Ask the Author: Charlie Sheldon
Answered Questions (7)
Charlie Sheldon
When I wrote Strong Heart in 2013-2014 the original frame had some sailors crashing ashore in a lifeboat and then, when awaiting rescue, hearing a story about this ornery girl, told by William, one of the main characters. In the end I stripped out the frame (the lifeboat rescue period) and just told the story in Strong Heart, but then I had chapters of this lifeboat tale sitting around and I thought, well, how did they get there, and when, and what happened, and this is what made the second book in the series, Adrift, which is the story of that ship accident and what happened to that lifeboat and William, first written in 2014 as a rough draft. Then, when I was on a ship in 2015, I wrote another story, to clear up some loose ends in the first two books, and this book eventually became Totem, my most recent book, which essentially concludes the Strong Heart Series.
Charlie Sheldon
"We're taking water fast and need to abandon ship!"
"That last breaking sea carried the liferaft..."
"That last breaking sea carried the liferaft..."
Charlie Sheldon
I have not had writer's block since 1977, seriously. But I don;t write until I am ready, filled with research and pent up imaginings....
Charlie Sheldon
Being a writer is generally lonely and humiliating, usually filled with rejection, but the best parts are, one, when you are writing as tale and it somehow appears as if by magic, and, two, on those occasions when someone tells you they picked the book up and got lost in it and finished it in one or two sittings. May you have many such comments.
Charlie Sheldon
Write, but because you cannot write what you don;t know, get out there and get a lot of different experiences, and do a lot of research. A lot.
Charlie Sheldon
Right now trying to get Totem out in late October. Pondering a new and different series that is science fiction, set a hundred years in the future....
Charlie Sheldon
It's more like a driven need. I don't write every day, or even every month, but when I do, it's four to seven hours a day, to get a rough draft out. Then it takes three years to get it right. I look for a quiet place but have found I can write almost anywhere if I have a tablet.
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