Ask the Author: Carleton Prince
Answered Questions (6)
Carleton Prince
As I mentioned above, I don't have writer's block. Maybe it's all my years of practice, maybe it's a gift, but I can actually write anywhere at anytime on anything. I have my office "space," and I work probably best and fastest on my computer there, but I've written bits of dialog on the back of a map while hiking, I can write longhand on lined pads, I can work on my laptop while watching a football game. I don't know. Writers write. Seems pretty simple. What's that quote? "Writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."
Carleton Prince
Surprising yourself on the page. Don't tell anybody, but I actually find writing fun. I don't outline in detail (sometimes no detail at all!), so while I might know where I think the story needs to go, I am also willing to let the characters take over and lead me where they want to go. So words and scenes come out on the page that totally surprise me. I look back and say, "Wow, where did that come from?!" That makes the story more organic and "real," so makes the writing more vibrant and engaging, certainly for me and I hope for the reader!
Carleton Prince
Don't be afraid. Just write. Start. Start anywhere. Put words on the page (computer screen), and let the words take you where they want to go. I can't tell you how many novel ideas I've had, how many chapters I've written, that have never seen the light of day. But writing frees the mind, if you get out of your own way, and the story will reveal itself to you. Or not. But trust the process. Writing is inspiration; rewriting is perspiration. And that, for me at least, is the key: Get it all down, whatever it is, then go back and wrestle into a readable story. I often find nuances that reveal themselves later that I have to go back and set up earlier in the story, or characters who need to be introduced earlier, or clues that have to be planted so they make sense later. It's like carving a block of stone, you've got to chisel out the form before you sandpaper the detail.
Carleton Prince
Another AA McKay mystery set in central Arizona north of Prescott near the mining town of Jerome and that region. It starts off with a dead body (of course), but it evolves to touch on not only mining and Arizona history, but also land fraud, which was rampant as Arizona grew so explosively after the 1950s, and also the Phoenix Lights, which was a mass UFO sighting that lasted hours and moved from Prescott down through Phoenix is 1997. It will all make sense in the end! Frankly, not to wallow in self-revelation, but I was struggling with writing this next book in third-person rather than first-person, as all the AA McKay books have been. But I found it was losing its focus and drive and narrative passion. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't feeling right. So I am writing it back in first-person, and it seems to be working. But I'll let you to be the judge of that!
Carleton Prince
I never have writer's block. Maybe that's a function of having spent 35 years in advertising, where you have to write on demand because you have deadlines, and where you have fit your writing into a 30-second commercial or a 2-inch column on a page. But I've always, even as a kid, had a relationship with the page. I'm an only child, so I used to scribble down my thoughts and frustrations and anxieties and emotions just as someone else might talk to a sibling or a friend. I always threw the pages away; the act of writing was enough. But I approach the page the same way today: I just start writing. I find the simple physical act of writing itself to be the gateway to inspiration. Oftentimes I don't end up anywhere near where I thought I was going, but I the process itself has opened up pathways I never saw were there. It's amazing. But it works. And if I don't like it, I do what I used to do with my youthful scribbles: Throw it away and start over!
Carleton Prince
My most recent book, Eden, is set in Los Angeles and is centered around the movie business, Hollywood, and quantum physics. That might seem like an odd combination, but as the protagonist says at one point, "Only in LA is the weird normal and the normal weird." All my books are about perception, about image, about the veracity of our own senses, and nothing challenges comfortable assumptions more than quantum physics, and nothing challenges reality like Hollywood. So they actually work well together! The next novel (I'm still working on the title!) is set in central Arizona in mining country near Jerome and concerns land fraud, which was a significant problem here in Arizona, especially as it was facing such explosive growth since the 1950s. But this next novel also involves the Phoenix Lights, which were a mass sighting of a UFO phenomenon in 1997 that is well documented by thousands of people in the region. Again, it's all about perceptions! The inspiration for what I write always comes from what I'm most interested in exploring and writing about, what excites me as a writer. I can't expect you to be enthused about reading it if I'm not enthused about writing it!
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