This is a wonderful and rich Interview with prolific author, Caroline Leavitt.
I had not read Caroline’s work until she granted me this interview. I just finished “Is This Tomorrow” and can now highly recommend her as an author. This story kept me guessing throughout. The characters were real and well developed. I liked them and cared about what happened to them.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?
A. My husband and I were really lucky to buy this 1865 three-story brick row house. We use the whole top floor for our offices (we can wave to each other across the hall.) I love my office. It has a fireplace, a couch for naps (mostly my husband takes them), my desk, of course, two big windows that look out on the city and all sorts of things that have meaning to me, including a big pair of white feathery wings I bought when I was writing pictures of you, a painting of Istanbul that my husband gave me, and various toys.
It’s a wonderful thing to have an office with a door. At the end of the day, we can leave work behind. And the commute to work is so easy! (I’ve done it in my pajamas.)
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
A. Nope. I just have to sit down at my desk and stay there. Though usually I want coffee in the morning, something I just discovered two years ago. I couldn’t believe what it did! I knew it made your more energized, but I didn’t know it boosted your mood! Now I can’t live without it, though it is starting to make me a little nervous.
Q. What is your mode of writing? (long hand? Pencil? Computer? Etc.)
A. I’m a Mac girl, all the way. Sometimes, I will take printouts with me and scribble on them if I am going someplace on the subway, but because my handwriting is so atrocious, I don’t usually do that.
Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?
A. I am at my desk every morning by nine or ten and I don’t stop writing for four hours or longer. I never wait until I am feeling creative because some days, many days, you simply don’t feel that! I feel like so much of writing has to do with the subconscious and by sitting down and writing every day, you are priming the pump, so to speak!
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?
A. When the writing is going well, I do. Usually for four hours. Those are the moments you live for. I love being “in the zone” when you aren’t aware of anything else. There is a joke in my family that someone could shout out “FIRE!” and I wouldn’t hear it because I would be so lost in this other world. Of course, that also happens to me when I am reading.
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Bio: I’m the author of Girls In Trouble, Coming Back To Me, Living Other Lives, Into Thin Air, Family, Jealousies, Lifelines and Meeting Rozzy Halfway. Various titles were optioned for film, translated into different languages, and condensed in magazines. Her ninth novel, Pictures of You, was A New York Times bestseller, it was also a Costco “Pennie’s Pick,” A San Francisco Chronicle Editor’s Choice “Lit Pick,” and was one of the top 20 books published so far in 2011, as named by BookPage. Pictures of You was also on the Best Books of 2011 lists from The San Francisco Chronicle, The Providence Journal, Bookmarks Magazine and Kirkus Reviews. Her new novel, Is This Tomorrow, will be published May 2013 by Algonquin Books. Cruel Beautiful World will be out sometime in 2014-2015. Her essays, stories, book reviews and articles have appeared in the New York Times (Modern Love), Salon, Psychology Today, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, People, Real Simple, New York Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Parenting, The Chicago Tribune, Parents, Redbook, The Washing ton Post, The Boston Globe and numerous anthologies.
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Don’t miss Parts 2 & 3 of this interview on June 7 and 11th.
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS! A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”
I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . I have invited such luminaries as: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.
So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Mark Childress is our April author. Robert McCammon is scheduled for May. Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author. July features Rhys Bowen. Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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