Ask the Author: John Osborne
Answered Questions (6)
John Osborne
I'd have to say Arwen Evenstar and Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. Talk about patience! They waited a hundred years or so before finally being wed. They put everyone else they knew and all of Middle Earth before their own desires. That's dedication.
John Osborne
I was born and raised in Decatur. At age 12, my family moved to Danville and I lived in or near there until about six years ago, when my wife and I relocated to Urbana. She has a doula practice here and I work for the University, so it was a logical move to make. We live near Lincoln Square and just love it here. I can walk to work every day, which is when a lot of great writing ideas come to life and much dialogue is rehearsed.
John Osborne
Just keep writing. And just as important, reading. Read the big authors to see how they structure sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and an entire novel. See how they do speech tags. See how they violate those rules you've heard about, like my favorite - "Never use the word 'suddenly'. Let your description of the action imply suddenness." But isn't it quicker to just say "Suddenly, he saw the error of his ways". And keep writing, whenever you can grab a few minutes.
John Osborne
The best thing about being a writer is being able to say it. "I'm a writer." Or better, hearing my wife say it. "John is a writer, you know." Yeah, I like that.
John Osborne
I'm busy! I'm wrapping up the fourth Willow Brown book, (Willow Brown, Someday Fairy) which will be off to my editor shortly. I'm laying out the as-yet-untitled fifth book, which will be different. It's actually going to be a story within a story. For those of you familiar with the series, Willow and Noah take a trip to New York, where she recounts for him her adventures when she met the first Noah during the Revolutionary War. But there's plenty going on in the present day part of the story too. Should be fun. At the same time, I'm starting my first non-fairy novel that's unrelated to the series and contains no magic. My wife and I are going on a do-little vacation in August, when I'll do a lot of writing on both books, and she'll be taking pictures, though not of me writing.
John Osborne
I know a lot of writer's just say "Keep writing", but that doesn't work for me. I have to know where I'm going, at least in general. I handle writer's block by waiting it out until the solution to the block comes to me. (Even the big guys have this problem. Stephen King says he waits months sometimes before starting a book, until he gets the first line right.) While I'm waiting, I work on the next book and I read a lot. Either of those activities can break the logjam of my thoughts.
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