Michael Ridpath

How did you become a writer?

I was 29 and working as a bond trader in a bank in the City of London. The most I was ever writing were my initials on the bottom of a dealing ticket. I wanted to do something creative – I could have chosen sketching or photography – but plumped for “creative writing”.

So I bought a couple of “how-to” books and decided to do a couple of exercises. My first exercise was to write the first chapter of a novel. I wrote a scene involving a 29-year-old bond trader doing a massive bond trade and making lots of money. And although it felt very strange to be writing fiction, I loved it. So I decided to screw the exercises and write a novel.

It took me nine months. I showed the result to some friends and there were problems: with the style, the characters, the plot and the ending. So I put the novel away. But after three months I missed it, pulled it out, and reread it. There was a good story in there, I was sure, so I rewrote it. A year later, I rewrote it again. And finally I had the finished article: a financial thriller called Free To Trade.

Then I got lucky. I sent it off to an agent, Carole Blake, who became very excited and sold the novel for a large sum at an auction. It was published in 1995 and spent three months at the number two slot in the UK bestseller list. The book was eventually published in more than 30 countries.

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

There are several. I had a particularly good history tutor named Philip Waller at Oxford University who taught me to write clearly and concisely. In the City I used to deal with a bond salesman at Salomon Brothers called Michael Lewis who announced one day that he was going to quit and write a book. The result was “Liars Poker”, a brilliant book. And finally, there was Dick Francis. I loved the way that he managed to use the world of horseracing as a backdrop to his thrillers. So, whenever I was puzzling over how to deal with a particular problem, I would think: what would Dick Francis do?

When and where do you write?

I am fortunate in having a study on the top floor of the house, out of the way of children. I have a desk, from which I can watch the H2 bus drive around our square once every fifteen minutes. I usually write between 8am and 12 pm: I try to avoid scheduling anything in the mornings. If I keep to this regime a book will eventually be written. I often have a break mid morning to walk down to the local Starbucks for a coffee. The walk and the break helps me think about what I have written and what I am going to write.

What are you working on now?

I am just finishing off the fourth book in the Fire and Ice series about the Icelandic detective named Magnus Jonson. The book will be called “Sea of Stone”. In the first three novels I developed and increasingly complicated sub plot about Magnus’s grandfather who is a grumpy farmer in Western Iceland. I realised that I was going to have to devote a whole novel to tying up this sub plot, which is what “Sea of Stone” does. It will be published in Britain next year.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Yes, frequently, but I don’t accept it. Unfortunately my ability to see what is wrong with an idea is much more advanced than my ability to find a solution. At times like this it can look as if I am stuck with no way out.

So what I do is spend some time thinking about how to break the problem down into a s series of between one and five questions. I write these down, preferably on a Friday afternoon, and then I forget about them. On the Monday morning I write out the questions and then quickly write out answers, and then go with whatever I have committed to paper. I can always change it later.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Rewrite. It is through rewriting that you improve your book. It is through the rewriting process that you learn. Also, publishers don’t want promising material, they want polished material. If I had not spent two years rewriting “Free To Trade”, it would never have been published.

Before becoming a writer, Michael Ridpath used to work in the City of London as a bond trader. He has written eight thrillers set in the worlds of business and finance, but then turned his hand to something slightly different. Where The Shadows Lie, the first in the Fire and Ice series featuring an Icelandic detective named Magnus Jonson, was published in 2010, and was followed by two more. Traitor’s Gate, a spy novel set in Berlin in 1938, was published in the UK in June 2013. Michael was brought up in Yorkshire, but now lives in North London. www.michaelridpath.com

Katherine Howe

How did you become a writer?

I became a writer, if by that we mean someone who writes every day whether she wants to or not, when I was a child. Everything I wrote then mortifies me now. I became a published writer with the appearance of three catalogue essays in an architectural monograph published by the art museum where I worked after college. And I became a novelist while procrastinating on my PhD. I am still a novelist. I am still - for another week or so, anyway - procrastinating on my PhD.

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

Edith Wharton, who is my favorite novelist. She was an American woman who wrote historical fiction, won the Pulitzer, created detestable characters who are sympathetic, and opened tuberculosis hospitals for the poor, all while wearing incredible hats. Margaret Fuller, who was a total badass. Matthew Pearl, without whose direct intervention in my life, writing, and poker game I would never have become a novelist. He always wants to split the pot, though. Annie Dillard, whose The Writing Life I read as a teenager, to which I return periodically when I need a reminder that everything I'm feeling is normal. And Pat Scherrieb, my fourth grade English teacher. He taught me the power of writing every day, whether you want to or not. And right now I'm reading On Becoming a Novelist, by John Gardner. I'm reading it slowly, because I can tell it will be important.

When and where do you write?

I usually wake up, make coffee, and then go straight to work in the office in my house. My office used to face the roof of an auto repair shop and a sign that reads "Not a Through Way." Now my office overlooks a lake, which while objectively better, occasionally makes me nostalgic for the auto repair shop. When there are a lot of books needed for immediate reference, I'll take over the dining table, because my desk is very small. Sometimes I will resort to a cafe, because the presence of other people who aren't talking to me, but who are there and who might judge me for procrastinating, can be incredibly useful. Plus, food. When I work at home I'll usually go a couple of hours before discovering that I'm out of coffee, haven't showered, and haven't eaten.

What are you working on now?

My next novel, an updating of The Crucible set in a contemporary Massachusetts prep school, is called CONVERSION, and will be out from Penguin next summer. Right now I'm working on a ghost novel, set around the Marble Cemetery in New York City. There's a play that I'm planning to finish before too long. And I might even finish my dissertation this summer. You never know.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No, fortunately. But I'm a relentless procrastinator. I've written three novels all out of an attempt to put off working on my dissertation. Once my dissertation is done, what will I write novels while putting off? I'm a little worried about it. But I generally am working on at least two projects at once, so perhaps I can trick myself into writing novels while procrastinating on something different.

In truth, the best trick I have ever learned about writer's block came out of that fourth grade English class. I was taught "If you don't know what to write about, write about the fact that you don't know what to write about." I use that trick all the time. All. The. Time. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Writers write. If you're not writing, you're not a writer. No, really, I mean it. I know you have to pick up the kids and it's fun to go sailing and your friends want to have you over for dinner, but you have to write. The time must be found. It will help if you can surround yourself with people who understand this.

Write every day, even if it's not in the service of a greater project, and even if no one will ever read it.

Being published is different from being a writer. It will be easier to face the publishing gauntlet if you know that you'll write anyway, whether you are published or not.

Revise. Revise a lot.

That being said, a finished project is better than a perfect project, because there are no perfect projects. Be a finishist, not a perfectionist. (cf. Grad school. I'm an expert, obviously, at taking my own advice.)

You are different from your writing. Criticism and rejection of your writing can feel terribly personal, but they aren't, really. And sometimes they help.

Read, also. 

Katherine Howe is the New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and The House of Velvet and Glass. She hosted "Salem: Unmasking the Devil" on the National Geographic Channel in 2012, and she will be discussing witches and writing in a MOOC on historical fiction coming from the University of Virginia in the fall. Her fiction has been published in more than twenty languages. Her third novel, Conversion, will be published by Penguin in summer 2014. She lives in New England and upstate New York with her family, where she teaches in the American studies program at Cornell University, and where she is at work on her fourth novel.

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Tom Young

How did you become a writer?

To tell the truth, I can't remember not wanting to be a writer. I think I got the fever as soon as I could read. For many years I worked as a journalist, and I enjoyed the decade I spent with the Associated Press. But I always wanted to write fiction. Along the way I published the occasional short story or essay. During my career as a reporter, I also pursued a parallel career as a flier in the Air National Guard. As you might imagine, life changed for me after 9/11, as it did for anyone in the military. While flying airlift missions over Afghanistan, looking down at that forbidding terrain, I often thought to myself: This would be a really bad place to go down. 

Well, they say your best fiction comes from what hurts you the most or what scares you the most. The frightening prospect of getting shot down in Afghanistan led me to the plot idea that became my first novel, The Mullah's Storm. I workshopped the manuscript for The Mullah's Storm at the Sewanee Writers' Conference in 2008, and things began to fall into place from there.

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

Some of my favorite authors include Hemingway, Twain, and the French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Favorite modern authors include many of the Southern writers, such as Charles Frazier, Ron Rash, and Jill McCorkle. (I know; those authors are way out of my genre. But I'm very much a creature of the South, and I really enjoy the region's literature. In fact, I think all writers should read widely outside their genre. I even read a lot of poetry because I think we prose writers can learn a lot from the way poets use words not just for their meaning but for their sound.) 

One of the best books on fiction writing I know is Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maass. 

As far as teachers are concerned, I've had some great ones, and I've had some not-so-great ones. But I can tell you this: ignore any teacher who discourages you. If you really want to become a writer, no matter how much you have to learn, you'll get there if you stick with it.

When and where do you write?

On a typical day, I go to a local coffee shop and start my morning my writing there. Very old school--longhand on a notepad. Later in the day, I'll transfer that morning's writing to my desktop computer, and that process becomes the first phase of editing.

However, I've written everywhere--on airplanes, in cars, on beaches, in parks. If you want to become a professional writer, you need to be able to write every day, pretty much anywhere, whether you feel like it or not.

What are you working on now?

I'm currently working on a new thriller for Putnam. My two main characters, Air Force flier Michael Parson and Army veteran Sophia Gold, will face a new adventure in North Africa.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not yet (knock on wood). Here's how I keep writer's block at bay: Every day I tell myself I have to write at least one page. Some days I produce a lot more than that, but even on a bad day I can force myself to write one page. That keeps my momentum going. And even if you do only one page a day, at the end of a year you'll have a hefty manuscript.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Attend as many writers' conferences and workshops as your schedule and wallet will allow. You'll hone your skills and meet agents and editors who can help you. 

And write every day, if possible. There's nothing magic about writing; it's a learned skill. But you have to keep at it.

Tom Young served in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Air National Guard. He has also flown combat missions to Bosnia and Kosovo, and additional missions to Latin America, the horn of Africa, and the Far East. In all, Young has logged nearly five thousand hours as a flight engineer on the C-5 Galaxy and the C-130 Hercules, while flying to almost forty countries. Military honors include two Air Medals, three Aerial Achievement Medals, and the Air Force Combat Action Medal.

Young is the author of three novels set in the Afghanistan war: The Mullah's Storm, Silent Enemy, and The Renegades. His latest novel, The Warriors, will be released on July 11. In civilian life, he spent ten years as a writer and editor with the broadcast division of the Associated Press, and flew as a first officer for Independence Air, an airline based at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.