Ask the Author: Cheryl MacDonald
Answered Questions (5)
Cheryl MacDonald
Tough one. For fiction, which I'm fairly new to, something I've seen or read inspires a plot or character and it just evolves from there. For non-fiction, usually it's just something that intrigues me. For essays, humorous or serious, I'm usually inspired by a need to capture thoughts in a more permanent form than conversation allows. And, of course, the need to pay the bills usually is a pretty good inspiration.
Cheryl MacDonald
Read. Everything you can get your hands on - cereal boxes, instruction manuals, good, bad and indifferent prose, fiction or non-fiction, books that appeal to you and, just for the sake of learning, books that don't. Unless you read voraciously, you cannot develop any kind of appreciation for the printed word and how its appearance on the page (or screen) impacts the reader. Then write all you can.
Cheryl MacDonald
Hi Patricia,
Thanks for your interest. Sorry you didn't win a copy of Mostly Murder. While I'd love to give you a review copy, it really wouldn't be fair to the hundreds of other readers who also entered the draw and didn't win. The book is also available as an e-book or possibly you can borrow it from the library. Haldimand County library definitely has copies, so you're close enough to access the book through one of their branches if Binbrook doesn't have any.
Again, thanks for your interest
Thanks for your interest. Sorry you didn't win a copy of Mostly Murder. While I'd love to give you a review copy, it really wouldn't be fair to the hundreds of other readers who also entered the draw and didn't win. The book is also available as an e-book or possibly you can borrow it from the library. Haldimand County library definitely has copies, so you're close enough to access the book through one of their branches if Binbrook doesn't have any.
Again, thanks for your interest
Cheryl MacDonald
Non-fiction: a history of British gunboats on the Great Lakes following the Fenian invasions of 1866.
Fiction: final revision of my forthcoming historical mystery novel, Colonel Nichol and the Murdered Maiden.
Personal: Up the Creek, a memoir of 30 plus years as a city-bred writer living on a rural property with countless pets, wild animals and a very weird husband.
Fiction: final revision of my forthcoming historical mystery novel, Colonel Nichol and the Murdered Maiden.
Personal: Up the Creek, a memoir of 30 plus years as a city-bred writer living on a rural property with countless pets, wild animals and a very weird husband.
Cheryl MacDonald
I don't believe writer's block exists -- it's just another name for procrastination, which is often caused by anxiety. Sometimes I have trouble writing, as most writers do, but it's usually caused by one of two things -- I don't know what I want to say, or I'm setting the bar too high. In the first case, I either do more research (usually in the case of non-fiction) or more outlining. In the second, I try to remind myself that perfection isn't the goal, it's getting words on paper so I can revise, revise, revise. If a deadline is looming, I just do the best I can. If not, it often helps enormously to switch gears, work on something else for a while, then get back to the project that was causing the problems.
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