Ask the Author: Richard Risemberg
Answered Questions (4)
Richard Risemberg
We lived together ten years before she finally dropped the mask. But she wouldn't drop the knife.
Richard Risemberg
Sometimes all that's needed is to look around and write what Hemingway liked to call "one true declarative sentence" about the world in front of your face. Or the world behind your face, or someone else's. Feelings are real, even if the world may in fact be only a coarseness of perception. Snippets of conversation overheard can be cleaned up and fictionalized to begin an exploration of the great counterpoint of love we are endlessly improvising. Really, there's no need for inspiration: just start writing, writing about simple sensations, objects, and interactions, and the rest follows. Then edit out the padding. There will be padding, because you will overwrite at first.
Let the world speak through you. Be an oracle, not a priest.
Let the world speak through you. Be an oracle, not a priest.
Richard Risemberg
Well, there's one I am constrained from discussing, so I'll have to leave you all in wonder....
One that I could use for a book, though, is the story of an uncle in Argentina who had a branch of his business in Peru. He'd spend alternating months in each country. After he died, it came to light that he also had a wife and family in each country. In the space of a week we gained dozens of previously unknown relatives. He is far from the most eccentric member of our family, but his is the story best suited to a novel of the many I have heard so far. No murder involved, but plenty of complication. And, as the title of my most recent book implies, I have an interest in exploring "Family Ties"! (See https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LT5OJE2#...)
One that I could use for a book, though, is the story of an uncle in Argentina who had a branch of his business in Peru. He'd spend alternating months in each country. After he died, it came to light that he also had a wife and family in each country. In the space of a week we gained dozens of previously unknown relatives. He is far from the most eccentric member of our family, but his is the story best suited to a novel of the many I have heard so far. No murder involved, but plenty of complication. And, as the title of my most recent book implies, I have an interest in exploring "Family Ties"! (See https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LT5OJE2#...)
Richard Risemberg
Write regularly. Choose a time of day that you favor and during which you own't be distracted much. For me, that's early morning, but everybody's different.When you're working on a book, write five or six days a week regardless of what else is happening. It can be one hour or ten, but it should be regular. You'd be surprised how much work you can get done two paragraphs at a time.
Then revise everything at least five times.
Then revise everything at least five times.
Richard Risemberg
Working on a follow-up novel to "The Dust Will Answer." I figure the Lenny Strasser character is good for five or six novels. There are some troublesome folks in "Dust," and they might show up again. There's no rest for the wicked, nor for the righteous. Nor for the rest of us who hover in between.
Richard Risemberg
The usual places: personal history (my own and others'), the settings of the book, which I know well, and my imagination. More specifically, some of the scenes are almost biography, but most are made up to support the story of a character searching for what he doesn't want to find and being blindsided by something better he didn't even know he was looking for.
As for the settings, they are mostly real. I spent years wandering hobo jungles to interview and photograph railroad tramps and other homeless folk.
I can't say what parts of the plot are from life and what aren't. It wouldn't be polite.
As for the settings, they are mostly real. I spent years wandering hobo jungles to interview and photograph railroad tramps and other homeless folk.
I can't say what parts of the plot are from life and what aren't. It wouldn't be polite.
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