Ask the Author: Cheryl Mahoney
Answered Questions (2)
Cheryl Mahoney
If I'm having a minor, momentary kind of writer's block, walking helps. I don't know why, but moving helps--preferably going out and walking around my neighborhood, rather than pacing, so maybe it's the change of scenery too! I think about the story while I'm walking, and usually have an idea of how to move forward by the time I get back to my computer.
If it's a more serious kind of writer's block, I find it helps to move to a different project. If I'm losing enthusiasm for what I'm writing, and especially if that persists for days or weeks, I'll set it aside and try something else for a while. I usually have multiple projects in various stages, so it's not that hard to move to something else.
And my first published novel was started because I had writer's block on another (still unfinished) novel idea!
If it's a more serious kind of writer's block, I find it helps to move to a different project. If I'm losing enthusiasm for what I'm writing, and especially if that persists for days or weeks, I'll set it aside and try something else for a while. I usually have multiple projects in various stages, so it's not that hard to move to something else.
And my first published novel was started because I had writer's block on another (still unfinished) novel idea!
Cheryl Mahoney
I'll answer this one about my upcoming book, The Storyteller and Her Sisters, which is based on "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" (or, "The Shoes Which Were Danced to Pieces"). This was a fairy tale I got attached to later on in life—I don’t really remember noticing it particularly until about five years ago. Then there seemed to be an explosion of retellings, some I found by chance and some I started seeking out.
Every retelling I’ve been able to find shares a common feature—the king is well-meaning, and the princes are monsters carrying off the princesses. But then I was rereading the original Grimm story and I got absolutely stuck on one line: “each prince danced with the princess he loved best.”
I started reading the story again, and for the first time it dawned on me that Grimm never says the princes are monsters. And, just by the way, there’s a king in here who’s chopping heads off! Now I ask you: who’s really the villain in the story?
At that point I clearly had an inspiration, but I was focusing on The Wanderers, my first book, so it inspired a chapter there…only then I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more of the story to be told. So—the companion novel was born!
Every retelling I’ve been able to find shares a common feature—the king is well-meaning, and the princes are monsters carrying off the princesses. But then I was rereading the original Grimm story and I got absolutely stuck on one line: “each prince danced with the princess he loved best.”
I started reading the story again, and for the first time it dawned on me that Grimm never says the princes are monsters. And, just by the way, there’s a king in here who’s chopping heads off! Now I ask you: who’s really the villain in the story?
At that point I clearly had an inspiration, but I was focusing on The Wanderers, my first book, so it inspired a chapter there…only then I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more of the story to be told. So—the companion novel was born!
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