“How Writers Create Their Fiction”: Geraldine Brooks

I uncovered this month-long NPR series “How Writers Create Their Fiction”, originally run in November 2006. I found many of the ideas presented by the various writers to be informative and inspirational, so we’ll be featuring one writer from the series per day during February.

Today’s writer is Geraldine Brooks:

How She Writes: “I write while my son is at school. At about 7:45 a.m., I walk him there, with the dogs, then walk them for another forty minutes or so, go home and chain myself to the desk a little before 9 a.m., and try not to be distracted until I hear my son plunge through the front door at about 3 p.m.”

Writer’s Block Remedies: “Because I worked as a newspaper reporter for about 14 years before attempting my first novel, I learned to write under almost any circumstances — by candle light, in longhand, in African villages where there was no power, under shelling in Kurdistan. (I was more afraid of my foreign editor, and the consequences of missing a deadline, than I was of the shelling.) So I think those experiences innoculated me against writer’s block. I can always write. Sometimes, to be sure, what I write is crap, but it’s words on the page and therefore it is something to work with.”

Come back tomorrow at 9AM PST for more writing wisdom.