Ask the Author: Sigrid Brown
Answered Questions (6)
Sigrid Brown
Dear Nyla,
If Uncle Studdly Ted thinks it is up your alley, you will totally love it! He is rarely wrong about these sorts of things!
Yours,
Sigrid
If Uncle Studdly Ted thinks it is up your alley, you will totally love it! He is rarely wrong about these sorts of things!
Yours,
Sigrid
Sigrid Brown
I got the idea for The Girl in Duluth when I first read about the high number of sex- and human-trafficking rings operating in northern Minnesota (where I grew up) and in particular the connection that runs between communities that are predominantly Native in the area and the shipping ports at Superior and Duluth. It’s part of an old, ugly story. There are always people who will capitalize as long as they possibly can on the chaos that was created when the ties another group spent generations knotting together were disrupted. There’s no task more vexingly difficult than healing an old wound when someone profits by keeping it open.
Sigrid Brown
Enjoy the process! Also, ask for help and have an open mind when you listen to criticism. With something as big as a novel in particular, I've found that it's almost impossible to see all the problems and bare spots by myself. When I write or revise a draft, even when I feel as if I'm working on all of the aspects of fiction--developing the characters, the setting, the plot, the themes, etc.--I usually find out at some point that I actually focused on only one or two of those things. Don't be embarrassed when a reader points out something you feel should have been obvious to you; you're going to miss a million things every step of the way. But that's what's nice about writing. You can just keep working until it's done.
Sigrid Brown
I do use details from my own life in my fiction, so one of the greatest things about writing is getting to revisit and, in a way, live over again times from my past. Reliving the happy and exciting times is pure joy, even when they were sweetly painful at the time (I'm talking mostly about all-consuming relationships and maybe some hangovers here). Reliving the heavier times is, of course, heavier. But it's a relief to be able to view those emotions and details with some distance, and an even greater relief to turn them into a piece of art I can see objectively--often that's an incredibly helpful way to take at least some of the sting out of a memory.
Sigrid Brown
I don't worry much about writer's block. If I don't have any ideas, I go do something else. When I'm stuck or my brain is just tired, I love to read, go to a play, watch a movie--it's just delicious to sit back and let someone else do all the work.
Sigrid Brown
Amy Shearn's Unseen City, Daisy Goodwin's The Fortune Hunter, Honore de Balzac's Lost Illusions, Molly Tanzier's Creatures of Will & Temper, James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room
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