Ask the Author: Paula Whyman
Answered Questions (7)
Paula Whyman
Sure. Here you go:
Donald Trump is elected president. There is no second sentence.
Donald Trump is elected president. There is no second sentence.
Paula Whyman
My favorite unhappy couple is George and Martha in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. My favorite happy couple is George and Martha, the hippo best friends in the childrens' books by James Marshall.
Paula Whyman
Often I start my writing time by reading poetry. It gets me in the mood to daydream. Also, I eavesdrop, and then I might start with an overheard piece of dialogue.
Paula Whyman
Read! People always say this, but it's true. Read everything you can get your hands on. It doesn't all have to be great literature. I read good stuff and garbage when I was growing up, everything from Dostoevsky to VC Andrews. Most of it will teach you something useful, and much of it will take you somewhere interesting outside of yourself. And also, live. What I mean is, get out in the world. Write when you have some life experience that informs your work--I don't mean 'write what you know'! I mean, write about what startles you, what makes you curious, what makes you anxious, what fills you with wonder, what you don't understand. I think that the more you experience, the more there will be that you don't understand.
Paula Whyman
That I can do what I love. Also, that I'm my own boss. The flip side of that is, I'm an unforgiving boss...I'm highly critical and overly demanding of my one employee, and I don't pay nearly enough. I might be the worst boss there is, but I only have a team of one, so I'll never fire her.
Paula Whyman
If I'm stuck for days, or longer, I might need to recognize it for what it is--a sign that I need to change projects, or a sign of uncertainty. Sometimes switching to work on a different story, even temporarily, will bring new energy. What I've found is that it's less effective for me to force something than it is to allow myself to take a break from it.
Paula Whyman
I was visiting a class at The Young Women's Leadership School, a high school in East Harlem, to talk about my story "Driver's Education." The students and the teacher said they wanted to read more about the girl in that story. That's what planted the seed. But it was years before I decided to write it, and even longer before I knew it was going to be a whole book that followed the same character for the next 35 years of her life.
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