Ashley Winstead

How did you become a writer?

I think it was one of those “born that way” situations. I was always a voracious reader and have very early memories of being fascinated by language choice, the rhythm of a sentence, the way it’s more than just the direct signifier of a word that contributes to the feeling you get when you encounter it. For a long time I thought I wanted to be a poet, but I used to stay up late at night telling my siblings elaborate stories, so I probably should have known I’d write books.

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

The poets Mary Oliver and Richard Siken have had an enormous influence on the way I write and also my tendencies toward earnestness, intensity, and vulnerability. Hands down the most influential teacher was my fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Ruth, who encouraged my writing to the point I actually gained a self-confidence that has remained fairly stubborn, despite all the rejections in the years since. The power of early support. And I love pop culture, so I have to credit Francine Pascal, Ann M. Martin, and the writers of Buffy, Veronica Mars, and Dark Angel for my obsession with narratives that center complicated, powerful women.

When and where do you write?

I try to write every day, all day, if my attention span will let me. And I write in my guest bedroom, which we’re slowing trying to turn into my office. Right now it’s a lumpy chair, an ottoman, and a side table. I can’t work at a desk to save my life. Feels too much like school.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on several projects: a sequel to my first romance/women’s fiction novel and two new thrillers, one of which is a high-drama feminist murder mystery, and the other is a dark, intense southern gothic. I love being able to switch between different voices and modes. Keeps things interesting.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

If I’m struggling to get words on the page, I’ll either listen to music or take a shower and then I’ll get inspired. Or I ask myself why I’m struggling, and the answer is usually because I’m bored. And if so, that means the plot needs to change to something I’m excited to write and readers will be excited to read. But not being able to get words on the page is a rare problem for me. Much more common is struggling to work out the puzzle pieces of my plot in the earlier plotting phase. But I give myself grace with that because it’s literally just hard to invent a story that will wow and surprise and also feel earned and organic. So when I’m drawing a blank, I feel like that’s pretty earned and I give myself time and space to come to the right answers.

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

I can’t write books without Lisa Cron’s Story Genius, so I could probably just point to that book as the answer, but something else that has been meaningful to me is the advice that you are who you are and you’re going to write what you’re going to write, and there’s tremendous value in not trying to be like someone else, whether in style or subject matter. I used to worry that the things I was interested in were too feminine or superficial for the crime fiction genre, or too dark and vulnerable for the romance genre, and on and on. But your particular voice and set of interests are strengths, not weaknesses. I’ve learned to embrace “Winstead style” and “Winstead subjects” wholeheartedly.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Embrace your unique lens on the world, first. Second, if you’re like most of us, there’s going to come a point in your writing journey where you feel so overwhelmed by rejection that you can no longer envision a future where you’re successful. It ceases to become a possibility even the most optimistic part of your brain will allow. The writers who do become successful are the ones who keep going, relying on whatever they need to—spite, sheer stubbornness—to push on. If you keep writing and growing, you will have a future.

Ashley Winstead is the author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife (Sourcebooks Landmark, 2021) and the forthcoming romance Fool Me Once (Graydon House, 2022) and thriller The Last Housewife (Sourcebooks Landmark, 2022). She has a PhD in contemporary American literature and a BA in English and Art History, and lives in Houston with her husband and two beloved cats.

Matthew Specktor

How did you become a writer?

Probably the way that almost everybody else does: by beginning as an obsessive and passionate reader. There are people who come at it otherwise, of course, but almost every writer I know has a similar origin story: books they read as a child, or as a teenager, obsessed them. In my case it was The Wizard of Oz (and all the subsequent books, like Ozma of Oz or Rinkitink in Oz), D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, and Tom Sawyer, all books I read when I was very young. And then, when I was a teenager, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Barth's The End of the Road, and--perhaps strangely--Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. From there the die was essentially cast. The rest of it was just the effort of writing itself, and an extremely high tolerance for failure. (I started writing seriously--by which I mean regularly, almost every day--in my early twenties. I didn't publish until I was forty.)

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

I went to a strong MFA program, and my undergraduate school had some extraordinary professors of creative writing, so I was lucky to study with some amazing teachers, among them James Baldwin, Joseph Brodsky, Charles D'Ambrosio, Victor LaValle, David Shields. I've been lucky, too, to have exceptional writers as my friends and colleagues--Jonathan Lethem, say, or Renata Adler. But in the end my strongest influences--which are ongoing; one should never be "finished," in this respect, or outside the range of being influenced--are books. Far too many to mention in the end, but some that were particularly vital to me at crucial junctures were Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Graham Swift's Waterland, James Salter's Light Years, Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater, Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus, Henry James's Portrait of a Lady and The Ambassadors, and Baldwin's Another Country.

When and where do you write?

In the mornings, in my office--or wherever I happen to be--every day. I try to get to it as early as possible, so I don't get distracted, and so anxiety or uncertainty doesn't get the better of me first. And I go until I get tired, until--midsentence, always--intuition tells me to stop.

What are you working on now?

A chaotic memoir, that's also a social history of the movie business. I can't say much more about it than that, although I will say that these definitions--"memoir," "social history," "novel," "literary fiction"--feel more and more like marketing brackets, and less like useful aesthetic distinctions, to me. I write longform imaginative prose, underpinned frequently by research, interrupted now and again by flights of criticism, or personal, confessional narrative. (I suppose, too, on the evidence of three books running, that I have a subject, or subjects, that obsess me: Los Angeles, art and capitalism, the movies, etc.) But . . . my approach is a novelist's approach, and it will always be a novelist's approach. I don't really think it's possible to apprehend anything without the imagination interceding to interpret. So this is a book about my family and myself. But it's also a work of wild speculation. I wish I could be more succinct about it, but today of all days, I cannot.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Yes, of course. More so when I was younger, but--there were times (there are times) when I'm between projects, or when I'm stuck in the middle of one, and can't figure out what to do. That's "block." But I've stopped thinking of it as block, which helps. In the end, I think, there are two kinds of crises for a writer: crises of information (in which case, research or an intelligent edit/re-think can lead you back to a place where you're ready to succeed), and crises of confidence. It's the latter that leads to block, and while there's no known cure for that except time and good luck, I experience that one less--and less terminally, when I do--as I get older. One begins to recognize that periods of drift or confusion are an inevitable part of the process.

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

Years ago, when I couldn't sell my second novel, I opened my ears to all sorts of advice ("Fire your agent!" "Cut 200 pages!" "Don't cut anything, just retitle it and submit it again!") until someone said to me, "That's the trouble with writing advice. Eventually it all blends into a kind of white noise." I'd like to say that that's the best advice I've ever received, right there, but in reality it's probably this: there's the book a writer needs to write, and there's the book that other people need to read. Very rarely are they the exact same book. Which is a longform way of saying Listen to your editor, but I've found it useful to codify it as such, and to remember when I'm writing that certain things that feel absolutely essential are essential to the writing but might not necessarily remain so to the finished book.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Don't rush. Everybody worries about publishing, everybody's anxious to do it, and your first book is inevitably so hard to write (at least for most people it is) that we're inevitably deeply invested in publishing it. But . . . your first book is probably not your best book (unless you're really unlucky), and it's probably not as good as you think it is. I spent seven years writing mine, and when it didn't sell I was so deeply disconsolate I thought not just that my "career" was over, but that my life might as well be too. These years later, I am elated it wasn't. "Patience" is a hard thing to counsel, since writers are often impatient creatures by nature, but . . . insofar as it's possible: be patient.

Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound, and of the memoir-in-criticism Always Crashing in the Same Car. He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Helen Scales

How did you become a writer?

I was in my mid-twenties when I decided to become a writer, and it came as quite a surprise. Until then, I saw myself first and foremost as a scientist and I used words simply as a means to an end — to pass exams, write papers. Then, in grad school, I began to realise the power of good writing to communicate ideas and inspire people, to send them off to places they’ll never see themselves and offer a different view of the world. It’s odd that it took me so long to figure that out, because I’d been going on those journeys myself, avidly reading popular science books since I was in high school, but it never occurred to me that writing books like that was something I could do.

So, once I’d had the initial spark of an idea to try it out, I started writing as much as I could. I wrote for the student newspaper, I entered science writing competitions, tried a bunch of other things including student radio, and I discovered not only that I like writing but that with practise I could get better at it. By the time I came to writing my doctoral thesis (itself a book-length treatise) I had already decided I wanted to write a more creative book that hopefully more than 2 or 3 people would read.

The rest of the ‘how’ part took another couple of years after that, of working on book ideas, writing for websites including regular news pieces for National Geographic, publishing my first magazine features, getting an agent and landing my first book deal.

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

Early on, my literary influences were mainly writers and scientists who occupy a liminal space between science and art. As a teenager I read a lot of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould. David Quammen’s Song of the Dodo and Carl Safina’s Song for the Blue Ocean both made a huge impression on me, also Eugenie Clark’s Lady with a Spear, Mark Kurlansky’s Cod and Rachel Carson’s ocean trilogy. 

My more recent influences include Kathleen Jamie, Rebecca Solnit, Richard Powers, Tim Winton, Roger Deakin, Barry Lopez, Amy Leach,  Victoria Finlay, Fredrik Sjöberg, Piers Torday, Naomi Klein, Elizabeth Kolbert, Susan Orlean, Susan Casey, Mary Roach, Annie Dillard.

When and where do you write?

I am not a morning person. My best mornings start slowly with coffee and yoga, before I open my laptop, reply to emails, dip into social media, then I open Scrivener and start something new or carry on with whatever I'm in the middle of. If I’m home alone and if the writing is going well, then I’m very bad at stopping. I graze when I get hungry, switch from coffee to tea after midday, and only stop when something or someone tells me to. I listen all day to BBC 6 Music.

Usually I write in either of two places: my study in Cambridge, a little, book-crammed room at the back of the house, at a standup desk with a tall chair that I cheat on, or in our little house in the woods by the sea in the far wild west coast of France. I dream of building a writing studio in the woods there, so I can simultaneously write and forest bathe.

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m working on a couple of books for younger readers and an illustrated book for readers of all ages. I’m also working on some stories for National Geographic Magazine. I love collaborating with artists and photographers, combining words with visual storytelling.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I’ve not suffered from anything I’ve recognised or named as writer’s block. Sure, there are days when the words feel more difficult, but never to the point of complete blockage. I have, though, suffered bouts of crippling self doubt when suddenly I realise that my words and ideas are no good and my past successes have been nothing but a fluke. The feeling can last anything from a few moments to a few months. I’m starting to spot the things that unleash my imposter syndrome and try hard to keep her at bay by letting the good stuff seep in when I need it, the positive reviews, the enthusiastic fan mail.

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

I was roughly half way through writing my first book when I met with a writer friend for tea. He asked me how much I’d written and what my plans were for the rest of the book. I rattled off a list of places I planned to visit and carry out research. He told me to stay at home and write. He was right. I was being way too ambitious with my research plans. What I needed to do was get the words down. I do my best to remember that advice whenever I tumble yet again down another never-ending rabbit hole of research, even if it’s just reading books and papers and not island hopping around Scotland.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write.

At first it doesn’t so much matter who you write for and where or whether it’s published. For science and nature writers especially there are so many places out there online to contribute to. But just write. It’s the only way you’ll get better at writing and find your voice.

Also read.

Read so you can work out what you like and what you don’t, what is good (and why) and what is not. Then you should start being able to see what is good and bad about your writing too.

Also, if you don’t enjoy doing both of those things — writing and reading — then I politely suggest you go find something else to do. 

Dr. Helen Scales is a marine biologist, writer and broadcaster. Her highly acclaimed books include Spirals in Time and The Brilliant Abyss. She writes about the oceans for National Geographic Magazine, the Guardian and New Scientist among others, appears regularly on BBC Radio and presents the podcasts Catch Our Drift and Earth Unscrewed. At Cambridge University, she teaches science writing and marine science, and she’s scientific advisor to the marine conservation charity Sea Changers. Helen divides her time between Cambridge, England and the French coast of Finistère.
www.helenscales.com