TS. This is one of more in depth interviews that I have had the pleasure to do. MJ. delves into the writing process. Why we do it, what we are feeling, what we experience when we write. I hope my readers enjoy this one as much as I did.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? (please provide a photo/s of your shed, room, closet, barn….) Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
MJ. My ‘dream’ work space would be in the midst of nature somewhere where the bugs didn’t bite and the weather was extremely temperate – lol! However, my actual work space happens to be one of two places in my home: my office or my craft room. It all depends on how much juice my computer has at the time and how severely external forces work to distract me 😉
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
MJ. First I do away with as many distractions as possible, and these tend to come mostly via the internet
these days. I check my email (all 3 of them), my social media, briefly snack on something crunchy (like flavored mini-rice cakes from Mr. Christie – cheesy tortilla when possible), then either review my notes for moving forward or dive into a list of feedback comments for a chapter revision.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
MJ. Oh, this is fun! I used to play a version of this game with my drama students called Liar Liar. The idea was to reveal two truths and one false piece of information about yourself to a partner to see if they could determine which one was a lie. They had up to three questions they could ask to try and catch their partner in the lie. As an example I always said: 1) I have moved more than 14 times in my life; 2) I tried out for the very first Canadian Idol TV show; and 3) my shoe size is an 8. My shoe size is 7 😉
Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?
MJ. Neither. If I only wrote when I felt creative I’d never get anything accomplished. As a wife and mother, as well as a freelance editor, if I want any time for myself I need to carve it out of each day with striking precision and extreme flexibility. I intentionally set aside one day (out of the seven we can legitimately claim happen on this earth) to focus solely on my own stories. I devote an hour to writing my Infinite Pathways blog two mornings a week and try to sneak in a third morning whenever possible for my author blog. Every single day of the week I’m writing replies and keeping up with clients or PR items (such as guest blog posts or articles for online magazines to keep my name swimming around out there in the ether of the internet). It’s not a lot of time to write for myself but I have to support my writing interests by doing these other things.
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
M.J. Know your tendencies………Read more in Part 2, January 2nd
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Thanks so much for having me on today, Trisha 😀 I’m looking forward to seeing the next two instalments!
It was totally my pleasure. Authors like you, who are sooo busy writing, giving up their time to do
an interview; well, my readers adore them. My list of best selling authors just keeps growing and growing.