Ask the Author: J.L. LeGerrette
Answered Questions (7)
J.L. LeGerrette
No brainer. If I could have been born magical, it would be the Harry Potter world. Without the added magical boost to visit the Harry Potter world, I would like to visit a future peaceful space colony that doesn't have monsters!
J.L. LeGerrette
I don't worry about it. I think about what I would want to do if I were them...or I was in this situation or was feeling this way or that way. I look into the distance of their story and then I can see the end goal for that scene or character and then I start backing up and "drawing the map" backward until the words come.
J.L. LeGerrette
It's kind of funny. When you start writing a story and inventing characters, you begin to talk to them. The funniest part is they talk back to you...in your head. One time I started writing a snappy comeback for a character and he said, "I wouldn't say that...but she would," as he turns and points to another character. I know it sounds psychotic...but it is actually funny how real the characters are once your story gets off the ground. Writing is a chance to create your own world and you can make the good and not so good people do whatever you want them to.
J.L. LeGerrette
No matter how hard it is, no matter who doesn't believe you can do it, no matter how lost you feel as a little fish among the sharks and whales...your story matters. This is YOUR journey and only you can keep getting back on the path when you get sidetracked. When you can't sleep because the story is tumbling in your head over and over...keep going forward. There is always SOMEONE further along in their author journey who is happy to help and guide you. Not the paid sources...those are great in their own way. But there is an entire author community that is searching, waiting to lend a free hand to guide you.
J.L. LeGerrette
Right now, I am still getting the print books designed and ready to publish for "You're Clear." Then I will begin putting my next story together. Just think of the worst time of your life and the thought enters your head, "What if I could really go back and stop it from happening..." But it is more of an intense struggle. Many books/storylines flirt with this concept. I have a little bit of a twist.
J.L. LeGerrette
I've always written things. Short stories, poems, a few letters to my babies that I stashed away. I didn't start "reading" until I was in my late 30's. I never liked to read growing up, (I KNOW! HOW BRAIN DEAD!) I started reading Gone with the Wind on an airplane when I was 16 because I wanted to look sophisticated (lol) and for 20 years kept it on a nightstand wherever I lived and finished reading it when I was 36! I perused LOTS of self-help books, parenting books, and children's books when I read to my young children but never a book for entertainment. Then it clicked! And I couldn't stop escaping from my busy life as a single parent! I'd read myself to sleep at night. But I always had to read short stories... Until I met Harry Potter. I realized I wanted to someday help others escape too.
J.L. LeGerrette
"You're Clear" pretty much popped into my head one day when I was working in the bagwell for an airline at PDX, in Portland, Or. As I mulled over the story, I realized I wanted to twist it up a bit. It took many years to find time for "me" so I could work on the book. Mid-book, in 2012, I had an immediate need to set it aside and pull together short stories about my childhood and publish it with poems I had written for my children many years ago. There is a reason for all things and I tell the story on my blog here:
http://www.jllegerrette.com/blog/so-h...
I started writing again after a period of time and finally brought it to fruition. And, I might add, not without the pestering of the characters who would nag at me to get them out of a situation because they were tired of standing around waiting for me.
http://www.jllegerrette.com/blog/so-h...
I started writing again after a period of time and finally brought it to fruition. And, I might add, not without the pestering of the characters who would nag at me to get them out of a situation because they were tired of standing around waiting for me.
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