Ask the Author: Mark Philip Alger
Answered Questions (6)
Mark Philip Alger
Sorry. Don't know that one. I've never had writer's block. I have had self-inflicted fallow periods. But I've never stressed about them, knowing that all I need to do to start working again is just that -- start working again.
I think this comes from having worked as a commercial artist for several decades. If you do art for your living, you don't have the luxury of getting blocked. There have been times when I have thrown up my hands and said, "I've got nothing." when I couldn't come up with what I saw as a good idea. But there is always the second-best idea that, maybe, the customer might like. Usually, they do.
I think this comes from having worked as a commercial artist for several decades. If you do art for your living, you don't have the luxury of getting blocked. There have been times when I have thrown up my hands and said, "I've got nothing." when I couldn't come up with what I saw as a good idea. But there is always the second-best idea that, maybe, the customer might like. Usually, they do.
Mark Philip Alger
I like being able to live adventures in my head. As an artist, more generally, I get a thrill from making a thing of beauty.
Mark Philip Alger
My advice for aspiring artists in ANY medium is: work. Write. Paint. Make photos. Make films. Sculpt. Cook. Weave. Sew. Play out every night if you can get the gigs. Whatever you do, do it. And lots of it. While the 10,000-hour notion seems to have been somewhat debunked, there's still something to having to make things -- lots of things -- and do stuff -- lots of stuff -- in order to get good at it. Along the way, you'll meet and make friends with people who'll be your friends, customers, mentors, critics, and teachers. People you'd never even know existed unless you were active in the field, because they WILL NOT pay attention to wannabes who're all talk.
Mark Philip Alger
A novel which started out with the working title of "Discovery" because that's what it was about -- discovering the origin story of my main character. I have recently come to accept that the real name of the story is The Origin Protocols, which the telling of it will explain. It is the story of how my MC **and** all her friends (and lovers) came to fall into her orbit. I'm about nine months behind on my self-imposed schedule. I hope to have it out in eback and trade paper in early 2015.
Mark Philip Alger
I don't really need to "get inspired." I more often have to deal with the frustration of having inspiration bop me on the forehead while I'm in line at the grocery, sitting in traffic at a stoplight, in the shower, working on something intense at my day job, or the like, and have no time or attention to pay to the muse screaming in my ear. THAT can get to be maddenly frustrating.
If I want to set a mood to write a particular scene, I usually use music -- mostly a single tune or song set on repeat. For example, at the climax of my novel, _Geppetto's_Log_, I listened over and over to David Lance's "The Setting of Two Suns" from the Firedance Suite album. For a funeral scene in _A_Doll's_Odyssey_, I listened over and over to Sara McLachlan's "Full of Grace" until it choked me up and brought tears. But mostly, I use music for background noise. For example, a good one is "Custard Pie" from Led Zeppelin's _Physical_Graffiti_. It's a loud rocker, with lots of fuzz and driving power chords on guitar. Easy to convert to white noise in your mind and block out all the distractions.
If I want to set a mood to write a particular scene, I usually use music -- mostly a single tune or song set on repeat. For example, at the climax of my novel, _Geppetto's_Log_, I listened over and over to David Lance's "The Setting of Two Suns" from the Firedance Suite album. For a funeral scene in _A_Doll's_Odyssey_, I listened over and over to Sara McLachlan's "Full of Grace" until it choked me up and brought tears. But mostly, I use music for background noise. For example, a good one is "Custard Pie" from Led Zeppelin's _Physical_Graffiti_. It's a loud rocker, with lots of fuzz and driving power chords on guitar. Easy to convert to white noise in your mind and block out all the distractions.
Mark Philip Alger
The idea for my current work in progress came while I was editing my last book and realized that I really needed to cover the material in this current one. That this part of the protagonist's story needs to come out and hasn't been told before. Once I realized this, the rest follows naturally, and it's all just a matter of connecting the dots.
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