Ask the Author: Hayley Chewins
Answered Questions (6)
Hayley Chewins
I dive in! The thing with revisions is they're messy, which is why (I think) we resist them. To revise your book, you first have to break it a little bit. Embrace the mess and just start!
Hayley Chewins
I like to keep works in progress a secret because they're, well, works in progress! But I will say that's it about magical girls with secrets, because I feel like that's my own personal genre. Oh, and it's strange. Because obviously.
Hayley Chewins
Write something you'd be dying to read if you saw it in a bookstore. I spent a lot of time trying to write books I thought other people would want me to write, and I kept running out of steam a third of the way into my manuscripts. Once I let go and allowed myself to write stuff that was fun and weird and magical and girl-centered, I had the motivation and energy to see projects through. There's no "best" genre or style. Make it your own and do you!
Hayley Chewins
This is going to sound cheesy, but it's the actual writing. Getting to dream for living. Opening up notebooks and brainstorming until one sentence, one image, becomes a whole world. That'll always be my favorite part.
Hayley Chewins
Karou and Akiva from Laini Taylor's DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE series. Like, without a single doubt in my mind. I love them because Laini Taylor wrote them in such a sensitive, vulnerable, devastatingly beautiful way. My heart still flutters when I think about it.
Hayley Chewins
For me, writer's block is just code for creative tiredness. Sometimes it's as simple as being hungry or needing more sleep. Other times I'm feeling tired of a scene because I secretly don't want to write it. When this happens, my strategy is usually to write something new -- something that makes my skin tingle. (A boring scene is never a necessary scene.) Then there are longer periods of time when I feel like my creative well is completely empty, which is generally when I take a break and read and watch as many beautiful things as possible. Usually it doesn't last long. When your heart is full of gorgeous words and images, it's pretty hard *not* to write.
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