Peggy Mark
asked
Elan Mastai:
Loving your book! Its been an escape for me after the kids are asleep and I have time for myself. Although, since teaching started, it's been sitting on my nightstand but can't wait to get back to reading it. So what's your favorite poem or poet? Lastly, what's your routine before you write? I always feel everyone has a routine of sort to get their creativity flowing.
Elan Mastai
Thanks Peggy, I'm really happy you're enjoying it and I promise the book will wait for you if you're too busy to get back to it. I don't think I can choose a favorite poet, sorry, because it's usually about reading the right poem at the right time. I suppose my favorite poem is "A Hymn to God the Father" by John Donne. I don't share Donne's religious perspective, but it was the first poem that showed me just how many things a poem can do. The language is beautiful, it's philosophical, despairing, confessional, hopeful, candid, argumentative, narcissistic, and prostrate, and almost mathematically precise, all in 18 tightly wrought lines. My routine before I write is to buy a coffee and go for a walk and think about what I want to tackle that day. I walk, and sip, and think, and walk, and sip, and think, until I find the first sentence of the day. Then I rush home to write it and the ones that come after it.
More Answered Questions
Heather Antonietti
asked
Elan Mastai:
I have just finished 'All our wrong todays' IT WAS AMAZING! That was defiantly an understatement but I loved it and hope you continue writing and share your amazing gift for writing with the world :) Just one question, do you plan on writing a series any time soon???
Anne Bartin
asked
Elan Mastai:
Elan, How do you as a writer get yourself into character to write as one of your protagonist or antagonists in your books? I have often wondered that about older adults who write for ages 13-18 year olds. Do you talk to many teenagers about their lives, hang out with them, etc.? I am a writer too and write Memoir and that is easy because I am writing what I know. I think it would be hard to write YA. Thanks, Anne
Dee
asked
Elan Mastai:
Simply a comment?: I love the pacing of your writing. Your ability to convey a scenario concisely without making a chapter bloated and overblown. PLEASE maintain your way of writing! Do not become one of those authors that thinks 1,000 bloated pages (which should have been condensed down to 400) is optimal because you are doing the equivalent of loving your own "voice". Love, love, love this book!
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