How did you become a writer?

I’ve always been a writer. I can’t remember any time when I wasn’t writing stories. My first public piece was for a high school writing contest. I wrote a story based on David Bowie’s Life on Mars…because, you know, at 15 I decided I could do better. Then I went to journalism school where I learned to craft a story and write well on a deadline.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

I was always a voracious reader and my parents never placed limits on what I could read. Everyone in my family read. So I grew up with books. I remember reading my papa’s pulp fiction westerns when he finished them. My tastes were eclectic. I grew up in the ’60s in a small town outside of Glasgow, Scotland. When I was eight, I developed a rare blood disorder and was hospitalized for a couple of months. The head of my primary school wouldn’t let my mom bring me books from school that were above my grade level and I quickly ran out. Luckily my teacher, Mrs. Silver (a hero in my reading life) ignored him and she kept me supplied with all the books I wanted. As a child, I read lots of classics like Alexander Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, CS Lewis, Enid Blyton and E. Nesbit. I loved adventure stories of all kinds and I think they influenced the way I pace and structure a story to this day. And I still read voraciously. I read four or five books a week. When I leave the house, I always take a book. You know, just in case…

When and where do you write?  

I can’t write every day because of my teaching schedule. I try block off one day a week when I write for 8-9 hours and the rest of the week I write when I can. When my children were young, I converted my side of a double closet into a cubby where I wrote for years. I also wrote what I now call my ‘practice’ novel in that cubby (where it shall forever remain). When my daughter went off to college, I took over her bedroom as my office. It’s packed with my books and lots of pop culture figures and toys. I like to play when I’m thinking.

What are you working on now? 

For the last few years when I’m between projects, I’ve been working on a story about a female photographer documenting the civil war in the camps and field hospitals around Washington. Walt Whitman and Clara Barton are also main characters. When I realized the story had become a novel, my agent encouraged me to finish it. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I don’t do writer’s block. Getting stuck, hitting a dead-end, feeling uninspired, or hating every word on my page are all part of writing. I’m okay with all of those fraught moments because I’ve learned to trust my imagination and my process. I know I’ll work things out. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

I’m a student of Elmore Leonard’s school of writing. I think his Ten Rules (yes, they are rules, and, yes, they can be broken, but in my experience beginning writers deserve to know some of the rules that more experienced writers have figured out how to break). I think I’ve always resonated with Leonard’s advice because I trained as a journalist and most of his advice comes from that particular wellspring. I also hate adverbs. Kill them all… or at least wound them a little.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read like a writer…and kill all the adverbs!

Carole Barrowman was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, which she credits for her inherent sarcasm and cheekiness. Carole is a Professor of English and Director of the Creative Studies in Writing program at Alverno College in Milwaukee, WI. In collaboration with her wee brother, John Barrowman (Arrow, Torchwood, Doctor Who), Carole has written nine books, including the acclaimed middle grade trilogy, Hollow Earth (Simon & Schuster), a YA series, The Orion Chronicles (Head of Zeus), comic series for DC Comics (The Dark Archer), Titan Comics (The Tale of the Selkie, Station Zero, The Culling), and a web-based series with Legendary Comics (Acursian). Barrowman is a regular reviewer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and a contributor to WTMJ4’s The Morning Blend. Barrowman is also one of the Hugo Award winning writers for the Chicks Dig Timelords anthology.