Ask the Author: Andrew Beahrs
Answered Questions (4)
Andrew Beahrs
Taking "most recent" to mean "most recently completed," that would be The Big South Country (out, most likely, in June). A couple of years ago I was sitting in the Peet's on Berkeley's Telegraph avenue, reading about Pacific ocean life--one of my passions--when I had a sudden and vivid mental picture of a man standing on a cliff in Big Sur. He was a hulking presence, dressed in a Gold Rush era greatcoat and wide-brimmed hat, staring out to sea at a lifeboat drifting towards shore after a storm. It seemed clear that hated the prospect of the boat's arrival, and was trying to decide how best to stop it from coming ashore. That picture--drawn, I think, from The Tempest, along with recent reading about Gold Rush clipper ships I'd been doing for a separate project, and set in a place I dearly love--was the spark of The Big South Country, and became the novel's opening scene.
It wasn't unlike how The Sin Eaters came to me, though in that case the mental picture was of a character I already knew burning down her house. It occurs to me now that both pictures appeared in cafes; from time to time I try to dial back my coffee addiction, but maybe I should just lean into it and accept that my jagged nerves can sometimes shake something loose.
It wasn't unlike how The Sin Eaters came to me, though in that case the mental picture was of a character I already knew burning down her house. It occurs to me now that both pictures appeared in cafes; from time to time I try to dial back my coffee addiction, but maybe I should just lean into it and accept that my jagged nerves can sometimes shake something loose.
Andrew Beahrs
A revision of my first novel, Strange Saint, which I'll be releasing as an ebook titled The Windcatcher. It's been a thrill to return to the world of the novel; it also feels like something of an apology to the heroine, Melode, whose fierce voice I spent years listening to but who has now been quiet for some years now. Very much looking to that changing with the release of The Windcatcher on April 1.
Andrew Beahrs
Attack, attack, attack.
I'm a big proponent of putting a piece away for a stretch (months, even) to get a fresh perspective. But I never--NEVER--do that when I'm feeling blocked, only when I have a long, at least semi-complete draft in hand. The only thing that works for me when I'm truly stuck is to keep writing, filling page after page in longhand even if what comes out is nearly (or genuinely) nonsensical. Working with 10 terrible longhand pages is far preferable to an empty lined sheet; I might only find one or two sentences worth keeping amid all the dross, but more often than not those lines will be enough to shake the block loose and get me back into my normal flow.
I have no idea who to credit for the phrase, but "Don't get it right, get it written!" should be on a signboard over every writer's desk.
I'm a big proponent of putting a piece away for a stretch (months, even) to get a fresh perspective. But I never--NEVER--do that when I'm feeling blocked, only when I have a long, at least semi-complete draft in hand. The only thing that works for me when I'm truly stuck is to keep writing, filling page after page in longhand even if what comes out is nearly (or genuinely) nonsensical. Working with 10 terrible longhand pages is far preferable to an empty lined sheet; I might only find one or two sentences worth keeping amid all the dross, but more often than not those lines will be enough to shake the block loose and get me back into my normal flow.
I have no idea who to credit for the phrase, but "Don't get it right, get it written!" should be on a signboard over every writer's desk.
Andrew Beahrs
Being able to choose what I'm going to dream about for a period of weeks, months, or years.
When writing is going well, it can become a kind of lucid dreaming that allows you to experience settings and personalities far outside your normal life. It's very much like reading, in that way, but with the great difference that writing takes much, much longer, so that starting a new book is plunging into a kind of secondary dreamworld that you'll be living in for months (at a minimum). I used to see that time commitment as daunting; now I see it as an opportunity to explore times, places, and characters that fascinate me.
When writing is going well, it can become a kind of lucid dreaming that allows you to experience settings and personalities far outside your normal life. It's very much like reading, in that way, but with the great difference that writing takes much, much longer, so that starting a new book is plunging into a kind of secondary dreamworld that you'll be living in for months (at a minimum). I used to see that time commitment as daunting; now I see it as an opportunity to explore times, places, and characters that fascinate me.
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