or as a consultant who undertook hundreds of writing assignments. I think the way I've avoided it is by adopting the axiom: Just Do It. I sit down. I start to write. Eventually I get my rhythm. I may end up discarding much of what I've written. But the rhythm is retained and allows me to move gracefully forward.
Ellie Beals
You have a strong moral core -- you KNOW that there are some things you would never do. You are then confronted with a dangerous situation in which the only way you can extricate yourself is by contravening your moral code.
Ellie Beals
I would go the log cabin in the woods of Lac Rouge, as described in Emergence. How lucky am I? That happens to be where I am at this very minute. What would I do? Pretty well what I'm about to do after I finish answering this question: step into my cross-country skis, and head into a brisk headwind, -25 C temperatures, and deep snow. And once out there, buffeted by the wind and snow, I'd still take time enough to appreciate the sight of Gyro and Shine, my Golden Retrievers, dancing through the drifts.
Ellie Beals
Given that I'm in a cabin in the woods of snowy Quebec right now, "summer reading" is not relevant. However, there are a couple of books by long-time favourite authors that I'm looking forward to reading soon: Serpentine, an Alex Delaware mystery by Jonathan Kellerman; and A Private Cathedral, a Dave Robicheaux novel by James Lee Burke
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