Ask the Author: Chip Walter
Answered Questions (4)
Chip Walter
First novel, coming soon. Man has to solve his own murder.
Chip Walter
Believe in yourself. Don't give up. Read the early writing of great writers like Hemingway or Steinbeck. Read their early newspaper articles or even early books and you'll find they had a lot to learn, but stuck with it and kept learning. Writing is a marathon, and you have to love it for its own sake, for YOUR own sake, or else you'll never survive. If you're doing it for fame or money, you won't make it.
Chip Walter
The best thing about being a writer is that publications actually pay me to learn all the things I would already have happily learned if I had never been paid a dime! It's like being chosen to to play shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. And the more I write, the more humbled (and curious) I become. That has led me to continually encounter the most fascinating people, and go to the most remarkable places. This has happened not because I am amazingly talented, but because I was so intent on never giving up on satisfying my curiosity. It's an addiction of sorts, I suppose.
Chip Walter
I've never had a huge problem with writer's block, but when I slow down, I remind myself that every first draft of my writing is going to be lousy, but at least after those lousy words are down, I have something I can work with. That makes it much easier for me to weigh in and keep writing. I will never forget Kurt Vonnegut's darkly hilarious description of putting words to paper: "Every time I begin to write," he said, "I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in my mouth." I remind myself of that, and then get my crayon out and start scribbling.
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