Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
LS. I have a dedicated office that I’ve worked in for the last seventeen years. It has a desk, books, and comfy places for my dogs (two Rhodesian ridgebacks) to hang out with me. For years, though, I had a little desk in the bedroom, and wrote wherever I could. I’m not sure a space creates any magic, but it can’t hurt to be surrounded by books and dogs…
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.)
LS. No, not really. I usually grab a cup of coffee, sit down, and start writing where I left off the day before. That’s boring, but it’s the truth.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
LS. I’ve nearly died twice in my life…third time is a charm has me a little worried.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
LS. I usually write in the morning, first thing. I try to stay as close to the dream state as I can. But when I’m really in a story, I’ll write whenever I get a chance.
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
LS. Just write the story. Don’t worry about agents, or publishing, or getting famous. Just write. You can’t edit a blank page. Quit coming up with excuses. If your dream is to be a writer, then sit down and write only the story that you can write. If what you write sucks, edit it, or delete it, then keep on writing. Writing is a craft. You have to be willing to put in the time into reading and writing over everything else.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
LS. Characters are everything for me. I usually get a glimpse of them at the start of a story, and my curiosity drives me to find out more about them. Most of my characters are wounded in some way, looking for a way to prevail over their current circumstances. Marjorie Trumaine, the main character in my amateur sleuth mystery series, is a North Dakota farm wife with a quadriplegic husband. She’s trying her best not to lose the farm, and the local extension agent encourages her to take a correspondence course in back-of-the-book indexing to make extra money. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) used to offer courses like this to farmers to generate extra income. Anyway, Marjorie’s well read, so when a murder happens
close by, the sheriff asks her for help. But she still has to figure out how to run the farm and take care of her husband. She has a lot of challenges to overcome. I also wrote a stand-alone a few years ago about an aging Texas Ranger who gets into a shoot-out with Bonnie and Clyde and loses his right arm. That novel, A Thousand Falling Crows, concerns the character’s fight to go on living regardless of the difficulty of his new circumstance. What a character goes through and how they come out of it shows who they are as far as I’m concerned. We all have our battles. Characters that have something to fight for are a big draw to me.
Don’t miss Part 2 of this fascinating Interview March 9th
Marjorie Trumaine’s latest mystery, SEE ALSO PROOF will be released May 1st.
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory
March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes.
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