Ask the Author: J. Sydney Jones
Answered Questions (6)
J. Sydney Jones
Working on my new historical mysery series, BYRNS ON THE HOMEFRONT. Launch novel to that series, The Cry of Cicadas has just been published. I am currently at work on the second in the series.
Meanwhile, I will soon be pubiishing a good old-fashioned thriller, Bigot List. A contemporary novel, but with figurative ghosts from the Cold War coming back to haunt an ex-CIA agent and his former KGB opposite, with that unlikely pair teaming up to stay alive.
Meanwhile, I will soon be pubiishing a good old-fashioned thriller, Bigot List. A contemporary novel, but with figurative ghosts from the Cold War coming back to haunt an ex-CIA agent and his former KGB opposite, with that unlikely pair teaming up to stay alive.
J. Sydney Jones
Don't quit your day/night job.
I know this sounds way glib, but the reality is very few writers make it with just a writing income. You got a passion to write, that is great. But you do not want to put so much pressure on that passion that it dies. Look initially at writing as an adjunct to a living and have some fun with it.
Don't just write for the market, because by the time you finish your market-driven book, the market has gone elsewhere. Be a realist about writing and hitting it big, or even hitting it midlist. Work daily, diversify--be willing to work as a freelancer to keep the dream alive. A professional writer is first of all a professional.
I know this sounds way glib, but the reality is very few writers make it with just a writing income. You got a passion to write, that is great. But you do not want to put so much pressure on that passion that it dies. Look initially at writing as an adjunct to a living and have some fun with it.
Don't just write for the market, because by the time you finish your market-driven book, the market has gone elsewhere. Be a realist about writing and hitting it big, or even hitting it midlist. Work daily, diversify--be willing to work as a freelancer to keep the dream alive. A professional writer is first of all a professional.
J. Sydney Jones
It never ends. You carry it with you wherever you. And every once in a great while picking up one of my twenty published books, I read a passage and get that chill. The good chill. Knowing it was real work.
J. Sydney Jones
The Cry of Cicadas was a long time gestating. Putting an end to the Viennese Mysteries, I knew I wanted to go onto another historical mystery series, but a bit closer to our time. WWII is ancient history for many, but I did a lot of research on the time for my novel, Time of the Wolf. Still, I wanted to move it to the American homefront, and oddly enough I had done a fair amount of research on WWII in CA for a nonfiction book that never sold.
I set it on the coast of CA, where I live now, and the Japanese internment became a real focus for my researches.
And I soon hit on a protagonist. I had a lawyer at the heart of my Viennese Mysteries, and decided to have a police detective at the heart of this one--but a badly injured one who recuperates in a tiny CA town with his art restorer wife--leaving NYC behind. They have a son in the Army Air Corps, so as WWII approaches, that becomes a major worry for them.
They are made welcome in their new home by Tadeo Suzuki, a successful Japanese farmer, and I hope I have done him true in the writing. Always a bit of a worry for a writer. And Max, my detective, needs a new case to get healthy. Though he does not know it at the time. The novel grew from there.
I set it on the coast of CA, where I live now, and the Japanese internment became a real focus for my researches.
And I soon hit on a protagonist. I had a lawyer at the heart of my Viennese Mysteries, and decided to have a police detective at the heart of this one--but a badly injured one who recuperates in a tiny CA town with his art restorer wife--leaving NYC behind. They have a son in the Army Air Corps, so as WWII approaches, that becomes a major worry for them.
They are made welcome in their new home by Tadeo Suzuki, a successful Japanese farmer, and I hope I have done him true in the writing. Always a bit of a worry for a writer. And Max, my detective, needs a new case to get healthy. Though he does not know it at the time. The novel grew from there.
J. Sydney Jones
After a number of years writing, it's not so much about inspiration, but getting up each morning. It's what I do, day in, day out. But I do plan a lot for the next day as I am going to sleep, so I can start right off. Re inspiration and writer's block, good old Hemingway suggested stopping in mid-scene so you could pcik it up the next day without dithering around. I might have bowdlerized his advice, but something like that. It works for me.
J. Sydney Jones
What's that?
Joking, of course. Just sit down and get one real sentence. Don't worry where it's going. It will lead you somewhere.
Joking, of course. Just sit down and get one real sentence. Don't worry where it's going. It will lead you somewhere.
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