Ask the Author: Tiffani Angus
Answered Questions (7)
Tiffani Angus
The same advice pretty much every writer I follow gives: read a lot and write a lot. Read to enjoy but also read to figure out WHY it works and HOW it works. Write a lot because you need a lot of practice to figure out how your writing works. Write purposefully and consciously. (Well, do that on the second and third drafts--the first draft should be a mess and contain ALL the ideas you had. After you get that down, then you go back and think through your choices.)
Tiffani Angus
Research! I love having a good excuse to go look up all sorts of strange things in books, at museums, etc. I love to research historical people and time periods. And then, once I get the facts straight, I get to mess with them! I write mainly historical fantasy, so I love to twist the stories of real historical people or time periods. How much fun is that?!
Tiffani Angus
Because I don't get as much time to write as I would like, I don't experience writer's block very often. I don't have the privilege of waiting around for 'the muse' to strike, as it were. So when I have time to write, I have to get to work!
I explain it this way to my students: waiting to feel like writing means that you are never going to do it. Instead, you have to DO a thing to FEEL like doing it. Taking action changes your brain a bit in that moment, and then the doing of it becomes easier. So when they are stuck, I tell them to start writing anything--even if it's just a diary entry on why they don't want to write or don't feel like writing or don't think they can write. The DOING of it will lead to feeling like doing it. (Instead of waiting to feel like doing it before doing it.)
I explain it this way to my students: waiting to feel like writing means that you are never going to do it. Instead, you have to DO a thing to FEEL like doing it. Taking action changes your brain a bit in that moment, and then the doing of it becomes easier. So when they are stuck, I tell them to start writing anything--even if it's just a diary entry on why they don't want to write or don't feel like writing or don't think they can write. The DOING of it will lead to feeling like doing it. (Instead of waiting to feel like doing it before doing it.)
Tiffani Angus
My TBR list is always out of control! On my list (that I haven't yet finished) are The Sisters Grimm by Menna van Praag, Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver, The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey, Goldilocksby Laura Lam and Triggernometryby Stark Holborn.
Tiffani Angus
I've just finished a couple of stories (one is a sort of feminist fairy tale and the other isn't really describable without giving it away!). The novel I'm working on, and nearly finished with a first draft of, is about women in an apocalypse. This is closely related to my academic research into women's (and other's) bodies in apocalyptic fiction.
Tiffani Angus
Museums! Really--I love to go to museums, and if I can't I look at Pinterest and other materials that collect images and ideas. I teach writing, and I tell my students that we study other writers to learn how to construct stories, but that we need to study other *stuff* to have something to write about. So I like looking at paintings, housewares, old illustrations, and travelling to all sorts of historical houses. History just makes me happy because when I learn about a historical person or event I want to mess with it, twist it and make it fantastical.
Tiffani Angus
Threading the Labyrinth was born from my weird obsession as a kid with garden that were green and lush--completely different from the desert where I grew up. The novel is inspired by gardening books from the 16th-18th centuries, the folklore of plants, William Morris, ghost stories, Victorian photography, Land Girls, and time travel stories, along with a lot of other things!
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