Ask the Author: Marcella Pixley
Answered Questions (3)
Marcella Pixley
The best advice I can give you is to never give up. Trust that you have a story worth telling and that there are people out there who want to hear it. Have faith. If you can, find a community of writers who will cheer you on and give you spiritual valentines when the process seems overwhelming. Be each other's cheerleaders. If you want some inspiration from an author who felt just as you feel right now, if you wish you had a crystal ball to tell you if all this hard work is worth it, contact me here at Goodreads. I will encourage you to keep on going and remind you that this world needs your voice.
Marcella Pixley
One of my favorite things about being a writer is that make believe is a daily part of my life. I have always loved playing pretend. I always had stuffed and china animals, or I would pretend I was a wolf or a girl with magical powers, or someone lost in the woods. I would dress up in a cape, and walk around with an Irish harp. If it wasn't for the fact that many of my friends stopped wanting to play make-believe , I probably would have played pretend well into my teens. My stories are about the hard things that happen in teen agers' lives, so in a way, being a writer gives me a way to come to terms with my own emotions and may own experiences. I get to make believe some of the hardest issues imaginable, and somehow it makes things feel less scary and more manageable.
Marcella Pixley
I try to trick myself out of writers' block. (For those of you who have tried, it is incredibly difficult to play a trick on your own brain). I love the feeling of "flow" when I am feeling free and inspired, and there is nothing stopping my creative process -- my fingers flying, the words pouring out. My trick is to always stop in the middle of this feeling of "flow" rather than writing to the end of it. If I stop in the middle of a paragraph or the middle of a sentence I always have an exciting and energizing place to come back to when I sit down to write again. It always feels like I am leaving myself a treat -- or leaving myself a map to follow.
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