Ask the Author: Ksenia Anske
Answered Questions (19)
Ksenia Anske
Thank you so much for this scary, I mean, wonderful question, Mark! Horror books are my favorite. Irkadura will fit the bill, and it'll give you exquisite nightmares, too. Just so we're clear: I'm not paying for your therapist. I warned you.
Ksenia Anske
I love reading, Luigi. And biking. And staring at the clouds. But writing is my first love, always and forever.
Ksenia Anske
She ate him while he was alive. He finished her on the other side of Hell, never quite letting her perish.
Ksenia Anske
Wonderland. I'd live there. FOREVER. (How good to be mad!)
Ksenia Anske
Oy. I have a list of over 300 books to read (which will take me several years to chew through). But! I’m very excited to read Song of Blood & Stone by L. Penelope. And Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (wanted to read this one for a loooong time). And The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch. And lots of books on the psychology of a serial killer’s mind. Because my next book is about a serial killer with a split personality. What fun.
Ksenia Anske
There are too many, and most of them are already uncovered in my books, but the mystery of my nightmares could very well be a plot. You see, many of my books grow out of my nightmares. I see a bad dream, wake up, and presto, I have a plot. But what about a plot for a book where a character can't stop those nightmares from coming and HAS to write them out or she'll die?
Ksenia Anske
Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter. The most impossible and revolting and fascinating couple ever.
Ksenia Anske
Woohoo! That is great news! I'm so scared now. What if you won't like me? Okay, okay, fine. To answer your question. Yes, I recommend books to my readers all the time. My favorite (scary and funny) so far is Rosehead. My best-written (scary and not funny) so far is Irkadura. My dark horse is The Badlings (people who love it love it very much). My best book overall...I haven't written it yet. So I say, close your eyes and pick one. And when you're done reading it, if it doesn't eat you, tell me what you thought. Deal?
Ksenia Anske
I get up around 8 AM, get coffee and write till 2 PM, so with a few thinking breaks (and breaks to chase squirrels to snack on) it's about 5 hours of writing every day (I write through the weekends). After that I do marketing, or social media, or whatever you want to call it, meaning, I blab about my writing and my books online for 3 hours or so, until 5 PM. This also includes answering emails and writing blog posts. Then it's 2 hours for dinner, and from 7 PM till 10 PM I read. Then I bike, read to my partner what I wrote earlier in the day, make any corrections, sleep, and repeat the whole thing the next day.
Ksenia Anske
Had no idea I could do that. Thank you so much for letting me know about this. I will. I'll donate both The Badlings and Rosehead. Hopefully my silly books will make those kids smile :)
Ksenia Anske
Write what you care about. Finish the 1st draft, let it sit for a couple weeks, reread it, do another draft. Go from start to finish. Do as many drafts as you need to, to tell the best story you possibly can. And then, when you feel like you're done, publish it and move on. Write the next one. And the next one. And the next one.
Ksenia Anske
Now I do! Do you know that I love you more?
Ksenia Anske
My most recent published book is ROSEHEAD, and the idea for that came from one of the many gruesome stories my mom would tell me on the phone when I call her. She lives in Russia (I'm from Russia) and she would recount to me some violent abuse episodes that happened in our family (I have had a very colorful childhood) and after each of these stories I would have nightmares. ROSEHEAD came to me in a nightmare, just one scene about an old man luring women into his house and scalding them with hot tea on purpose. It went from there. I added a talking dog, a girl who likes to investigate things like Sherlock Holmes, a carnivorous rose garden and the story was born. But it started from that one disturbing scene that came to me in a nightmare.
Ksenia Anske
I was depressed and suicidal and I started writing for therapy at the urging of my therapist. I first wrote in a journal, then I started blogging, and then I returned to the idea I had some years ago for my first trilogy, SIREN SUICIDES, about sixteen year old Ailen Bright, a chicken-legged, straw-haired teenager who decides to commit suicide via drowning in the family bathtub only to turn into a siren and to discover that her father is a siren hunter. After I finished it, I realized I have been writing stories all my life, except in different formats, since I was 5. I would imagine them as complete movies and all I'm doing now is I'm writing those movies down into books.
Ksenia Anske
I'm writing my 5th novel, IRKADURA. Actually, in about 2 weeks I will be done with the 4th and final draft and will send it to my editor. This books has been the hardest for me to write so far. It's loosely based on my personal experience of being a pregnant teenager in Russia of the 1990s right after the Constitutional Crisis. The main character, Irka, is abused, runs away from home and has to survive on the streets of Moscow. She does so by seeing people as animals, boars, jackals, vultures and other beasts, and herself as a mouse. Eventually she has to choose between the two realities, and it's a choice between life and death.
Ksenia Anske
Hole up and write and read every day. Don't go to other writerly get togethers or socials or events or groups or anything of the sort. To find your own voice you have to be one-on-one with yourself. Nobody can help you create your art, you have to learn how to do it on your own. You simply have to write a lot and read a lot every day and trust that through the discipline of doing it you will get better. Reading books about how to write books or listening to other writers telling you what works for them or not can be inspiring but it can also instill doubt in you, like you're doing something wrong. Also, it might make you want to copy what others do, but it will slow down your own growth process. You have to learn to be alone and be okay with it. Good luck!
Ksenia Anske
I don't have to dress up for office work anymore, I can write in my pajamas, or without pajamas, or with bad hair, or sitting upside down. I can also blast very loud music and when I'm stuck I can jump up and dance and bounce on my bed and nobody can tell me I can't do it or that I look unprofessional. Also, I get make up things and people pay me for it. What could be better than that?
Ksenia Anske
It's a sneaky sneaky thing, writer's block. I always dread it and it always strikes me at the worst possible moment. I power through it. I stare at the screen and I cry and I drink coffee and I cry some more and eventually I start typing. I don't let myself out of the room until I produce 2,000 words. I guess that leaves writer's block in the dust, does it?
Ksenia Anske
But...but...I don't speak French, only duck.
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