Ask the Author: Robb Grindstaff
Answered Questions (7)
Robb Grindstaff
"Honey, where's the chocolate?"
"We're all out."
"We're all out."
Robb Grindstaff
Wealth and fame, of course. Ha! Okay, just the creative process, and then if some readers tell me they enjoyed it, it touched them, moved them in some way -- that's the reward.
Robb Grindstaff
Not usually an issue with me. If I feel the need to write but have no ideas, I will just start typing. Eventually something might click into gear. But I also have no problem taking time off from writing. Sometimes I have ideas that just need to simmer in my head for a period of time (months even) without me writing. Then when I sit down to write, the story can pour out.
Also, if I'm stuck on a book I've been writing, I will stop writing and start reading from the beginning, editing and revising as I go. That will often kick-start the process to continue writing the story.
Also, if I'm stuck on a book I've been writing, I will stop writing and start reading from the beginning, editing and revising as I go. That will often kick-start the process to continue writing the story.
Robb Grindstaff
Write. Just sit down and write. Doesn't matter if it's any good. Read great writers, in and out of your preferred genre. Read those books twice -- one to enjoy it, and once more to analyze how the writer did what they did. Study the craft of writing continually. But then keep writing. All that stuff you can learn from others will only get put to use through muscle memory from doing. You can't learn to play the piano by listening to music, reading books about the piano, and watching videos about how to play the piano unless you're also sitting down at the piano every day to practice what you learn.
Robb Grindstaff
Next novel is in completed first draft mode: a high-functioning autistic news reporter makes an unlikely friend in a homeless woman who carries an "End is Near" sign. Turns out her prophecies start coming true at an alarming rate.
Robb Grindstaff
Getting inspired is never a problem. Finding which bit of inspiration is worth pursuing is the issue. Characters tend to show up in my head and start talking, and I have to sit down and start writing what they say until they tell me their stories. Maybe there's some medication that would help with that.
Robb Grindstaff
For Bones of Dead Man's Bluff, the idea came to me a few years ago about a famous preacher and a major politician who grew up together, now are both highly respected, but they share a dark secret from the past. They deal with that secretly differently, but if the secret became known, it could bring them both down. I jotted down a couple of paragraphs of that snippet of an idea, but was working two other novels -- one in final revisions and one in first draft -- so I had to set the new idea aside for a while. Started fleshing out the idea more two years ago, then wrote it last year. By the time it was published in 2024, it had become a bit prescient of current events.
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