11. What do you do when you get writer’s block?
To tell the truth, on most occasions when I get writer’s block, I just don’t write. I guess that’s a luxury of still considering writing as something I love to do rather than something I need to do to bring in an income.
However, if there’s something that I need to get written for a deadline, I’ll try to break it down into smaller chunks and set myself rewards for meeting each one. For example, if I write 50 words then I can have one M&M. I will write lots of words for M&Ms.
12. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of word-count, or as a percentage of the book as a whole)?
At the moment, I’m lucky if I get any writing done on a weekday. When I do, it’s usually to insert a particular idea or piece of research into the manuscript – so I write as many words as I need to get it in there.
If it’s a Saturday or Sunday where I’ve got a full day to write, I try to write in sessions of at least 500 words at a time. Sometimes that’s a struggle, sometimes I can easily write 2000 words or more without stopping.
13. How many different drafts did you write for your last project?
I remember throwing away a whole vacuum cleaner box full of Lessons to Learn print-outs when we left Wellington. That’s a lot of red pen covered drafts.
14. Have you ever changed a character’s name midway through a draft?
Yes, Charlotte in Lessons to Learn only became Charlotte half-way through the first draft of the novel. By that stage she’d assumed her own identity and character, and was ready for a new name.
And I’ve changed names in other stories when I’ve realised that I’ve done things like given every character who appears in the scene a name that starts with “T”.
15. Do you let anyone read your book while you’re working on it, or do you wait until you’ve completed a draft before letting someone else see it?
I wrote the first few drafts of Lessons to Learn as part of an MA in Creative Writing, so my supervisor read it regularly, and there were two workshops during that year where my classmates gave feedback on the work-in-progress.
Mum and Dad have always been incredibly supportive of my writing, so they tend to get chapter-by-chapter updates as I write. Over the years, it seems they’ve come to know my ‘writing voice’ almost as well as I do, and can usually tell me when something doesn’t sound quite right.
I also get my husband, Matt, to read short pieces now and then. Because he’s the one I bounce my ideas off on a day-to-day basis, he has a pretty good understanding of my characters and plot and tends to know whether a certain scene fits with the overall story.
