Ask the Author: Shawn Smucker
Answered Questions (10)
Shawn Smucker
We used to live on 41 W James Street but one day we got a package for 41 W Ross Street and it was a very heavy, small package, very mysterious, and when we returned it to the correct address, it was an eery little building. I have all kinds of story ideas!
Shawn Smucker
I'd probably want to go to Narnia! Visit Cair Paravel, see the Stone Table, check out the lamp post...
Shawn Smucker
Well, I'm currently in the revision stage of a murder mystery that happens here in Lancaster, PA, where I grew up.
Shawn Smucker
I love listening to music and reading good books. Those things make me want to write.
Shawn Smucker
Hi, Mercy! Thanks for the question. When I was young, I fell in love with reading. As I grew older, I knew I wanted to try my hand at creating those same kind of stories. So, that's what I do now.
Shawn Smucker
No, Light from Distant Stars is for adults, a standalone novel.
Shawn Smucker
I have two things I tell anyone who asks me about writing. The first is that you have to write every day. Whatever it is your working on, even if it's writing in your journal, there's just no substitute for writing every single day. The ways this will improve your writing is immeasurable. And the second thing I always say is that writers need to finish what they start. Finishing is such a valuable discipline. Too many of us - and this was me up until a few years ago - are intoxicated with starting new stories, but we never finish them.
Shawn Smucker
Somewhere deep in the city of Istanbul, I got out of the cab and walked into the building, then took the elevator up to their apartment. I’ve never been in an elevator quite like that one – it had no inside door, so I could watch as the wall went down. I saw each floor pass before my eyes. I won’t forget the first time I met Stan. We didn’t know it at the time, but he had about seven months to live.
His wife was so welcoming, and his children smiled, shook my hand. They carried the kind humility of those in deep sadness. I walked into Stan’s study and he was lying on a low couch. He sat up and smiled. He seemed to be doing okay, but his skin had a translucent quality and his eyes turned down at the edges with weariness.
Stan had Stage 4 liver and colon cancer, and I was there to hear his story and then share it with the world.
* * * * *
There’s something about death that I do not understand. Many things, actually. My relationship with death is akin to that of a man with the animal he hears walking just out of his sight. He is deep in a thousand mile wood, surrounded by thick brush.
There is fascination.
There is awe and curiosity.
But for many years there was mostly fear. The crackling of branches at night. The unknown intent of the beast. The knowledge that, at some point, the beast would carry me away.
* * * * *
My time with Stan and his family was beautiful. The way they let me into that space of suffering and pain was such an honor. Their openness and generosity during such a difficult time changed me.
I left Turkey after three weeks, and living in such close proximity to death had marked me. I woke up at night, sensing its heavy breathing on the back of my neck. I saw it everywhere I went: its inevitability, its steady, onward march. It will eventually take everyone I love. It will eventually take me. I paced the house. I felt anxious and afraid.
So I did the only thing I know to do. I wrote a story, a novel, and I called it The Day the Angels Fell.
It was the story of a boy named Sam whose mother dies. He goes in search of The Tree of Life so that he can bring her back. I became Sam in that story, and somehow, in his quest, I found peace. I found a way to live even as the beast crept alongside me in the thicket. Writing helped me find my way.
This is what stories can do for us.
His wife was so welcoming, and his children smiled, shook my hand. They carried the kind humility of those in deep sadness. I walked into Stan’s study and he was lying on a low couch. He sat up and smiled. He seemed to be doing okay, but his skin had a translucent quality and his eyes turned down at the edges with weariness.
Stan had Stage 4 liver and colon cancer, and I was there to hear his story and then share it with the world.
* * * * *
There’s something about death that I do not understand. Many things, actually. My relationship with death is akin to that of a man with the animal he hears walking just out of his sight. He is deep in a thousand mile wood, surrounded by thick brush.
There is fascination.
There is awe and curiosity.
But for many years there was mostly fear. The crackling of branches at night. The unknown intent of the beast. The knowledge that, at some point, the beast would carry me away.
* * * * *
My time with Stan and his family was beautiful. The way they let me into that space of suffering and pain was such an honor. Their openness and generosity during such a difficult time changed me.
I left Turkey after three weeks, and living in such close proximity to death had marked me. I woke up at night, sensing its heavy breathing on the back of my neck. I saw it everywhere I went: its inevitability, its steady, onward march. It will eventually take everyone I love. It will eventually take me. I paced the house. I felt anxious and afraid.
So I did the only thing I know to do. I wrote a story, a novel, and I called it The Day the Angels Fell.
It was the story of a boy named Sam whose mother dies. He goes in search of The Tree of Life so that he can bring her back. I became Sam in that story, and somehow, in his quest, I found peace. I found a way to live even as the beast crept alongside me in the thicket. Writing helped me find my way.
This is what stories can do for us.
Shawn Smucker
Yesterday, as one of the main characters in the sequel to The Day the Angels Fell was driving, he decided to stop at his old house, the house where he grew up, the house where he was living when his sister disappeared. This was unexpected. I had not planned for this to happen. So it was very much as a third party that I watched (and wrote) about his entrance into the house, the memories that came back to him, and the strange knocking that began to emanate from the trap door in the floor of the guest room closet.
This is what I love about writing fiction, the sense that something or someone entirely outside of myself will often step in and direct the story.
This is what I love about writing fiction, the sense that something or someone entirely outside of myself will often step in and direct the story.
Shawn Smucker
I currently make a living co-writing and ghost-writing books for publishers and individuals, so when I feel like I've hit a dead-end with my own work, I shift to one of the other projects that I'm working on.
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