Ask the Author: Reggie Lutz
Answered Questions (6)
Reggie Lutz
I'm not sure I have figured out what the best thing about being a writer is. I can say that there's a sense of satisfaction when I get to the end of a story that I don't feel with anything else.
Reggie Lutz
I don't know that I believe in writer's block. I think that the creative part of the brain can get tired. You can sort of feel it coming on. When I'm drained I'll work on writing related things, like the blog, or the synopsis of whatever novel I'm working on. I'll do line edits. All of which is still writing, but it requires a different kind of focus than creating characters, scenes, plot, and worlds from scratch. If I feel blocked on a day that I have set aside to focus on writing, I write anyway. Some of my best work happens under those conditions. I guess the short version of that answer is that I show up to the page. Sometimes I'll step away for a bit and do something physical and then come back to it. But I always come back.
Reggie Lutz
Consider the advice that's out there, try different things, discard what stops you from writing, keep what keeps you writing, and keep writing. Join a critique group. Talk to other writers. Know that getting good at what you do takes time. Don't quit your day job, but if you love doing this work, don't quit writing, either.
Reggie Lutz
Currently I have a few other novels in various stages of edits. Most exciting though is a post-apocalyptic dystopian series that I am collaborating on with Devon Miller. I'd say more, but we're a long way from publication, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone.
Reggie Lutz
Inspiration is a funny thing. I suspect answers among most writers are similar. I can get an idea from something overheard, something that makes me mad, something that has me curious, something I would like to understand better, an image, a melody. But inspiration does not arrive as suddenly as it did when I was starting out. It seems to come as much from showing up at the page and putting words there on a regular basis. Sometimes something worth exploring emerges, and sometimes not, but it really is true that the more you do this work the easier it becomes to access a story that's lurking just under conscious awareness. It sounds like magic, a little bit, but it really comes from a combination of self-discipline and a very basic urge to create something.
Reggie Lutz
The idea for Haunted really coalesced as I was writing the first chapter. I knew that I wanted to write about a family and find what I think of as "the story between stories." Everyone in Haunted, including the ghost, is in the process of grieving and healing before moving on to the next thing. And I had this vague idea that this book should be like a landscape painting, there is story beyond the edges of the frame. As I wrote about the living, I realized that there was a voice missing from the story as a whole, and so Gwen's ghostly perspective rounded out the tale.
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