Ask the Author: Ingrid Banwell
Answered Questions (6)
Ingrid Banwell
The imaginative, mind-bending works of Hieronymus Bosch have visually inspired the worlds in the Broken Soul Chronicles. With regards to The Infidel’s Garden, two books stand out as being great sources of inspiration. The best-selling Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier and Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons, who is a terrific story teller . And, of course, I’ll be forever grateful to David Mitchell for creating stories with reincarnated characters.
Ingrid Banwell
Life experiences, both uplifting and heart-breaking are an endless source of inspiration. I paint and write to make sense of the world and I read to do the same. Wonderful books by amazing authors like Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Gabriel Garcia Márquez as well as the lyrical writing and wonderful characters created by Diana Gabaldon all inspire me to improve my craft. Opinion columns such as those by Richard Glover and Elizabeth Farrelly, which are full of insight and humour thrill me. There are so many wonderful minds out there. And thanks to eBooks and the internet, they are more accessible than ever.
Ingrid Banwell
The Seven Plagues of Love – the next book in the Broken Soul Chronicles which takes place 1,800 years from now but, all thanks to reincarnation, has the same character web as The Infidels Garden.
Ingrid Banwell
Keep at it. Write, write and write. Don’t worry if it’s awful. At first, keep your inner critic quiet and just keep going. Inner critics are there to help us structure our creative visions. But if you have an impatient, interfering inner critic, the first thing that inner critic is going to say is “this work is wooden and inhibited!” And then you are stuck in a downward spiral of endless creative misery. So be enthusiastic. Write what you love and love what you write. Also, listen to what well-meaning readers tell you about what you think is your final completed masterpiece. Prepare yourself - this can be painful - akin to having teeth pulled without an anaesthetic or giving up a child. However, genuine caring and constructive feedback will help you. A good editor is not out to destroy your unique creative vision. They are there to help you understand what it is you truly want to say. If you really believe in your ideas and can battle through yet another draft listening to genuine, helpful feedback will make your work more readable and accessible. Also quality input helps quality output. So read the very best authors in your genre. Learn from them.
Ingrid Banwell
Two things . Working independently. Creating new worlds and characters and then inhabiting them.
Ingrid Banwell
I think I suffer the opposite – the proper term of which I believe is… wait for it … logorrhea. Yes it’s a word. In my case, it’s logorrhea-of-the-keyboard. Apparently when the words come out of your mouth rather than from a pen or computer, it’s a disease. I’m actually quite quiet when it comes to matters of the mouth so I don’t think I have a problem but others may disagree. The real challenge I face is having the words I put down make sense. So if I feel like I’m going mad I go for a walk. Or make myself structure what I write. For me, that’s the hard part.
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