Frequently Asked Questions
* Please click on the book next to the question below to view the answer |
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 Where do you get your ideas for your books? |
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"Ideas come to writers in various ways. Sometimes it can be as simple as something
someone says, or a question we ask ourselves that seems to have no answer.
I get most of my ideas doing research. I run across something when looking
up something else, and it strikes me and I pursue it."
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| How do you get the information for your books? |
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"I look it up. It is called research and it is not as difficult as you would imagine.
I find one book and look in the bibliography in back to see where the author of that resource
book got his or her information, then get those books. I read the notes in research books.
They are sometimes better than the body of the text. I read diaries of the time, tax records,
church records, letters and household accounts. This research may involve dozens of books that put
together the puzzle to make the complete picture."
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| When did you know that you wanted to be a writer? |
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"When I was 10 years old."
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| How did you know? |
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"It's something that's in your bones. So you write. Maybe it isn't very good,
but the fact that you can write, takes over and makes you want to do more."
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| Do you enjoy writing? |
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"Yes. I enjoy very much what I do."
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| Why do you enjoy it? |
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"Because I can create the world over again the way I want it to be. I can create a family
or set of people, give them names, move them around and make their world as I want it to be. I guess
, in part, it stems from never having had the world as I wanted it to be."
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| Of all the books you've written, which is your favorite? |
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"Usually it is the book that I am working on at the moment. I have to build up a level of enthusiasm
for the project in order to write it, maintain the level of quality and sustain intense inspiration until the end of the book."
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| Where do you get your titles? |
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"Sometimes they just present themselves. Somtimes they come in the middle of the writing of the book. Obviously, I get them from the circumstances involving the book.
When I am stuck I go to the Bible or to good poetry for a phrase that represents the subject. I prefer to have the title when I start the project
, because it helps pull things together, but that doesn't always happen."
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| How much control do you have over the cover? |
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"I have what is called 'writer approval', since I am often consulted about the clothing people wear on the cover
as to its authenticity. But now, after having written so many books I am consulted by the editors out of courtesy and respect for my work."
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| How do you make your ideas so well-thought out and detailed? |
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"By writing, re-writing and writing it over and over again. But then too, most of the time the characters
take over and lead me the way they want to go. I have learned to follow their lead. Many times
they take me where I've never dreamed they would take me. A smart writer lets them direct the show."
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