Monday, November 5, 2018

Sword and Sorceress 33 Author Interviews: Jennifer Linnea


Enter a wondrous universe…the latest volume of Sword and Sorceress, featuring stories from new and seasoned authors. Herein you will find tales of fantasy with strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision. The release date will be November 2, 2018.



Deborah J. Ross: How does your writing process work?
Jennifer Linnea: I have a day job, so I write for a few hours every morning before work. Sometimes I write in coffee shops, alone or with other writers, but most of the time I write in my home office. It’s a tiny room decorated with images from stories that have inspired me throughout my life – Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt novels, and Star Wars, to name a few. I also keep a shelf with my favorite speculative fiction novels, and another with books about writing. Everything else is pretty loose: some days I compose on a computer, other times I write longhand; sometimes I start with a writing exercise or journalling, sometimes I jump right in. But there’s always tea. Lots of tea in iron teapots and gaiwans and mugs with tigers on them. And once in a while, if I’m trying to finish a project, I set aside an entire day. Days spent writing are some of my favorite days. 

DJR: What advice would you give an aspiring writer? 
JL: Find people who can critique your work, and whose work you can critique. If the critiques all say the same thing – listen! Then rewrite. It will make your writing better, and help you self-correct in time. As a beginning writer, I thought a story had to be working in the first draft or it was a failure, but that’s not true. Rewriting critiqued manuscripts and helping other writers improve theirs was how I went from aspiring writer to published writer. (Incidentally, “The Secret Army” was critiqued by about six people and then rewritten into the draft I submitted to Sword and Sorceress.)

1 comment:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete