Ask the Author: Jonathan Edward Durham
Answered Questions (7)
Jonathan Edward Durham
There's parts of each of them that I identify with, and therefore pulled from some of my own emotional experience to help flesh them out. Bing's depressive nature, Runny's anxiety, Flackwell's imposter syndrome, and Finn's rage...and of course Eamon's sense of always feeling like an outsider...those are all things that I'm patently familiar with.
Jonathan Edward Durham
I'd go to The Shire and pour away my days relaxing in the sun and listening to tall tales and being patently hobbit-ish. I could use a little more hedonism and a little less anxiety in my life. Besides, I bloody LOVE breakfast.
Jonathan Edward Durham
This is going to sound patently anti-romantic and unwriterly, but I don't wait for inspiration to hit to write. When I'm working on a book, I write according to the same schedule literally every single day until I'm done. Honestly, I just don't know any other way to do it, but I know that M.O. doesn't work for everybody. Deciding WHICH story to write is about the closest I ever get to following pure inspiration...that's a decision I always find myself stalking for a few months, but when I find it it just feels right...and I have yet to find a way to outwork THAT decision.
Jonathan Edward Durham
Write and read and SHARE YOUR WORK as much as you possibly can...and try to be okay with writing garbage for a while, because we ALL do at first. There's no such thing as beginner's luck in this craft and writing is rarely a young person's game, so just know that it's going to take time and effort and patience. Oh, and if there's a way that you can work on your story chops without worrying about the daunting prospect of completing a whole novel—short stories or screenplays or even flash fiction—spend some time on those while you're working on your prose as well :)
Jonathan Edward Durham
That's a pretty loaded question lol, but for me, the best part about being an author is that it's a pursuit that I can helm from start to finish without needing to rely on anybody else. I know that probably seems a bit self-centered, and I guess it kinda IS, but there's something about that kind of solitary pursuit that really turns me on. I love that 'me against the world' feeling...nothing like it.
Jonathan Edward Durham
I actually have a VERY long-winded blog post dedicated to this very topic on my author page here, so by all means go and check that out if you'd like to know what works best for me :)
Jonathan Edward Durham
I make it a point to have no mysteries AT ALL in my life lol...er, I should say that my OCD makes it a point. But hey, a mystery series where the main character is a neurotic, gay, homebody of a writer who hates being interrupted yet keeps getting dragged into mystery after mystery is not a bad platform for some intrepid author!
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