Ask the Author: Janiece Anjali
Answered Questions (3)
Janiece Anjali
Hi Denise!
Thank you for your questions. The discipline of writing is a very interesting topic. Lots of people want to write and struggle not only to make the time to do it, but also sustain the energy and focus for it in very busy lives. This is a very real challenge! I mostly wrote Illusions of More between 5:00 and 6:45 a.m. on weekdays before work and on the weekends. Like the main character, I was also a single mom at the time.
People who teach writing often say that you should write the books you want to read and haven't found yet. Since that's what I do,the act of translating my ideas into the written word feels more like inquiry and discovery than hard work. I only write about characters I care about and put them in situations that I have questions about. Because of this, I usually have the motivation to write and rewrite until each scene feels complete to me. That being said, there have been many, many times this year, that I have remarked to friends that it is good I loved all the characters in Illusions of More so much because I sure have spent a lot of time with them!
Thank you for your questions. The discipline of writing is a very interesting topic. Lots of people want to write and struggle not only to make the time to do it, but also sustain the energy and focus for it in very busy lives. This is a very real challenge! I mostly wrote Illusions of More between 5:00 and 6:45 a.m. on weekdays before work and on the weekends. Like the main character, I was also a single mom at the time.
People who teach writing often say that you should write the books you want to read and haven't found yet. Since that's what I do,the act of translating my ideas into the written word feels more like inquiry and discovery than hard work. I only write about characters I care about and put them in situations that I have questions about. Because of this, I usually have the motivation to write and rewrite until each scene feels complete to me. That being said, there have been many, many times this year, that I have remarked to friends that it is good I loved all the characters in Illusions of More so much because I sure have spent a lot of time with them!
Janiece Anjali
Curiosity often inspires my writing. When my curiosity is piqued by situations and people acting and reacting the way they do, I turn to the page or computer screen. My writing becomes a placeholder and partner in conversation as I consider and make my own sense of the human condition. I truly love Sy Safransky's quote, "I'm looking for a writer who doesn't know where the sentence is leading her; a writer who starts with her obsessions and whose heart is bursting with love; a writer sly enough to give the slip to her secret police, the ones with the power to accuse and condemn in the blink of an eye. It's all right that she doesn't know what she's thinking until she writes it, as if the words already exist somewhere and draw her to them. She may not know how she got there, but she knows when she's arrived."
Janiece Anjali
I got the idea to write Illusions of More when an eight-year-old English Language Learner looked up from her standardized achievement test and told me, "My reading is dead." Illusions of More is a novel, but this became the first line in the book and it was spoken by a real child in a real situation.
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