Ask the Author: Carolyn McBride

“Ask me anything!” Carolyn McBride

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Carolyn McBride My summer is all but over. My TBR pile is enormous, but I'd love to whittle away at it. I have far too many to read to list here. Just check out my 'Want to Read' shelf, lol!
Carolyn McBride I've always wanted to go to The Shire and live like Tolkien's Hobbits ... a quiet, peaceful life that would allow me to write my next book.
Carolyn McBride Sorry for the delay in answering this, I just saw it in my email! I think I'd hope for Devi Aradesta because she's smart, well-traveled and is happy with her life thus far.
Carolyn McBride For a period of time in my younger years, I was unsure of who my father was. Even then I thought that one question might have made an interesting book. If only to me.
Carolyn McBride Wow, this one got me thinking! For me, it's a fine line between being honest, authentic and saying too much. I try to treat others as I'd like to be, but on the other hand, I don't suffer fools well. I also try and live by the constant gauge, "what would Gandalf do?" If it's not a situation that Gandalf would be in, "what would J.K Rowling do?"
Not sure that this is exactly what you were hoping for, but that's my truth.

Thanks for the great question!
Carolyn McBride This is a great question...There are a few fictional couples that stand out for me, but the first at the top of my list would have to be Dar & Kerry, written by Melissa Good. They are well-balanced as a couple but individual enough to be interesting. They're given validity by the fact that they aren't perfect, they do butt heads and come across from their own places of hurt or fear like real couples do. But at the end of everything, their love and respect for one another gets them through quite a lot.
Carolyn McBride Approach writing with the knowledge it won't bring you fame or fortune. But if your characters won't shut up, write down everything they say. If they're too quiet, ask them questions. Listen to how people speak. Observe their uniqueness. Keep journals of your thoughts, what you see, what you hear that sticks in your brain, odd quotes, interesting sounds. Know that your writing will never be perfect, (no one's is) so turn off your inner perfectionist, and just WRITE!
Carolyn McBride I'm lucky enough to live in a valley out in the wilderness of Northern Ontario. I'm not sure if it's all the fresh air that inspires my Muse and I or if it's the lack of people. But I can tell you that after 12 years in a city, 10 of which I barely wrote anything, once I moved back north, the stories came faster than I write.
I have files of story ideas, partial outlines, character sketches and bits of scenes, all waiting to be chosen like little gems passing time in a river.
Carolyn McBride Being able to channel characters and their stories. Introducing readers to 'other worlds' and experiences outside their own, and being that kind of channel allows me to live vicariously as well.
Carolyn McBride It started out as a submission for an anthology collection centered around fairy tales. When it surpassed short story status and I knew the characters still had more to say...I knew I was headed for novel status.
Carolyn McBride Do the dishes, hang laundry or take my dog for a walk. Something about the woods I live in gets my creative juices flowing. Maybe it's all the oxygen the trees around me are putting out.
Carolyn McBride I'm currently working on a novel that is a modern day twist on the 'beauty & the beast' theme. It started out as a short story, but the characters had other ideas and now I'm happy to report they aren't done with yet. It's about character, being true to oneself, love lost and found again when we least expect it and being brave enough to thumb our noses at society.

I'm also working on a short story in which a teenage girl is the last of her generation left in her clan. It is up to her to seek out and bring back a herb that will cure the plague killing off her clan. Except outside the fence lives creatures that wait to eat her, a forest full of danger and the odds are against her survival.

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