Dean Mayes asked Molly Ringle:

Molly, how do you challenge yourself in terms of writing? By that, I mean to say, do you enjoy stepping out of your comfort zone and exploring themes and ideas that might be uncomfortable to you?

Molly Ringle Hi Dean! Ha, you know, every time I embark on a novel I tell myself I'm only going to write what I currently want to write, and thereby immerse myself in something I love, which usually would mean staying out of the uncomfortable zone. However, I then always find that eventually I do have to make bad things happen to my characters in the name of drama (would be a boring plot otherwise), so one way or another, I do always have to explore traumatic events that I would never want to experience myself. It isn't comfortable, but I do it anyway. Still, I like to spend far MORE time in the parts that are enjoyable.

The other aspect in which I challenge myself is by having to do research for each novel. I tend to feel, pretty much constantly, that I don't know enough about any given subject (Imposter Syndrome), so I have to do a lot of looking stuff up and asking my more knowledgeable acquaintances when it comes to law, medicine, technology, or what have you. It ends up being fun to learn these things, though, so it's not too bad a challenge!

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