Ask the Author: H. Claire Taylor
Answered Questions (7)
H. Claire Taylor
Yep. They'll keep a-comin'. I'm just slow and easily distracted. Anyone who likes dumb videos should follow me on Instagram: @claireorwhatevs.
H. Claire Taylor
Indeed. The live stuff goes down on my Facebook page. www.facebook.com/authorhclairetaylor
Be sure to change your follow settings to "see first" so Facebook will show you the fun stuff.
Be sure to change your follow settings to "see first" so Facebook will show you the fun stuff.
H. Claire Taylor
While I never say it explicitly in the books, it stands for After Girl Christ. Personally, I find it quite offensive, but c'est la vie.
H. Claire Taylor
Thanks, Jan. I like these kinds of questions where people just compliment my work. I guess I won't quit my day job (writing these books).
H. Claire Taylor
Inspiration hurls itself at me like a drunken underage dude with a fake ID at a smoky bar, but only whenever I'm not sitting in front of the computer. The Internet is the death of inspiration, if you ask me, because it's a place where most of what you see is tailored to what you like--ads, your Facebook feed, the folks you follow on Twitter, what sites you frequent.
But when you go out in public, life doesn't give two shits what you like and will shove all kinds of garbage in your "safe space" that challenges you and forces you to make sense of it. So that's where I best find inspiration. Or rather, inspiration finds me. But then again, I write comedy. There's never a lack of material for that.
But when you go out in public, life doesn't give two shits what you like and will shove all kinds of garbage in your "safe space" that challenges you and forces you to make sense of it. So that's where I best find inspiration. Or rather, inspiration finds me. But then again, I write comedy. There's never a lack of material for that.
H. Claire Taylor
The Jessica Christ series has my full writing attention at the moment. I'm currently about 20k words into book 4, and holy moly is this thing becoming a monster. In a good way. You know, one of those good monsters. Whatever.
Book 4 is a huge turning point in the series as Jessica navigates college life, so I'm taking my time with it, even though I know I owe it to loyal fans to get it out as soon as possible. Trying to find that balance can be difficult, but I might be stubborn enough to pull it off.
Book 4 is a huge turning point in the series as Jessica navigates college life, so I'm taking my time with it, even though I know I owe it to loyal fans to get it out as soon as possible. Trying to find that balance can be difficult, but I might be stubborn enough to pull it off.
H. Claire Taylor
I almost never have writer's block. My problem tends to be the opposite: too many ideas and not enough time. Storytelling is a muscle that you exercise by asking, "And then what if...?" over and over again. As someone with a tendency toward worrying, I'm already asking that question all day every day, so focusing it on my work rather than the minutia of life has been a fairly productive solution to both writing and avoiding full-blown psychological neurosis.
My M.O. is to think twenty steps ahead, so sure, sometimes I hit a roadblock in my story, but I realize it well before it's time to put fingers to keyboard. By the time I'm actually sitting at the computer, I already know where the next 20k words (at least) of my manuscript are going, and as the story comes to life, the solution to whatever problem I was facing later on tends to appear organically. I think that's really the trick: planning multiple plot points ahead before you even start writing.
My M.O. is to think twenty steps ahead, so sure, sometimes I hit a roadblock in my story, but I realize it well before it's time to put fingers to keyboard. By the time I'm actually sitting at the computer, I already know where the next 20k words (at least) of my manuscript are going, and as the story comes to life, the solution to whatever problem I was facing later on tends to appear organically. I think that's really the trick: planning multiple plot points ahead before you even start writing.
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