Ask the Author: Laura Valeri
Answered Questions (6)
Laura Valeri
I have to keep trying different methods because inspiration is like a diet. It works at first, then it stops working. Music can help. Here is a cool song that inspired me to write.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G_xq... because I definitely do feel that when I'm "on" while writing, "I bring the God out of me." Listening to this song pumps me up.
Laura Valeri
I'm working on several projects. Among them is a biographical account of two poets who had much impact in Italy during the early 1900's and WWII: Ezra Pound and Diego Valeri. They are as opposite as opposites can be, so I am finding out why they were friends in the first place. I'm also working on some environmental essays, short stories, and revising my historical novel based on Gilgamesh.
Laura Valeri
It's really simple. Write a lot. Read a lot. Keep trying. There is only one non-negotiable skill that all who want to write really need to have: perseverance. The rest is negotiable.
Laura Valeri
Two things: that rare moment when someone comes up to you and says, you wrote this and it saved my life/changed my world/felt so profound. I melt. The other thing: other writers and the friendship you develop with them, especially in writing buddies situations. Of course, other writers may also be the worst thing about being a writer, too, so....
Laura Valeri
I feel like I've been writing with writer's block for years now, so the short answer is, well, you write. However, I do think that there is a slight mixup with terminology. Some people think that writer's block doesn't exist, others say it's just procrastination, and in some ways they would both be right. There is a mental condition called writer's block which Alice Flaherty, writer of The Midnight Disease, has explained most eloquently: people with writer's block are people who want to write but can't. (Whereas, procrastination is people who can write but just don't want to or don't feel like it.) Do I suffer from procrastination? Yep. How I deal with it is that I push myself until I do it. Or I time myself: two hours for work, one hour break for social media and other miscellaneous tasks that would otherwise interrupt my work flow. There is also incubation, that part during the writing process where I can't write because something in the story has changed, and I need to let my brain percolate. There is no way to rush that part, so when it happens, I turn to a different project for a while, and also, try to do some physical activity because often times that helps. Especially yoga. But, if we're talking about REAL writer's block, that mental condition that makes writers crazy because in spite of their many efforts they can't write, that's a tough one. That's rare. That's caused by a host of other inner conflicts that I can't even begin to tackle here. How to deal with it? Introspective work, counseling, meditation, a change of environment, etc can all help, but depending on the severity of it, you may need professional help. The analogy would be that of an anorexic girl or boy: they depend on food for nourishment but because of some difficult psychological trigger they use starvation as a form of control. Similarly, a writer may have some threat to his/her self expression (abusive partner, controlling parents, or non-safe space) and react by overprotecting their expression, denying it to themselves, even though (metaphorically) it may kill them.
Laura Valeri
A lot of the stories were based on my family's history. They were changed around to respect the demands of fiction, so even though the historical facts are accurate, the characters and their actions are significantly different. They were woven together from memory, imagination, and various stories told from people who lived in that time period. The current ones, some of them, were loosely based on my own life.
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