Ask the Author: Tony Denn
Answered Questions (6)
Tony Denn
There's some debate of what writer's block actually is.
Serious writer's block is about the inability to type, unable to work - the notion makes you feel sick, and if you open MS Word or Scrivener or whatever program you use, you find yourself in the midst of a panic attack. Not many writers experience it to that degree.
What most people call writer's block is actually procrastination, which is solved by simple personal discipline (or a program that turns off your internet access for hours at a time); that, or the author has written themselves into a corner plot-wise and cannot get out. They've run out of ideas. Maybe the characters are acting out of character to serve the plot. The answer to this depends on the root of the problem. Personally, I either go to the gym or watch a movie in the same genre in which I am writing. It shakes loose those little gems in the back of my head and often means I'm typing furiously on Evernote through the movie or I have to turn it off and get back to work.
Serious writer's block is about the inability to type, unable to work - the notion makes you feel sick, and if you open MS Word or Scrivener or whatever program you use, you find yourself in the midst of a panic attack. Not many writers experience it to that degree.
What most people call writer's block is actually procrastination, which is solved by simple personal discipline (or a program that turns off your internet access for hours at a time); that, or the author has written themselves into a corner plot-wise and cannot get out. They've run out of ideas. Maybe the characters are acting out of character to serve the plot. The answer to this depends on the root of the problem. Personally, I either go to the gym or watch a movie in the same genre in which I am writing. It shakes loose those little gems in the back of my head and often means I'm typing furiously on Evernote through the movie or I have to turn it off and get back to work.
Tony Denn
The freedom of the imagination combined with the strict tenets of structure. The imagination flies all around until the story coalesces and then the structure has to take over, melding the two into a product I can be proud of, and readers can enjoy.
Tony Denn
Well, since I am technically still "aspiring" myself as I write this, I guess I should only post what I've learned with my first three written novels (Never the Sinner is my first release, but I have two others that will likely never see the light of day).
The main thing is perseverance. A close second is patience. Keep on doing what you love, but do not be in a hurry to publish. Make it the best work you can, leave it weeks before editing so you have fresh eyes, employ an editor (no matter if it takes you 3 months to save up the fee, it's worth it), and beta-test the heck out of it. My original planned release date was the end of May, hoping to catch the summer market, but every time I took a step back to review it, my novel was just not up to a professional standard. I kept putting it back the more issues I found and in the end it is coming out on Sept 6th 2014.
The main thing is perseverance. A close second is patience. Keep on doing what you love, but do not be in a hurry to publish. Make it the best work you can, leave it weeks before editing so you have fresh eyes, employ an editor (no matter if it takes you 3 months to save up the fee, it's worth it), and beta-test the heck out of it. My original planned release date was the end of May, hoping to catch the summer market, but every time I took a step back to review it, my novel was just not up to a professional standard. I kept putting it back the more issues I found and in the end it is coming out on Sept 6th 2014.
Tony Denn
I'm polishing Never the Sinner, my first novel, and at the same time I am planning a sequel - Through the Valley - and prepping a stand-alone novel that is provisionally titled The Sublime Freedom (but that may change) which I plan on belting out through NaNoWriMo in 2014.
Tony Denn
By knowing that if I don't, my stories will never be read. I have the ego that most authors need - the assumption that readers want to see into my imagination. If I do not share these things, how will people know I thought them up? I have loved making up stories since I was a child, and since so many people love reading stories, why not make us all happy?
Tony Denn
I was just brainstorming ideas, looking for a kind of detective that I'd never read before. I wanted a new project to start 2013's NaNoWriMo, and this notion of a detective with a Creationist mindset stayed with me. It's a kind of irony that is posed in the form of a question early in the book: how does a man whose life revolves around the purity if faith do a job that requires him to find absolute proof before he can succeed?
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