Ask the Author: Mark Andrew Ferguson
Answered Questions (6)
Mark Andrew Ferguson
So far, it's having people open up to me. In my experience, friends and strangers who read my book are very likely to talk to me about personal experiences they've had, things that my book reminded of them. Because I put so much out there in my novel, people feel permission to expose things about themselves that they normally wouldn't want to. That's a beautiful thing.
Mark Andrew Ferguson
Maybe writer's block is real, I don't know. I've never experienced a total block.
I do, however, experience (often) the crippling self-doubt that makes me utterly and devastatingly convinced that I will never do justice to the ideas in my head, that I'm a fraud and an idiot, that there are thousands of writers out there who are better than I, and that I should stop, right now, before I dig myself and my family any deeper into a career that's likely to bury me alive.
I just let that feeling happen, though. I write anyway, even if it makes me cringe and I'm positive that I'll regret every single word a week or a year or a decade from now. As far as I understand writer's block, it can only control you as long as you're not physically and mentally engaged in the act of writing.
I do, however, experience (often) the crippling self-doubt that makes me utterly and devastatingly convinced that I will never do justice to the ideas in my head, that I'm a fraud and an idiot, that there are thousands of writers out there who are better than I, and that I should stop, right now, before I dig myself and my family any deeper into a career that's likely to bury me alive.
I just let that feeling happen, though. I write anyway, even if it makes me cringe and I'm positive that I'll regret every single word a week or a year or a decade from now. As far as I understand writer's block, it can only control you as long as you're not physically and mentally engaged in the act of writing.
Mark Andrew Ferguson
Write. Don't expect to hear advice that changes you. Don't expect anyone else to give you the authority you think you need in order to commit words to paper. Just give yourself permission, and write every single day for as long as it takes for you to finish whatever you've chosen to work on.
Mark Andrew Ferguson
I'm working on another novel. It's thematically linked to THE LOST BOYS SYMPHONY, and I suppose it's of the same non-genre genre (character-driven books with a sic-fi twist), but other than that it's very different. My first book centered on just three characters. I don't think I could have handled more than that when I wrote it. This one is much broader. I don't think I can handle it now, either, but I'm doing it anyway.
The working title of the next book is THE EMPATHY MACHINE.
The working title of the next book is THE EMPATHY MACHINE.
Mark Andrew Ferguson
I don't think it's wise to wait for inspiration. It's like expecting that one day you're going to wake up and suddenly be inspired to do an Iron-Man that very moment.
That sounds too pithy to be genuine but it's probably the most true thing about writing that one can say. You do it whether you are inspired or not. Sometimes the things that I feel inspired to write end up working beautifully, but much more often that emotional pull of inspiration ends in sentences that are completely self-indulgent, overwrought, and trite. Often, the chapters that feel like the greatest struggle to get out and edit, over and over again, are the ones I end up liking the most.
So I try not to focus on inspiration.
That sounds too pithy to be genuine but it's probably the most true thing about writing that one can say. You do it whether you are inspired or not. Sometimes the things that I feel inspired to write end up working beautifully, but much more often that emotional pull of inspiration ends in sentences that are completely self-indulgent, overwrought, and trite. Often, the chapters that feel like the greatest struggle to get out and edit, over and over again, are the ones I end up liking the most.
So I try not to focus on inspiration.
Mark Andrew Ferguson
The hard little kernel that eventually popped itself into my first novel, THE LOST BOYS SYMPHONY, was an idea I had for a science fiction story called THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. It was a about a man who spends his whole life in pursuit of a time machine, only to have his first real success at age ninety, by which time he is far too old to take advantage of the discovery. His solution: gather fifty or so of his past selves for a single evening - a conference of the self - and teach them his secrets in the hope that it will alter the course of his life and he'll be able to benefit from his own discovery without risking his health.
I thought it was going to be funny. I even pitched it to my then-sketch comedy group as a possible one-act. Every time I tried to write it, however, the humor that was in my head completely disintegrated. It was just so tragic to think about a man who was that desperate to relive his life. And he would have to be unforgivably reckless, too, and lonely.
It didn't turn into a book idea until years later. I had struggled with failed drafts until I finally figured out that I had another story to tell, a story about a good friend of mine who suffered a psychological break while we were living together in college. The book is fiction, but that experience became the emotional backbone of the book, and after that breakthrough the first draft took about two years.
I thought it was going to be funny. I even pitched it to my then-sketch comedy group as a possible one-act. Every time I tried to write it, however, the humor that was in my head completely disintegrated. It was just so tragic to think about a man who was that desperate to relive his life. And he would have to be unforgivably reckless, too, and lonely.
It didn't turn into a book idea until years later. I had struggled with failed drafts until I finally figured out that I had another story to tell, a story about a good friend of mine who suffered a psychological break while we were living together in college. The book is fiction, but that experience became the emotional backbone of the book, and after that breakthrough the first draft took about two years.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more