Ask the Author: John F.X. Sundman
Answered Questions (7)
John F.X. Sundman
Acts of the Apostles and Biodigital both strongly hinted at an earlier (secret) history of the main villain and some of the main characters in these books. Several readers asked about that pre-history. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that that was an important part of the story. As I began writing, of course, the story went off in directions I had not anticipated. But the original impetus came from readers, not from my own prior vision.
John F.X. Sundman
Good question.
John F.X. Sundman
1. A novella, provisionally titled Meekman Rising, that is a prequel to my novels Acts of the Apostles and Biodigital.
2. Creation Science, a giant beast of a novel that I've been wrestling with for a long time now.
3. Trying to get for real about managing my writing/publsihing career as a business. That means being a lot more deliberate and disciplined about all aspects of both the content I'm creating and my "author's platform" and marketing activities.
4. As part of (3), working on my Technopotheosis newsletter and Youtube channel. In particular, lining up interviews with interesting people, conducting the interviews, and producing videos and podcasts of them.
2. Creation Science, a giant beast of a novel that I've been wrestling with for a long time now.
3. Trying to get for real about managing my writing/publsihing career as a business. That means being a lot more deliberate and disciplined about all aspects of both the content I'm creating and my "author's platform" and marketing activities.
4. As part of (3), working on my Technopotheosis newsletter and Youtube channel. In particular, lining up interviews with interesting people, conducting the interviews, and producing videos and podcasts of them.
John F.X. Sundman
1. Don't worry about inspiration. Study craft. 2. Read. 3. If you're trying to make a living at this, remember it's a business and act accordingly. 4. Avoid smugness. If you think you're smarter, sharper, more hip than your readers, that attitude will shine through. You're more likely to be thought a jerk than a great artist.
John F.X. Sundman
Figuring out what you think and feel in the process of writing about what you, or your characters, think and feel. Finding a really felicitous phrase, sentence, paragraph, plot twist, etc can also be a rush -- one that lasts over time. And of course it's wonderful when you make connections with readers who understand and like what you're about. It's like finding other parts of yourself out there in the void.
John F.X. Sundman
Not well. Procrastination (some of it legitimately tagged as "research", but most of it not); switching (writing) projects; doing marketing and platform-building stuff instead of writing. But I think the main successful approach I use to to step back and see whether the story I'm trying to write, and the approach I'm trying to use, are working for me. Sometimes I've found that I've been blocked because I was trying to plow very rocky ground, so to speak, trying to force something that just didn't want to be into being. This is a variant of the sunk cost fallacy -- "I've already invested so much in this, I can't abandon it now!" But sometimes it's best to just abandon it if it's not working and move onto something that comes easier.
John F.X. Sundman
Why did my childhood best friend Albert leave the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania to take a job at a liquor store in Atlantic City, where he was murdered in a robbery a few years later?
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