Ask the Author: Sarena Straus
Answered Questions (3)
Sarena Straus
When faced with writer's block, I exercise - running especially helps my mind wander and come up with ideas. I also kick my reading and listening to audiobooks into high gear. Depending on what I'm struggling with, I will target different books. For example, if I'm working on close 3rd person POV, I will turn to a Stephen King novel because he's such a master of close third. If I'm working on world-building, maybe I will pick up some Brandon Sanderson. Sometimes, I bounce ideas off a relevant muse - my 14 and 12-year-old kids are a particularly rich source of creative ideas and energy. Really, diving into other books always helps loosen a log jam! I do a lot of writing in my head before I put anything to paper, so sometimes, I just have to be a little patient with myself!
Sarena Straus
Five years of my life was the plot for my book, "Bronx DA." Reality is definitely often stranger than fiction. But I had many cases that came across my desk over the years that I could not pursue for lack of evidence that I wish I could find out the truth about.
Sarena Straus
My idea for "ReInception" came from reading an article about Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or "TMS" at the same time that I was reading a book about habits. TMS has important therapeutic potential, but reading about the two together made me wonder about other applications for brain stimulation and how it's human nature, when we have a technology at our disposal, to go too far. I set my technology for habit modification, called ReIncpetion, in a world that has taken the desire for perfection to the nth degree. Like many of us today, my main character is struggling to be true to herself and to be herself in a world where everyone around her is modified.
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