Ask the Author: Benjamin Connor Irwin
Answered Questions (5)
Benjamin Connor Irwin
Jack London said "you can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." I love Jack's work so much I named my dog after him. I agree with him on this 100% and couldn't say it better. You can't wait to be in the mood to write if you want to get any sustained writing accomplished to complete a book-length project, or several. You have to make a habit of writing daily whether you feel like it or not, and you need to have goals for the amount of words or pages you're trying to put down week to week. We intellectualize it and make it sound more complicated than it is, but writing is really just a matter of sitting down and banging out that manuscript one word after another until it's done.
Benjamin Connor Irwin
When I'm writing, I listen to music to get into it. I try to write in such a way that my books play out in the reader's imagination in a cinematic way. Even though I'm a bookworm, I'm also a movie guy and strive to make the experience of reading one of my books like watching a show. One of the things that makes a show or movie for me is its soundtrack, so I listen to a lot of music as I'm considering what moods and themes I want to convey in my work. When I release a book, I also release a Spotify playlist that can be streamed as the author's soundtrack to the book.
Benjamin Connor Irwin
Read a lot, learn the craft, and find your voice. Every kind of story there can be has been told before, but not by you, and it's you who will make it new again for others. The world of publishing, regardless of your path to publication, can be an overwhelming and discouraging slog. But we also live in an exciting time where the industry is rapidly changing, self-publishing platforms have democratized storytelling, and if you're willing to learn the different elements of designing, formatting, editing, publishing, and promoting a book, you can really make this your own.
Benjamin Connor Irwin
I'm developing another horror novel set in Oregon, this one taking place in the 1970s in the vicinity of Mt. Hood and the Warm Springs/Bend area, blending the science-fiction and western genres.
Benjamin Connor Irwin
While vacationing in Florence, Oregon in November of 2016, my wife Lauren and I visited Heceta Head Lighthouse just outside of town. The lighthouse is notorious in Oregon for its reputation as a haunted place, and while touring the grounds, we learned a lot about the isolated lives of lighthouse keepers in remote places. While sitting in the shadow of Heceta Head Lighthouse, we started telling one another a ghost story that grew over the course of our trip and many conversations. I took that idea and wrote it as a novel, which became Cape Contrition.
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