Ask the Author: T. Ralston
Answered Questions (5)
T. Ralston
"The author has passed away. The series will never be completed and the final cliffhanger will never be resolved."
T. Ralston
I've given this lots of thought. My answer would be that I get to spend time reliving so many situations, so many scenarios and romances without having to experience all of them. It also gives me an outlet for my own emotions. I've always struggled with dealing with feelings as they come. I have to bottle them up for awhile so that they're ripe before I can have a chance of overcoming them. With my writing, I'm able to deal with trauma from my childhood and things that are tough to heal from by separating myself from it and watching how the character- an extension of myself- would deal with something similar. Also, my creativity has an outlet. I've always written and my writing ability has grown over the years, and in the last few months has continued to grow with each book I publish.
T. Ralston
A lot of the time I have found that writer's block comes from one of two issues.
1.) The content you have just written is not correct. It isn't where the story was supposed to go, so your brain sort of shuts everything down until you back up a few paces and figure out where things got derailed so you can put them back on track. I recently reread one of my works in progress after letting it become stale for a period of months and realized that I was missing other perspectives. I had over one-hundred pages from one person's perspective and the other characters needed a chance to speak their side too.
2.) You're bored with it. This might mean you need to take a break and consume instead of produce for a while (watch a show, read a book, bake and eat a dozen cookies). It may suggest you should switch to another project to see if it captures your interest for the moment. Or it just might mean your storyline is getting boring and you need to change pacing or throw a wrench in there and get things moving.
Typically if I reread what I've written and can't figure it out, I take a step back and look at something else for a while. Then I'll catch myself thinking about my current projects and wanting to go back to them.
1.) The content you have just written is not correct. It isn't where the story was supposed to go, so your brain sort of shuts everything down until you back up a few paces and figure out where things got derailed so you can put them back on track. I recently reread one of my works in progress after letting it become stale for a period of months and realized that I was missing other perspectives. I had over one-hundred pages from one person's perspective and the other characters needed a chance to speak their side too.
2.) You're bored with it. This might mean you need to take a break and consume instead of produce for a while (watch a show, read a book, bake and eat a dozen cookies). It may suggest you should switch to another project to see if it captures your interest for the moment. Or it just might mean your storyline is getting boring and you need to change pacing or throw a wrench in there and get things moving.
Typically if I reread what I've written and can't figure it out, I take a step back and look at something else for a while. Then I'll catch myself thinking about my current projects and wanting to go back to them.
T. Ralston
I draw inspiration from everything. Sometimes I will see or hear just one small thing and that thing will swirl around in my mind for days or weeks until I write it down and give it a new life.
T. Ralston
I'm currently working on the fourth book of the Restless Kings MC series.
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