Interview with author Conda V. Douglas
Conda V. Douglas is an author who has been writing since the tender age of 12. Her novel, 'Changing Women Ways' has been published with US Publisher Damnation Books, and here she talks about her life, her writing and advice and tips for writers out there…
1. You started writing at a young age. What inspired you?
My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Loringer, told me anyone could write. A stunner. I remember when she said those words, the room flooded with light. I grew up in Sun Valley, Idaho, a ski resort where Papa Hemingway lived and died. And my folks knew Papa. But still, to me, writers were gods or angels or devils at the very least.
2. What, if anything, do you find particularly challenging about writing?
The most challenging thing I find is deciding what to write and staying with one project until it's finished. I'm like other writers, I have so many ideas, plots, characters roiling in a flurry in my mind, it's hard sometimes to pick just one.
3. Can you tell me about your release, Changing Woman Ways?
My dad, Luther A. Douglas, was a famous artist and most famous for his work with the Navajo. He was the first man to preserve Navajo sand paintings. My childhood was filled with the Navajo people and their wonderful ceremonies and beliefs. And rocks in the bathtub and goats in the kitchen and buffalo bones on the living room rug, boy did our house stink! One Navajo story about Changing Woman was the inspiration for this story.
4. Do you generally stick to one style or genre in your writing? If so, why?
Not one style or genre, rather I love crime, or even more specifically I adore dead things. And bright shiny objects. These things appear over and over again in my horror, fantasy and mystery stories.
5. What tips can you share with us about writing?
My best piece of advice: PERSIST. To succeed with writing is simple: read, write, edit, submit, repeat, repeat, repeat. It's always worked for me and continues to do so, or rather, more so in this new electronic publishing world.
6. Do you have any hints or advice for those who want to get published?
The one problem I see as an editor again and again in newbies that prevents publication: the emotional connection newbies have with the work. Once it's written, it's no longer a birth process and the writing isn't a newborn, it's product.
7. Who are your favourite authors and why?
Oh my, it's hard to list them all, I have so many. But they all share one thing that keeps me returning to their books again and again: a true emotional connection with the characters. If a writer cares about her characters, so does the reader.
8. What are you working on right now?
My newest endeavor's working title is Awakened. In Awakened, the power to bring back the dead is also the power to kill. A young artist learns to her horror that once accepted this gift cannot be returned. Again, dead things and shiny objects…
9. Where can people find out more about you and your work?
Visit my blog http://condascreativecenter.blogspot.com/ or my Amazon page http://www.amazon.com/Conda-V.-Douglas/e/B004FSEHG6/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_3 or my YouTube videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY0RnK4YNAk
Thank you, Conda!
