Ask the Author: Susan Corbett
Answered Questions (7)
Susan Corbett
My favorite fictional couple is, you guessed it, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I love how their relationship starts out with each disliking the other, then how it evolves, how it helps each character grow. So fun to read and watch!!
Susan Corbett
Hi! Sorry I took so long to answer your question. I don't really get writer's block. I just make myself sit down and try to write at least 500 words per day. Even if you don't feel like it, just sit down and WRITE! The inspiration will come, and you can always rewrite later.
Susan Corbett
I was on a long drive and started thinking about what I would write next and the ideas just flooded in. I got really excited about using old friends from high school as role models for characters. I find unsolved historical events compelling and write about the universal issue/injustice they often bring up (in my first book, the unsolved killing of young women in Ciudad Juarez in the 90's) I have also spent a lot of time in Mexico and wanted to write about its culture, people, and place.
Susan Corbett
Originally, I was inspired to write In the Belly of the Elephant when I came home from Africa in 1982. People would ask me, "How was it?" How do you explain five years of an experience that changed your life in one brief conversation? I had kept detailed journals the entire time I was in Africa. In 1991, after I had married and had my 2 boys, I quit working full time to be with my small children. I started reading my journals again and realized I wanted to share my story with the world.
Now, I'm hooked on writing. Writing keeps me creative and happy. Inspiration for the mystery series I'm writing comes from historical events and the joy I get from structuring a story, developing characters, and weaving it all together.
Now, I'm hooked on writing. Writing keeps me creative and happy. Inspiration for the mystery series I'm writing comes from historical events and the joy I get from structuring a story, developing characters, and weaving it all together.
Susan Corbett
My latest book, The Ghosts of Santa Maria Del Mar is the first in what I hope to be a mystery series. During the feast of the Virgin of Guadeloupe, young girls begin to mysteriously go missing, and someone is leaving long dead skeletons all over town while a mismatched crew of five American women (Melissa, Liza, Josie, Tina, and Sam) are on vacation in Mexico. Unresolved guilt from a thirty year old murder of a high school friend sets the group on a series of misadventures. They grapple with the town's handsome police captain, a troubled street youth, the Catholic priest, the town's pot dealer, a seance medium, a rich landowner, and the local ghost to unravel a mystery that goes farther back in time and place than December, 2015 and the small town of Santa Maria Del Mar.
These books will be full of my life experiences, my perspective, my love of place and travel, and the lessons I want to share with the world. They have strong characters and sense of place with a historical unsolved mystery woven throughout.
These books will be full of my life experiences, my perspective, my love of place and travel, and the lessons I want to share with the world. They have strong characters and sense of place with a historical unsolved mystery woven throughout.
Susan Corbett
When I decided to write my memoir (at the ripe old age of 40) I signed up for every writing class I could find, continuing education at our local university and novel writing workshops by a local author. I started attending writing conferences and learned a lot. That's my advice-- learn the craft of writing any way you can, local classes, conferences, on-line classes, books. It's worth it.
Susan Corbett
I love the creative process of coming up with a story idea, then creating a map of the plot and characters. It's so much fun. Then, when I actually sit down to write, I love the act of spilling my heart and creative soul into the words. I enjoy stringing words together in a way that is moving or beautiful.
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