Ask the Author: Jan English Leary
Answered Questions (6)
Jan English Leary
I love creating characters who are in some ways like me but in many ways different. I love the research that helps flesh out a character or a situation. Playing with language, revising over and over to make it as smooth as I can make it. Reading the work of writers I greatly admire and trying to make my work the best it can be.
Jan English Leary
A novel about two women who grew up in the same small rural college town. They come from different backgrounds, but their lives intersect over a secret.
Jan English Leary
I free-write, do a kind of word association, with the idea that nothing will be seen by anyone. If I tell myself that the stakes are low, the words tend to come more freely. Putting too much pressure on myself to get it perfect right off the bat can stop me in my tracks. Write messily and badly so that the words are on the page/screen. Then later the editor can step in. If the editor shows up too early, self-doubt does too.
Jan English Leary
Work as regularly as you can, read extensively, listen to readers whose opinions you trust. For those writers who have what they feel are finished, polished pieces, send them out to several places and try not to let rejection slow you down. Research small journals that appear to be open to new writers and submit, submit, submit.
Jan English Leary
I don't really believe in inspiration. It's more about showing up regularly and working. However, there are moments when I feel inspired, mostly when I read the work of someone I admire or I see a film that provokes a thought in me. I'm always on the lookout for interesting paradoxes that I'd like to explore in writing. I don't take those moments for granted and I'm grateful for them. That said, no amount of inspiration will make it to the page without sitting down and writing.
Jan English Leary
My mother was adopted, and I've always been interested in the notion of nature vs. nurture. What influences us? What we inherit from our parents or how we are raised? I was interested in the things we know and the things we don't know, whatever family we belong to. In my novel, I decided to have the main character adopt a child who had been abandoned at a church and about whom she knew nothing other than her appearance. I also wanted there to be secrets in the family that are not revealed. What is the effect of holding onto a secret for years?
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