Ask the Author: Lisa Shiroff
Answered Questions (9)
Lisa Shiroff
Hi Richard! Sorry for taking so long to respond. I just now found this. But anyway, that's actually hard to answer. But I never intentionally set out to create a particular character. They just kind of come to me. Sometimes I think they are unconscious mish-mashes of people I know. But at other times, I worry about what's going on in my brain that it could come up with people like that (those characters often don't make it onto the page for an audience to read about).
Lisa Shiroff
No worries, Andre! Sometimes I hit "return" or "send" much too early without the very good reason of having dental surgery that day. I'm not keeping track. I just hope you enjoy it -- that's my goal with everything I write. I just want people to have a laugh and find the book to be a satisfactory read. By the way -- technically, it's not a Florida mystery. It's the first in a series I have planned that takes place in the Caribbean and Florida alternatively.
Lisa Shiroff
I'm not sure. Which "that" do you mean?
Lisa Shiroff
In line at the checkout counter in the market one day, I was standing behind a drag queen buying nothing but a bouquet of flowers. I overheard him complaining to the cashier that he could never find a flower with the right shade of red.
Lisa Shiroff
I think being ADD helps. Bits and pieces of a story, or a character or setting will come to me in between other thoughts. I'll make little notes and when I feel like I have enough, I'll sit down to put them together and let it flow. Afterward, I realize those beginning points are very loosely connected to something I saw, heard, or experienced. It's as if they were jumbled up in a cluttered portion of my brain for a while.
Lisa Shiroff
A funny mystery.
Lisa Shiroff
Always be willing to listen to criticism of your work. You don't have to agree with it, but be willing to listen to it. No one's writing ever gets to a point where every word is perfect, which means we, all of us, can always improve.
Lisa Shiroff
It's so very much fun. I get to control an entire universe. Who wouldn't like that?
Lisa Shiroff
I pretend I don't have it. I make myself write words, any words, without thinking about them. They start out as nonsense. Eventually sentences form. And then a breakthrough happens.
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