Ask the Author: Bridget Pitt
Answered Questions (6)
Bridget Pitt
The best advice I can offer aspiring authors is to recognise the stories that are given to you, and to honour them in whatever humble form they arrive. If a goblin comes knocking at your door demanding to have his story told, don’t try to dress him up as a vampire just because vampires are all the rage these days. It won’t work – you’ll just end up with some sad wannabe vampire that’s lost all his authentic goblinness.
Writing a novel is a very long, very lonely endeavour. Your only friend in this process may be that goblin who wants his story told, so you had better learn to love him, warts and all. He needs to be so real that you converse with him constantly in you head, and expect to bump into him in the street. If he isn’t, you can be sure that your readers will toss him aside after page one with no compunction whatsoever. At the same time, however lonely you are and however much you love your goblin, don’t let him invite his extended family, unless they are critical part of his story. And if they do come, don’t let them steal his thunder – the more you write, the more you’ll have to unwrite.
Writing a novel is a very long, very lonely endeavour. Your only friend in this process may be that goblin who wants his story told, so you had better learn to love him, warts and all. He needs to be so real that you converse with him constantly in you head, and expect to bump into him in the street. If he isn’t, you can be sure that your readers will toss him aside after page one with no compunction whatsoever. At the same time, however lonely you are and however much you love your goblin, don’t let him invite his extended family, unless they are critical part of his story. And if they do come, don’t let them steal his thunder – the more you write, the more you’ll have to unwrite.
Bridget Pitt
Those rare moments when a story is flowing so well that it feels as if it is being dictated to you, and when you read it back it feels as if someone else wrote it. Someone who writes much better than you.
Bridget Pitt
I don't suffer from writer's block so much as from writer's distraction. I try to stay focused, and to write something even if it is just a few words. Sometimes I do art to get myself out of thinking in a very rigid, contrived way and to enable me to make connections that are not obvious.
Bridget Pitt
I am doing the final edits on a novel that deals with different kinds of brain injury and its impact on people's lives. I am also doing research on another novel that deals with the issue of Rhino poaching.
Bridget Pitt
Partly from the countless narratives I see and experience, but a lot from reading other authors - when I read about an experience that is beautifully framed by a skilled writer, I feel inspired to try to emulate this and find ways of telling a story that moves people.
Bridget Pitt
It grew slowly, but I think the seeds were planted when I went back to a family hotel we used to visit that had now burnt down.
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