Ask the Author: Leif Gregersen
Answered Questions (10)
Leif Gregersen
Hands shaking enough to rattle the storm lantern and plate in her hands, Sheila opened the door to the basement to hear the familiar moans and cries of the thing that was once her brother. The unsteady wooden stairs minus a railing creaked as she took each step, knowing that if she didn't feed him now he would come to her later.....
Leif Gregersen
To this day, I still look back to a short book I read as a young boy, a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book that was titled, "The Forbidden Castle" I read this book at a time in my life when things were going well but soon wouldn't be that great. Weaving my own story through choices, I recall ending up with the castle, a title, and the main female in the story. It was just such a perfect ending to the perfect adventure that I have always wanted to actually go to a time and place described in the book.
Leif Gregersen
I am getting a lot of enjoyment out of reading "Dune: House Harkonnen" and I am so glad that Frank Herbert's son Brian Herbert is every bit the author his father was. Such complex worlds, such great descriptions of the far human future just pepper this book. There is even a fair bit of philosophy hidden under a thick layer of brilliant, engaging writing.
Leif Gregersen
I think above all things is that I have a strong desire to express myself, to actually take my mind and body and turn it into words that in a way recreates itself each time someone reads my work. There are many, many smaller motivations as well though, of course I would like to earn a living writing, and in my two memoirs I had a strong desire to tell the story of what mental illness really does to those who suffer.
Leif Gregersen
My most recent book, "In The Blink of an Eye" came from me being in junior high and being so fascinated with all the exciting stuff going on with computers and such. I found it so amazing how fast technology was coming forward, even though there wasn't even an Internet at the time, it hadn't even been thought of. I remember having ideas that I could take a computer or a calculator back in time and be able to change the course of history. In the book, this isn't quite what happens, but it is an idea I have wanted to explore for a long time and now had the chance.
Leif Gregersen
I think I have to have the idea in my head that I am doing this for someone. My first book was about myself, my own struggles, and in a way I was writing it to get revenge on people who never thought I could make it, never thought I would make a living as a writer or didn't like me for various reasons. Since then I have grown a lot in many ways and I like to think I now write for all the people who consistently buy my work and support me with their kindness. There was this young woman I went to high school with who was the beauty queen of all beauty queens, dating the richest guy in town's son and getting a corvette at 16 from her parents. I always thought she had to be some kind of stuck up person but I happened to talk to her years after school and she was the sweetest person I ever met. She even got one of her friends to be my very first editor and I literally feel I owe my whole writing career to her. Every time I write a book I put her in the dedication page and it is her and a number of very kind and helpful people that inspire me to keep going, even when it seems impossible.
Leif Gregersen
I am currently in the middle of writing a series of articles for a US Based magazine and I am finishing up the final touches of getting a YA Novel published called "In The Blink of an Eye". I have really been enjoying writing for Young Adults and I have the great privilege of writing books that I wished had been written when I was a Young Adult.
Leif Gregersen
My favorite piece of advice is two-fold. The first part of it is to be a reader, to devour all the writing you can, and the second part of it is to keep a journal. Some people have advanced past journals and keep blogs which is just as good, but both of these things require a bit of work and will inch you along towards greater things day by day, and writing is definitely a lifelong process.
Leif Gregersen
The best thing about being a writer is to feel like you are creating something that no one else could, that you are really taking your mind and pouring it out on the page and that somehow your words just may outlive you. It used to be that a male had to have a son to carry on both his name and his bloodline and perhaps a title or estate, but in more modern times you can write something special that lives on past you. In this way it is like being a creative father of some type. I don't want to use the word God, because I really like God and I know I'm not him but you have a lot of power over a story as a writer and you may not only see it outlive you, you may see it on the silver screen one day if it is good enough, as my close friend did with two of his books.
Leif Gregersen
Something I do as a writer, perhaps because I have not taken a formal degree in creative writing, is to learn all I can about writing in any way I can. At the moment, I have a University course series I got from the Edmonton Library and as I watch it and go through all the advice it gives in 24 half hour lectures, I toss around ideas. Another thing I find helpful is to just try and think of one aspect of a story, like a character and then write in pen about this character or write a scene with the character in it. When I have written a few scenes, or accumulated a few ideas, I sit down at my computer and things come a lot easier. I should also mention that I recently downloaded a video game that is somewhat primitive called "Elegy for a Dead World" or something close to that on Steam, and you actually fly through a vivid and fascinating solar system and as you go along the way you encounter writing prompts. I find that if I play this game for a little while each day, it becomes easier and easier to overcome 'the block'.
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