Ask the Author: Faye Bird
Answered Questions (3)
Faye Bird
Read, write, read and then write some more. And keep writing beyond that. I think you need stamina to be a writer, and rigour. Be hard on yourself when you come to rewrite. Don't be afraid to experiment or really pull your draft apart. You can always put it back together, and in the process something exciting might happen. In my experience it often does. Be open to advice, and taking notes, but give them time to percolate before you act on them. Be prepared for rejection along the way, and above all be prepared for it to take time. It will definitely take longer than you imagine, even if you imagine it will take a long time! I believe that if you graft this way, that little sprinkling of luck that every writer needs won't be too far away.
Faye Bird
I've always wanted to write, and I've not yet got stuck with finding inspiration to do so. I think inspiration comes in all sorts of different ways, and from all sorts of different places. Certainly with My Second Life I was intrigued by an idea - the idea of living a second life, and what you might bring with you in that second life from a life lived before. With What I Couldn't Tell You I was inspired by Sheri Pitman and thinking about what life might feel like without language, without the ability to truly express yourself.
Faye Bird
I heard a young girl, Sheri Pitman, speaking on the radio about her past experience of suffering from selective or situational mutism. She hadn't spoken outside her own home for a period of nine years. I was both moved and intrigued by her experiences, having never heard of the condition before. It struck me almost immediately when listening to her that to give a young girl a voice in a first person narrative that she did not otherwise have in the outside world could make for a very powerful story. This is really where What I Couldn't Tell you began.
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