Ask the Author: Gabrielle Selz
Answered Questions (6)
Gabrielle Selz
My dream was to travel to Japan. I just finished a nonfiction book where I had to spend a month in Japan for research! A dream come true. Right now, I have a yearning to go to Italy, but not for a book--for me and to eat. :)
Gabrielle Selz
I can't speak for all writers but I am a dreamer. However, I think the trick is to learn was how to navigate between the realm of dreams and the realm of the real world, where the work gets done. Often, when I'm stuck on a section I'm working on, I will ask my mind to help me while I'm sleeping, or while I'm distracted doing something else. And it's not like the answer suddenly appears to me, but when I sit back down to work, words fall into place...eventually.
Walking is a good activity to engage in while in the middle of a writing project. Take a break and take a walk. Bring a pad and pen. Let your mind wander and dream, but your body have purpose and direction. The activity of walking stimulates the brain. Walkers have increased connectivity between parts of their brains. So dream and walk and write.
Walking is a good activity to engage in while in the middle of a writing project. Take a break and take a walk. Bring a pad and pen. Let your mind wander and dream, but your body have purpose and direction. The activity of walking stimulates the brain. Walkers have increased connectivity between parts of their brains. So dream and walk and write.
Gabrielle Selz
Advice for aspiring writers: Reach beyond yourself. Learn about other things so that when and if you do write about yourself, you are also writing about the world.
Write, write, and rewrite like hell. And persist. My father taught me two wonderful things, how to look and how to persist. And read. I read shelves of memoirs and I read shelves of art history books, essays, fiction, plays for structure.
And surround yourself with people who believe in your ambitions. Few of us do this alone. We need people who believe in us.
Write, write, and rewrite like hell. And persist. My father taught me two wonderful things, how to look and how to persist. And read. I read shelves of memoirs and I read shelves of art history books, essays, fiction, plays for structure.
And surround yourself with people who believe in your ambitions. Few of us do this alone. We need people who believe in us.
Gabrielle Selz
I read. I research. A lot of writing is preparing to write. I'm a great believer in preparing. Note taking, journals, interviews, it all goes into the pot.
Gabrielle Selz
Visiting other worlds, traveling through history, connecting to ideas and dreams other than my own. Writing is lonely, but I enjoy the quiet ticking of my own thinking process. I love puzzles, so I love figuring out how all the pieces of a story fit together.
Gabrielle Selz
My book is a memoir, so it sprung naturally from my life. But it was only after my mother lost her ability to retrieve language and I discovered her journals and tapes in the attic, that I found my way back into the story of my childhood in the art world. Listening to those tapes, I felt as if I'd opened a window on a world that was vanishing.
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