Ask the Author: Marilynn Larew
Answered Questions (5)
Marilynn Larew
Carl, I've sort of got a handle on three more. I'm working on Hong Kong Central now. It's about the pro-democracy demonstrations. The next will be set in Istanbul. That covers my two favorite cities in the world. I have a smashing ending for one that is set in Viet Nam - Lee is floating down the Mekong River on a raft of smuggled teak logs. The problem is I can't figure out how she got there. I'll have to reverse engineer that one.
Marilynn Larew
It's more perspiration than inspiration. I sit down every day and write. Sometimes it's garbage, but forming the habit of writing is the key. It's like exercising. If you don't do it one day, you won't do it more days.
Marilynn Larew
Being a writer allows you to live when and where you want to – ancient Rome, Victorian England, on a distant planet, in a universe you create for yourself. It allows you to be a different person or many different people. You can live wherever your imagination takes you, and you can take thousands of other people with you.
Marilynn Larew
Read. Write. There are classes you can take online and at your local college, but reading and writing are the foundations of learning your craft, and it is a craft. Nobody gets a blast of genius from above. You may get a character or part of a plot in a blast, but then you have to write the book.
Marilynn Larew
I'm working on the second book in the Lee Carruthers series, Dead in Dubai, in which Lee tries to find out why a CIA operations officer washed ashore in Dubai with a false passport and a bullet in his brain.
Marilynn Larew
Writer's block is usually the result of one of two things: something wrong with the plot or fatigue.
Fatigue is the result of having your nose to the grindstone. Take some time off. Clean the house (ugh), go shopping, have a lunch with friends. You will return refreshed and ready to go again.
Something wrong with the plot is worse. Follow the dsirections for fatigue first. Then read the last two or three chapters and see if you haven't gone off track somewhere. I think you'll find that you have.
Now I see that the question is how I deal with writer's block. I do the above, except for cleaning the house. :-)
Writer's block is usually the result of one of two things: something wrong with the plot or fatigue.
Fatigue is the result of having your nose to the grindstone. Take some time off. Clean the house (ugh), go shopping, have a lunch with friends. You will return refreshed and ready to go again.
Something wrong with the plot is worse. Follow the dsirections for fatigue first. Then read the last two or three chapters and see if you haven't gone off track somewhere. I think you'll find that you have.
Now I see that the question is how I deal with writer's block. I do the above, except for cleaning the house. :-)
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