Ask the Author: Sadie Montgomery
Answered Questions (6)
Sadie Montgomery
I don't think inspiration is something you can get. It comes to you. When I don't feel inspired, I have some strategies that sometimes help. If I'm in the middle of a project, I'll reread what I've been writing, revise bits, then often the next scene will come into view for me. I also keep a notebook of fragments and ideas. If I'm blocked, I go to the notebook.
Sadie Montgomery
Don't underestimate the value of reading. Some writers need rituals. They have a specific place or time they write. Revision is where things come together. Don't be afraid to chop it up and reorganize. Slash what isn't working. Be sure to keep copies (print outs) and back up your work. Consider joining a writing group.
Sadie Montgomery
I'm putting the final touches on Phantom Nightmare, which I expect to publish sometime next year (2015).
Sadie Montgomery
Rest and reading. Writing anything that pops into my head, concentrating on smaller pieces, poems or short stories or creative nonfiction. Keeping active, that is writing even if it's not the project that I think I should be writing. Revising older pieces that have been put on hold.
Sadie Montgomery
You get to create an entire world and people it with characters that start as marks on paper and then come alive. I am fascinated by the magic of this process.
Sadie Montgomery
My most recent novel, Willoughby, revisits the story of the two ill-fated lovers in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. I love Austen's works. But while re-reading S&S, it occurred to me that there is so much between the lines that we don't understand or know about the very young and somewhat foolish characters, Willoughby and Marianne. The more I poked around in the original the more I wanted to fill in the silences and flesh out the story from Willoughby's point of view. It began as an exercise of retelling the story, but I found myself going well beyond the events in Austen's novel.
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