Erich w/ an h asked David Wong:

A writer's past work has influence on their present and future work, whether through style or content or both. How do you feel your work writing non-fiction has affected your work writing fiction, and vice versa?

David Wong The answer might be less interesting than what you're expecting, but my non-fiction work comes from my full time day job (I'm the executive editor at Cracked.com, for those who didn't know) and what that taught me was how to deal with deadlines.

I have to turn stuff in every single day at Cracked, failing to do it isn't an option, there's no such thing as going off and spending a day at the lake ruminating on my next article. It's due on this particular day and has to be a this particular length and on this particular subject. If I'm not excited about it, I have to make myself be excited. If I hit a dead end while writing or researching, I have to immediately start over and get something else going. Procrastination isn't an option, getting discouraged isn't an option.

As a result, I've developed a large set of mental tools for overcoming those things and all of that carries over when I'm writing a book on a deadline, even if that deadline is 18 months down the road. I have friends who have been tinkering with a novel for seven years off and on, and that's fine, but I don't have that option. This is my job, I have customers waiting at the counter, I owe them a book and I will do it and I will do it on time and I will do it right. But it was writing as my day job that taught me how to be creative within that mindset.

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