A short interview wherein my guest, one of my favorite authors, answers three questions about the writing life.
Question 1
What books do you recommend for an aspiring writer?
Stephen King’s On Writing and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird are two of my favorites. Most of all, though, I recommend aspiring writers read whatever they feel drawn to, heaps and heaps of it. How-to-write books are wonderful and useful (of course I would say that!) but if I had to choose, reading and being excited by other novels is even more important.
Question 2
Do you create elaborate outlines for your books? If so, can you explain the process (briefly)? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants? If so, do you have any tricks you use to keep yourself from crashing?
I don’t outline at the start at all. The beginning is where I improvise. Sometimes I’ll start outlining around the middle, to create a plan for resolving all the conflicts and mysteries I made up in the first half. Sometimes I outline when I’m done or almost done, to look back and get a sense of the arc I’ve instinctively created, so I can then deliberately emphasize it in revisions. I don’t know if this counts as a “trick” but I just trust that I’ll figure things out as I need to. It reminds me of when I was a kid and sometimes left it till late to do homework or an art project or gather costumes or props. I’m the youngest of four, and between my three siblings and my parents, all of us with very different interests, anything I could ever need was somewhere in the house if I just looked hard enough. Maybe in a drawer, maybe in the basement or the attics, but somewhere. Similarly, I just go into writing a book confident that there’s an answer to any plot problem if I search the drawers, basement, and attics of my brain hard enough. I don’t know whether I would recommend such blithe confidence to others! But it’s worked out all right for me so far.
Question 3
Please share the story of something unusual/funny/frightening/etc experience you had during a book signing event.
I haven’t had a singular amusing incident, but rather the same incident happening at several signings: someone I recognize—someone I know that I know and probably personally invited—will come up for a signature. And because they’re out of context and I’m on the spot, I won’t be able to remember their name. I’ve tried to get around it by cleverly asking, “Remind me how you spell it?” and instead of putting me out of my misery the most common answer is a cheerful “Oh, the usual way!” Then I have to admit I’m stuck and we have a laugh. They mostly forgive me—I hope!
Purchase a copy of Time to Write by visiting Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Bookshop.org. Make sure you also add Time to Write to your Goodreads reading list.
Also available at: Amazon UK || Amazon CA || Amazon AU
Have you always wanted to write a novel?
Emily Winslow will help you develop the mindset and skills to get you started, keep you going, and see you through. Time to Write is a creative writing guide aimed at anyone who wants to write a novel and could use some support.
It contains 49 lessons, each easy to read and packed with insights based on experience. Emily has taken her own work to high levels with major publishers, and has learned from teaching at Cambridge University what makes students light up and what makes their work drastically, excitingly improve.
This book is full of encouragement, recognizing and affirming different work styles. It’s a total handbook, teaching a broad range of specific writing skills with insight and clarity as well as covering topics around writing in-depth, such as how to give and take critique and how to evaluate publishers and agents.
It’s time to write the stories inside you!
About the Author
Emily Winslow is the author of a series of crime novels and a memoir. Her books have been published by Random House, HarperCollins, Allison & Busby, and Shanghai Translation Publishing House.
Her novels (The Whole World, The Start of Everything, The Red House, and Look For Her) have been called “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “vivid” (Parade magazine) and “dazzling” (Shelf Awareness). Her memoir, Jane Doe January, is “meticulously constructed and ultimately terrifying” (The New York Times), “potent” (Kirkus), and “compelling” (Bustle).
She grew up in the U.S. and now lives in Cambridge, England teaching for the University of Cambridge and for Cambridge Creative Writing Company.
Find Emily online:
www.CambridgeCreativeWritingCompany.com
Facebook: emilywinslow.author
Instagram: emilycwinslow
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