Ask the Author: Nick Sconce
Answered Questions (6)
Nick Sconce
The Hatchet Women series will be three novels with two novellas set between the novels. I've completed the second novel in the series. I will begin the second novella prior to the third novel in January or February 2017.
Nick Sconce
The best thing about being a writer, for me, is rereading something you just wrote, that gives you a charge or a quickening. It's completely an intrinsic reward. I believe it's similar to the point in song writing when you convert a simple riff to a full component of a song. It's the moment of conversion between inception and growth where you get a real sense that it's developing into something meaningful.
Nick Sconce
I've often struggled with arriving at a functional definition of writer's block. I used to deny its actual existence. I think it can manifest itself emotionally as well as intellectually. For Hatchet Women, I spent five years writing the draft with a year and a half hiatus in between. I intentionally shelved the project during that time because I wasn't in the best place personally to do the novel justice. I'm not sure if that was a form of writer's block or not. From an intellectual perspective, I think the best cure or avoidance of writer's block is consistent reps, meaning having the discipline to write for similar periods of time or similar results in terms of word count or page length on a daily or weekly basis. When I'm writing a draft of a novel, I set a goal to write five pages per sitting five times a week, yielding 25 pages weekly. Typically, I can finish a first draft in three or four months this way for the novel length that I trust and am comfortable with. Even if I have no idea what I'm supposed to be writing to move the work forward, I commit to the reps.
Nick Sconce
I first got the idea for Hatchet Women when explaining the concept of private placement annuities to my wife in connection to businesses that run million dollar prize give-aways. When you win a million dollars, you actually win the right to 20 annual payments of fifty thousand dollars, which essentially is a private placement annuity. My wife asked what happens to the rest of the payments if you die before the 20th installment, and the idea took form. From there, I wanted to write an ensemble story with four strong female characters, highlighting the challenges and sexism that exists in the insurance industry.
Nick Sconce
I had amazing English teachers starting in 7th grade and carrying me all the way through high school and college. Each helped me in important ways. When I was a junior in high school, I wrote a short story about a spider webbing on my front porch. I'd never seen a spider like it before, and I observed it for two solids weeks. When I'd finished a rough draft, I asked my high school librarian to read it. Her critique was honest and encouraging. From there, I set out to tackle novel writing. Incidentally, I only recently saw the same spider (over twenty years later) webbing close to our church. I believe the species to be the tree-stump spider - poltys illepidus. If you happen to blow enough smoke onto its web, it will grab the center of the web and shake back and forth. The smoke falls off like dandruff.
Nick Sconce
Know who you are writing for and why you write. There are many internal and external drivers and rewards for writing. Most don't cancel each other, but strive to be as honest with yourself and your writing as you possibly can.
Set new and difficult challenges for yourself and seek to accomplish them. Even if you feel like you aren't completely accomplishing your challenges, your writing improves through these attempts.
Set new and difficult challenges for yourself and seek to accomplish them. Even if you feel like you aren't completely accomplishing your challenges, your writing improves through these attempts.
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