Please
welcome Jennifer Skutelsky today. Jennifer is the award-winning author of Tin Can Shrapnel and Grave of Hummingbirds. A Kindle Scout
winner in February, 2015, Grave of
Hummingbirds will be launched by Amazon’s Little A in January, 2016.
You have an all-expense-paid
long weekend to spend with three guests. The Starship Enterprise has agreed to
beam you to the place of your choosing, so travel time is not a consideration.
Who are your guests (and why) and where are you staying (and why)?
I’d
decline the time travel, because I think there’s no better time to be alive
than now. A journey into the past is littered with sinkholes: World War II,
World War I, various revolutions and dictatorships, the Dark Ages, all
interspersed with fights for votes, battles for human and civil rights, and the
odd party. When I go all the way back, I wonder what it must have felt like to
get clubbed over the head and dragged to the back of a cave. So even with the
challenges we currently face, I’d opt for a trip to the Tuscan hills, or a
chateau somewhere, or to a vineyard in Franschhoek, and spend the weekend
feasting with Michael
Ondaatje, Arundhati Roy, and Pablo Neruda. Why? Because wine,
wit, poetry, and food.
What is the background noise
when you write and why is it there?
I
love the purr of a heater, and the light, snuffly snore of my Pekingese, but
that’s about it. Noise makes me crazy, and music demands attention, so I prefer
to work somewhere quiet. There are sounds that help to ground me, like a clock,
or the hum of a passing car, but otherwise I’m too easily distracted.
Are you a plotter, pantser or
something in between and why?
I’m
a pantser, trying to become more of a plotter. I’d like to be accomplished at
both. Plotting provides strategy and direction, while going where the story
takes me allows it to breathe and grow in unexpected ways.
When you start reading a book do
you always finish it? If not, what causes you to permanently put a book down?
There’s
some subject matter I have difficulty with: excessive cruelty, especially to
animals, and when I sense it coming (as it often does in Horror), I avoid
exposing myself to images that will never leave me. It’s weird, really, because
I enjoy reading Horror, and my own novel addresses issues that I tend to shy
away from. I struggle with overly compromised story telling, and used to have
more patience with difficult prose and poetry. If a book is in dire need of
editing, I have trouble getting to the end.
Do you read reviews of your
books? Why or why not?
I
have been reading reviews, and I’m going to stop, or at least limit the time I
spend anguishing about rankings and ratings. It’s impossible to keep everyone
happy, and a writer shouldn’t try. I write the novels I need to, and worrying about
the market’s response is a sure way to paralyze creativity. Some of the best
books are flawed and controversial. That said, intelligent and thoughtful
reviews help us grow as writers, so dismissing reviews entirely isn’t the
answer either.
When you compare your first
draft to your final draft, do you net add words or subtract words? In general,
what is it that you add or subtract between first and final draft?
I
tend to cut quite a bit, but the whole process of editing means that expansion
needs to happen too. I try to pare down sentences until each word carries
weight—sometimes that means an editor will say, “I’m not sure what you mean
here,” and I’ll have to add words for clarity.
How did you develop the idea for
your most recent work?
Inspiration
for Grave of Hummingbirds came from a
photograph I saw in a magazine while sitting in a doctor’s office, of an Andean
condor tied to the back of a bull. The image has always stayed with me and
still springs to mind at odd moments. I knew it wasn’t going to let me go until
I explored its significance, and years of research followed, with the
characters, setting, and plot developing around it.
What language error, when you
hear or see it, grates on you like the screech of fingernails on a chalkboard?
A
trend seems to be taking hold: placing a comma behind a coordinating
conjunction in a clause, as in and, the
bird flew away. Maybe it stems from wanting to reflect the vocal pause in
speech, but it drives me nuts when I see it on a page.
Do the work. No matter what—write.
Silence the voices that discourage or disable your creative spirit, including
your own, and tell your stories. Oh, and read…whatever piques your curiosity.
In the end, it’s curiosity that makes us writers.
To
find out more about Jennifer’s books, visit her website at www.jenniferskutelskyauthor.com,
and connect with her on:
Facebook
(https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.skutelsky)
Twitter
(https://twitter.com/JSkutelsky)
Pinterest
(https://www.pinterest.com/jskutelsky/)
Tumblr
(http://jskutelsky.tumblr.com/)
Amazon
Author Central (http://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-Skutelsky/e/B00LBJQ166/)
Her
blog (https://jenniferskutelsky.wordpress.com/)
Nice interview, Jennifer.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Polly.
DeleteA comma behind the coordinating conjunction can't be a trend. I spent two months studying commas, and I believe an author should know how to use one. Everyone makes mistakes. The occasional error is okay, but I wouldn't want to see this consistently. Now that you've mentioned it, I'm probably going to notice it everywhere. Very interesting interview.
ReplyDelete