Ask the Author: M.M. Justus
Answered Questions (5)
M.M. Justus
From a throwaway line in the first book in the series. One character happened to mention another character who showed up and left before the book began, and I wondered who she was. Then a friend of that character decided it was her story to tell instead, and I was off.
I got the idea for the series in general from a trip I took to the Okanogan Country of Washington state a couple of years ago. I promptly fell in love with the real town of Conconully in particular and the whole region in general and decided to write a book set there. The Okanogan Country has some nifty place names, a fascinating history, and beautiful scenery, among many other good things. Turns out that Conconully has more than one book in it, too.
A sense of place is very important to my writing. My first series was set in part in Yellowstone National Park (the cover in the icon is from the first book in that series), and I spent many happy days in the park archives and those of the Montana Historical Society getting the details right, not to mention tramping around the park and watching time travel devices, er, geysers erupt.
I got the idea for the series in general from a trip I took to the Okanogan Country of Washington state a couple of years ago. I promptly fell in love with the real town of Conconully in particular and the whole region in general and decided to write a book set there. The Okanogan Country has some nifty place names, a fascinating history, and beautiful scenery, among many other good things. Turns out that Conconully has more than one book in it, too.
A sense of place is very important to my writing. My first series was set in part in Yellowstone National Park (the cover in the icon is from the first book in that series), and I spent many happy days in the park archives and those of the Montana Historical Society getting the details right, not to mention tramping around the park and watching time travel devices, er, geysers erupt.
M.M. Justus
I love telling stories. I *love* getting feedback on my stories, especially from people I don't know personally. I look at my books as something tangible that will still exist after I'm gone, too.
M.M. Justus
The working title of my current manuscript is Reunion, the second of my Tales of the Unearthly Northwest (the first is called Sojourn, and I just published it this fall). This series, so far at least, is set in a village called Conconully, in the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains of Washington state, during the last decade of the 19th century -- mostly. Unlike the real Conconully, however, my version has an unexpected secret, and the people who stumble upon the town are changed forever.
M.M. Justus
Study the business end of publishing as much as you study the craft of writing. Don't be bashful about putting your work out there, no matter which way you go about it. Find good beta readers. Communicate with other writers.
M.M. Justus
I don't believe in writer's block as a thing in itself. There's always a reason for it, whether it's a character I've been trying to take down a road s/he doesn't want to go down, or something in my personal life, or anything in between. About the only thing to be done is to figure out what it is, then go back and fix it, or, if it's something in real life like the pneumonia I had in October, wait it out. The words always come back when I do that.
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