Ask the Author: Mike Cavanagh
Answered Questions (6)
Mike Cavanagh
Go somewhere else in my head. Either take a complete break, and I mean a complete break so that you're not even thinking about writing, or start doodling about something unrelated to what I'm trying to write about. I also find sometimes to go somewhere else in your plot or structure and just doodle away stuff in there can work. Whatever, just don't get hung up about it. It happens. It will pass. Relax.
Mike Cavanagh
Really? This is a question? Writing, of course. The processing, the formulation, the revelation, the actualisation - all of it. One of the biggest buzzes I get is when I write something and get this 'What the heck?' moment, as if what I've just written was written by someone else; where the heck did THAT come from?
Mike Cavanagh
Write. Seriously - don't get hung up about what to write about or how or who for or how good or bad it is or anything else. Tackle all that at a later date. Right here, right now, write. Human brains are complex and marvellous things and can deal with creativity and with crafting in equal measure. If you get on a bit of roll, let it flow. Don't stop to correct or check, just keep writing. Have two 'hats' - the free thinking devil may care creative one (feathers, lightening bolts, viking horns, whatever) and the 'get it right' hat (starched, crisp lines, all function over form). Both are invaluable just remeber which one you're wearing and need to wear at any one particular time.
Mike Cavanagh
My immediate focus is redrafting a novel I've 'completed', which means it has lots of words and says The End on the last page but is far from 'completed' in terms of final shape and finesse. It concerns a young woman's hunt for her past that takes her away from home to find the familiar in the unfamiliar. Defintely one of the 'seven themes' that supposedly define everything that's ever been written. I'm OK with that. Right now I'm wrestling with the apparent death of a major character. No spolier here, as I haven't decided!
Mike Cavanagh
I've only had a memoir and some poems published, so for me currently it's less about how to be inspired but how to make the time to write. So many other competing interests, responsibilities and needs; family, music, house maintenance, weeds, etc. When I sit down to write however I do find that re-reading to re-immerse myself helps; that and being relaxed about what and where I might pick up to write. Discipline to write is so important, but imagination works best given a free hand.
Mike Cavanagh
From not writing the memoir I wanted to. Well, that and an 'out of left field' call from a psychologist. There are events, and a period, in my life that were traumatic and informative; the sorts of life changing events we all go through in some shape or form. I had failed to kick start a memoir writing about those events for years, then I went to a psychologist, dumped my scrambled eggs into her basket, as you do, and she said: "I think you have a high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder." "Say wha?" "Asperger's Syndrome." I was 63; how the heck did I get to be 63 and not know? I began to look back over my life and almost immediately lots of 'stuff' began to fall into place. I remembered in particular a conversation with a young girl back in 1970 and subsequent events and 'Bing!' went the little 'Ah-ha!' light. The memoir that I thought I wanted to write would have to wait. The memoir I should write was about 'a different place, a different face', as Van Morrison so aptly put it. So I did.
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