Thomas Swick

How did you become a writer?

I majored in English in college because I thought I wanted to be a writer. But I had nothing to write about – having spent most of my life in school – so one year after graduation I moved to France, where I studied French for eight months and worked on a farm for the summer. When I came home, I got a job as a feature writer at the Trenton Times in New Jersey (my home state), which was another wonderful experience for a budding travel writer because it taught me how to talk to a wide range of people and to see the world through the eyes of others.

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

It seems presumptuous, definitely wishful thinking, to claim them as influences, but the two writers I return to again and again are Evelyn Waugh and Vladimir Nabokov, for their elegance of style and sense of humor (though each is elegant, and amusing, in his own way). My favorite travel books are Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water – about his walk as a young man from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople – and it would be nice to think that they have given me even a dash of his prodigious openness, enthusiasm and curiosity. (I know I fall far short of his erudition.) The list of other travel writers I admire is very long, but at the top of it stand Gerald Brenan, Elliot Paul, A.J. Liebling, S.J. Perelman, V.S. Pritchett, Lawrence Durrell, Kate Simon, Nicolas Bouvier, Norman Lewis, V.S. Naipaul, Jan Morris, Colin Thubron and Jonathan Raban.

When and where do you write? 

I write in the morning in the bedless guest bedroom of our Florida condo. It overlooks a canal and a neighborhood of palms. Despite years of working in newsrooms – I was the travel editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for nearly two decades – I’m incapable of writing in public. Plus, all my books are here. Afternoons are often devoted to rewriting what I wrote in the morning.

What are you working on now? 

A memoir, like everyone. But mine is about me. And because of that it will touch on two momentous developments of the last half century: the demise of the Soviet bloc (I left the Trenton Times to move to Poland for two and a half years) and the decline of the American newspaper.  

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

No. Most writers who spend years in newsrooms develop an immunity.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Nothing original, I’m afraid: Read. Write. Read. And be an eclectic, wide-ranging reader, not necessarily with regard to genres but to perspectives, attitudes, sensibilities that are different from those you and your friends share. This will help you to develop an interesting and distinctive voice. And after you write, read what you’ve written, over and over, until you get it right. (The more good writing you read, the easier it will be to tell when you’ve got it right.) A huge part of writing is self-editing. Paddy Chayefsky spoke for most famous writers when he said: “I’m not a great writer. I’m a great rewriter.” For people who want to be travel writers, I suggest they do what I did: Move to another country for a year or two and learn the language, the customs, the jokes, the rhythms of everyday life. If you’re lucky, as I was, it will be a country that’s in the news, but even if it’s not, you’ll gain a deep understanding of another part of the world. And the skills you acquire through living in one foreign country will help you when you travel to others. 

Thomas Swick is the author of a travel memoir, Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland, and a collection of travel stories, A Way to See the World: From Texas to Transylvania with a Maverick Traveler. His work has appeared in the Oxford American, the North American Review, the Missouri Review, the Wilson Quarterly, The American Scholar, Ploughshares, Boulevard, Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Best American Travel Writing 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2014. He teaches an online travel writing course as part of the MFA program at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.

Steve Hockensmith

How did you become a writer?

I wrote! And wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. Then I switched gears and did some writing. When that didn't get me anywhere, I tried writing…and writing and writing and writing. Eventually, I woke up one day and discovered something amazing: I was a writer! Sorry if that sounds facetious. It's actually not. My writing advice is always the same: Keep writing bad stuff until you're writing good stuff. Or put another (extremely clichéd) way: Practice makes perfect. Or at least it makes publishable. That's how I got where I am today (wherever that is). I'd wanted to be a writer since I was in grade school, but I didn't take it seriously until I was in my twenties. That's when I started putting in the work. After spending four or five years writing bad stories no one wanted to publish (you know -- because they were bad), I finally developed the skills I needed to write good stories that people did want to publish. And then I was off and running.

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

I stumbled upon Kurt Vonnegut at an impressionable age, and that had a huge impact on me, as a writer and as a person. But if I had to pick one writing influence above all others, it would be Little Big Man -- both the novel by Thomas Berger and the film by Arthur Penn. Both are funny yet ultimately tragic shaggy dog stories told by a sad, lonely old man who might or might not be full of beans. The book is written in first person, and the voice of the narrator is captured perfectly by Dustin Hoffman in the movie. I actually saw the film first -- it popped up on TV all the time when I was a kid -- then read the book years later. Maybe that's part of the reason I didn't just read the book. I heard it. I hope that when I'm writing at my best I'm able to do what Berger did: put a voice in your head that tells you the story with the idiosyncratic cadences and quirks of a real person.

When and where do you write?

Weekdays, I write from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. like clockwork. Weekends, I write from about 10 a.m. (depending on when I roll out of bed and how groggy I am) until about 1 (depending on what my family's up to). I'm lucky in that I have an office in my house with a lock on the door, so that's where I always hole up when I'm working. I'm not one of those people who can sit in a crowded Starbucks and crank out 2,000 words. I need solitude and silence or I can't focus. My dream office would probably be a cave.

What are you working on now?

Too much! I just finished the sixth Nick and Tesla middle-grade mystery, I'm collaborating on scripts for a new series of educational graphic novels for kids and I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind on the third book in the Tarot Mystery series that I do with my friend Lisa Falco. So I guess you could say I'm working on a nervous breakdown!

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Nope. I have the opposite problem: too many ideas. What would that be? Writer's flood? I won't have time to turn all my ideas into stories if I live to be 100. In fact, even if I do live to be 100, I'll just have 1,000 more ideas I want to work on before I die. Here's hoping I'm immortal.

What’s your advice to new writers?

There's the aforementioned "Write and write and write and write," of course. And I guess I'd add to that "Explore your options." In some ways, there has never been a better time to be a writer. There are more ways to reach readers than ever. You can follow the traditional path, with an agent and a publisher, or you can try one of the new trails being blazed by writers who've decided to go it alone. Before you decide which approach is for you, you'll need to know why you're writing in the first place. I mean, writing's a tough racket. There's a ton of struggle and indifference and rejection. Why are you doing this to yourself? For money? Validation? Groupies? (If it's the latter, I have some bad news for you....) Hopefully at least part of your answer will be "Because I love it, dammit." That's what's going to get you through the hard times.

Steve Hockensmith is the author of 14 novels and dozens of short stories in a variety of genres. His novel Dawn of the Dreadfuls, the official prequel to the smash "mashup" Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, was a New York Times bestseller. His other books include the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sequel Dreadfully Ever After, the Edgar Award-nominated mystery/Western hybrid Holmes on the Range and the science-based adventure for kids Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab (written with frequent Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest "Science Bob" Pflugfelder). He writes the Tarot Mystery series with the help of tarot expert Lisa Falco. The latest entry in the series is Fool Me Once.

http://www.stevehockensmith.com

Cassandra Clark

How did you become a writer?

Ever since I realised that the squiggles on a page told a story I've written stories myself. I used to write on a little writing pad with Magnum Opus on the front. I was nine or so at the time. No Latin at that age, unlike Queen Elizabeth Tudor so where did I get that from? My family were extremely unbookish.  I went on to write plays in my teens and twenties and only later, out of financial necessity, wrote contemporary romance. Alan Boon saved my life and that of my two little daughters, god rest him. I was immensely lucky when I started because all my first work was accepted, plays, novels, tv scripts and so on. Only later has it become harder simply because publishing has changed so much and there are so many new writers willing to provide those cans of beans every publisher needs to survive.

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

My influences have neither rhyme nor reason. If something is written with style and care for the beauty of words I'll read it though I doubt whether it seeps in. At present I'm rereading Ivy Compton-Burnett, a neglected English writer from the early 2oth century, but I love the poetic, fractured prose of Annie Proulx, the wit and breadth of sadly missed JG Farrell, the plays of Becket and Shakespeare, the energy of the Revenge tragedies, the poetry of Philip Larkin and Dylan Thomas, the novels of Hemingway, Burroughs, Kerouac, Barbara Pym, Barthelme, EL Doctorow - eclectic and so many more I could name. No pattern beyond that thread of startling words.

When and where do you write? 

When I start a new book in my medieval thriller/detective series I start on a Monday morning at eight o'clock, preferably in January when it's bucketting down with rain. I do my actual writing at a battered old Louis XVIth desk on an equally battered old apple mac. I then transfer what I've written to a pc because my agent can't open any other kind of file. I print out what I've written after 12,000 words or so and slash it down to very little. Once that's done I write through to the end, writing about six or so hours every day until it's done. I then let it lie for a week or two until I've almost forgotten it, then I edit, edit and edit. I love all parts of writing but I'm not somebody who can sit in a cafe and scribble a few lines now and then. It's all or nothing with me. Best is when it's so vivid I dream the next day's dialogue. Bliss.

What are you working on now? 

I've just finished number seven in the series. At present it's called The Scandal of the Skulls. There was a most horrific parliament in London in 1388 when every one of King Richard's closest freinds and allies were beheaded or forced into exile (where they quickly met violent deaths). Richard was nineteen at the time. It still rouses my anger when I think how helpless he was and what grief he must have felt. Hildegard, of course, is fictional, but she moves in this world of betrayal and violent death.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I'm not sure I believe in writers' block. I think it's maybe mistaken for the long period of mulling that every writer needs before they should even think of hitting the keyboard. You can't rush it. The mind has to work things out at a subconscious level and the best thing is to let it get on with it. Gazing out of windows on a moving train gets characters clamouring to be heard, I find.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Is advice ever taken? I would say read, read, read. Keep a note book. I walk around the location where my books are set and imagine it as it was. Because my books are historical I look at old maps and paintings and listen to music of the time. I read chronicles and letters. Everything helps to build detail and you can never know too much. After that I suggest cutting, cut for speed and clarity. Cut your precious research! I see and hear my characters as if they're people in a film. I wrote The Parliament of Spies as if it was a film script. Action is the thing. Oh, and never give in. Never give in.

Bio: Childhood spent in the East Riding of Yorkshire, won a tv playwrighting competition when I was twelve, escaped to London and streets paved with gold at seventeen, decided to go to University of London to read philosophy, married, had two daughters, ran a dress design business and wrote plays before the family got up in the morning, divorced, started writing contemporary romance and street theatre, wrote a couple of libretti for chamber operas, did a masters in Fiction writing, had a break to care for ill parents, moved back to London and started the Hildegard of Meaux medieval mystery series. Book 7 I hope will be out next year. I can be followed @nunsleuth.co.uk and my website is Cassandra Clark - Author.