Ask the Author: Mark Hummel
Answered Questions (2)
Mark Hummel
Ritual, ritual, ritual. Write everyday. Use the same tools. Be obsessive about your personal writing process, especially if it is eccentric. Basically, as Flannery O'Connor said, show up everyday. Sometimes there are little tricks--changing format (like writing an entire scene in a journal if your norm is to compose at the computer), or creating ridiculous exercises for yourself (like "This chapter will be written entirely in dialogue.") that can shake something loose. But generally, I find staying ritualistic about work ethic and approach allows you to push through blockage, even if painfully so. Lastly of course, as Paige Stegner said, "lower your standards" (not for the whole project of course, but to get through the block, to write the next scene, etc. for a writer's life is lived in revision after all.
Mark Hummel
I'm working on an odd sort of novel at the moment. Essentially it is a retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice (and Hermes) myth moved to the Rocky Mountains in 1926 and featuring a traveling singer/songwriter, the women with whom he is madly in love, and a priest climbing out of a metaphoric hell rather than an actual one (although this one may prove more hellish in the end).
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more