Ask the Author: Beth Troy
Answered Questions (7)
Beth Troy
The Secret Garden, but not to garden (I hack away enough at the beds around my house). I'd sit and let my mind run free.
Beth Troy
Write your stories like you tell them and write them for an audience of one - you! - that way you'll be guaranteed at least one satisfied customer. You don't know how your book will land, so you need to make sure you're your #1 fan (even more than Mom).
Beth Troy
Doing something I always dreamed of doing but was wondering whether I'd be able to achieve. Writing my first novel, Lu, was a risk. I took a year off from work, the budget was tight, and I was working odd hours around my kids' sleep and school schedules. But the novel is finished now, and I'm thrilled I took that chance.
Beth Troy
Don't try to edit and write at the same time! When I first sit down to write, I allow it to be messy - what Ann Lamott calls a shitty first draft. I'll work for a couple hours, trying to crank out 5-7 pages. And then throughout the rest of the week, I'll go back and edit/refine. As long as I've kept to this formula, I've never experienced writer's block. And sometimes in that first draft, I get away from the computer and go old-school with a pen and journal. For some reason, this takes the pressure off of forcing the early writing to be "official."
Beth Troy
Having written, of course! I think it was Mark Twain who penned that phrase - that writers don't like writing so much as they like having written. Every day I sit down at my computer to write, I glance back at the previous day's work. It keeps me going until the story is done.
Beth Troy
Right now, I'm working on Book 2 for Lu, and I also plan to write some Kindle singles of some of the secondary characters from Book 1 to release before the second book comes out.
Beth Troy
The most direct inspiration for my novel, Lu, came from the relationships I had with my two grandmothers. I knew I wanted to write a story of a girl who wrestles with her plans for her life vs. what her family thinks is best for her. Stories about my grandmas have always made for great dinner-table conversation, and it was fun to ham them up even more for my fictional book.
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