Ask the Author: David Neilsen
Answered Questions (10)
David Neilsen
I fear it was a limited release and is no longer available.
David Neilsen
The creature stared down at the child who walked, unaware, through the woods. The next morning, all that remained was a forest floor covered in blood.
David Neilsen
IIf I could travel to any fictional world, I'd probably travel to the London of Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood and Company novels. Ghosts are everywhere, kids are running around taking care of it, it just seems both wild and exciting. I'd probably end up getting ghodt touched asnd dying, but nobody's perfect.
David Neilsen
For me, inspiration can come from anywhere. Dr. Fell was written based on looking at a single image. Beyond the Doors came from a picture that popped into my head one day. Sometimes I'll think of a title and an entire story will fall into place. Or I'll be somewhere and see an object that just looks... interesting. Honestly, inspiration just tends to jump out and grab me when it feels like it.
David Neilsen
Write every day.
Keep writing.
Sleep. Wake. Write.
Keep writing.
Sleep. Wake. Write.
David Neilsen
The best thing about being a writer is taking all the crazy ideas that have always circled around in my head and getting them out into the real world where they can infest other people's heads instead of mine.
David Neilsen
I don't so much have a summer reading list as I have a big bookcase in the attic loaded with books for me to read. When I finish something, I go up there, select the next one based on what I feel like reading at that particular moment, and start reading then and there.
Though generally not in the attic.
Though generally not in the attic.
David Neilsen
I am currently working on way too many things at one time. In no order, other than the order that I thought of them:
1) A new one-man show that I'm performing in August.
2) Revising an old manuscript by taking out all mentions of romance and dating and all that icky stuff to better make it fit the MG genre.
3) Creating a new Murder Mystery Party scenario to be auctioned off for charity.
4) A new story idea that is really an old idea but which came back into my mind with some new ideas on how to get it moving.
5) Writing "Dr. Fell: The Musical"
So I'm busy. :)
1) A new one-man show that I'm performing in August.
2) Revising an old manuscript by taking out all mentions of romance and dating and all that icky stuff to better make it fit the MG genre.
3) Creating a new Murder Mystery Party scenario to be auctioned off for charity.
4) A new story idea that is really an old idea but which came back into my mind with some new ideas on how to get it moving.
5) Writing "Dr. Fell: The Musical"
So I'm busy. :)
David Neilsen
I have lots of different ways to tackle Writer's Block. If it's something that I don't have to work on at that particular moment (say a new story idea) then I just move on to something else. If I have to work on it RIGHT NOW, one thing I'll often do is pace in circles around my living room swinging a plastic baseball bat absently in the air.
Yeah, I know. But it works.
Yeah, I know. But it works.
David Neilsen
Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom was inspired by a drawing by renown children's illustrator Trina Schart Hyman. She drew the picture back in the 1980s as part of a charity event when several top children's illustrators of the day were asked to draw one panel from their favorite fable or fairy tale. My one-day Mother-In-Law bought it and a bunch of other prints in the series and they'd been hanging on her wall for years. I'd probably walked past the picture a hundred times before actually looking at it. As soon as I looked, I was hooked. We looked up Dr. Fell, discovered Tom Brown's rhyme, and I had my story.
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