Ask the Author: Monte Dutton
Answered Questions (9)
Monte Dutton
When I awakened, Channel 7 was talking about a gruesome murder-suicide in a wooded area about ten miles away. I knew what happened because I had just finished dreaming about it.
Monte Dutton
I rarely read a book twice, but Jim Bouton's death led me back to Ball Four, which I first read when I was about 14. I've also been reading a World War II novel, Daughter of the Night Sky, by Aimee K. Runyan. I've been struggling because I've tried to make room to continue chipping away at what will be my ninth novel, The Latter Days.
Monte Dutton
Nashville, late fifties. I would be playing country music for tips in seedy bars. I would sit around drinking in other bars, swapping hooks and ideas with other songwriters.
Monte Dutton
My latest novel is not quite out. I should have a publication date any day now. It's a crime novel, set in the South, about a corrupt politician and a good cop. It was prompted the rise and fall of a prominent family, but that was just the germ of the story. It just gave me the idea to weave a dysfunctional story of my own. It's called Forgive Us Our Trespasses.
Monte Dutton
I just think. Daydream. Imagine stories as I drive down some highway, listening to music. Lots of times, I think about subplots and sidetrips while I'm lying in bed, trying to go to sleep. For some reason, I tend to remember these yarns the next morning.
Monte Dutton
A modern western called Cowboys Come Home, which is centered around the adventures of a couple of Texans who come back home from World War II.
Monte Dutton
Read. It's the best way to learn how to write.
Get out. Observe people. Look at people you don't know and imagine how they might be, what they might do, where they might go. Many of my short stories begin that way. (www.wellpilgrim.wordpress.com, by the way).
Get out. Observe people. Look at people you don't know and imagine how they might be, what they might do, where they might go. Many of my short stories begin that way. (www.wellpilgrim.wordpress.com, by the way).
Monte Dutton
I don't think you should do it if you're fit to do anything else.
I don't mean it in a way quite as bad as it seems. I think a writer has to have an all-encompassing desire to write. It has to be his passion. It has to be where he feels most comfortable. Never do I feel better than at the end of what I perceive, however briefly, to be a worthwhile session.
I don't mean it in a way quite as bad as it seems. I think a writer has to have an all-encompassing desire to write. It has to be his passion. It has to be where he feels most comfortable. Never do I feel better than at the end of what I perceive, however briefly, to be a worthwhile session.
Monte Dutton
I don't think I ever have it. What I try to do is today's work today. I call it "daily paper discipline." It's not that I can just sit down and write creatively any time. Sometimes I have to think about it. I call this "mulling time." I think I can instinctively tell when I'm ready. My doldrums don't last days or weeks. More like hours.
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