Ask the Author: Jack Beltane
Answered Questions (7)
Jack Beltane
I absolutely don't think a degree makes you a writer, although I think a lot of people believe it does. My degree is actually in poetry, but it certainly doesn't make me a poet! A writer is someone who writes--who always finds time to write--not someone with a degree.
Jack Beltane
I don't. I only write when I'm inspired and I don't worry about the downtime. I think writer's block happens when you're forcing yourself to write but aren't really into it (that's why I have so many abandoned stories -- I just stop when I get bored with the story, as I imagine a reader would). There are times when I get stuck -- when I'm still interested in the story I'm writing but can't think of the next scene -- and I just let it fester in my head without forcing myself to write. Eventually the next scene comes to me and the ball starts rolling again. But I wouldn't consider that blocked: I'm constantly thinking about my stories even if I'm not actively writing them.
Jack Beltane
For me, it's escapism.
Jack Beltane
I believe I'd still be considered "aspiring," so ask me again when you see my paperbacks in the airport.
Jack Beltane
"Penny Harper" -- it takes place chronologically about six years after "In a Yellow Field" ended, but dips back into college (but before "Am I the Matter?") and high school (but before "A Company of Tatters").
Jack Beltane
Usually I think of a scene - just a single scene -- and I write it down, then in the course of writing it down I start to think of how events lead up to that scene and how events would unfold after it... then I write the next scene and the next and the next. Sometimes I get bored with the story and abandon it; sometimes I rethink old, unfinished stories and add them as scenes to current stories; and sometimes I actually finish a book.
Jack Beltane
In high school I had a conversation with a friend about writing and I said that one day I wanted to write a "serious" book (until then, I'd only written horror stories). She asked what it would be about and I said something like, "I don't know... real life. This. High school." Twenty years later, I finally got around to it (see: "A Company of Tatters").
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