Interview with Linda S Amstutz [anotherlinda] on Whohub

Linda S Amstutz [anotherlinda]

WRITING

What did you first read? How did you begin to write? Who were the first to read what you wrote?

I read everything I could get my hands on. I remember reading Nancy Drew until my eyes hurt. I remember winning an award in 7th Grade for most books checked out at our school library. I remember picking up and reading my mother's novels when she left the room. I couldn't get enough. Still can't.

I began writing in a journal when I was a young girl. Even then it was fiction. My mother read my diary - how did she ever pick that expensive click-button lock? - and I was in trouble for all the kissing and hand-holding I wrote about. The only trouble was, I invented it all. But what mother believes her daughter is experimenting with fiction in her 11 year old journal?

What is your favorite genre? Can you provide a link to a site where we can read some of your work or learn something about it?

I don't have a favorite genre. I love good writing, I love a good story, I love a good storyteller. Give me that and you're giving me my favorite genre.

You can read samples of my writing at http://anotherlinda.blogspot.com

My new novella, SEEING RED, is available at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Red-Linda-S-Amstutz/dp/158374 (...)
Borders.com and through my blog. Don't read SEEING RED if you don't want to laugh, though!

What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write?

Before I actually put my fingers to my keyboard, I have a line in my head. A line and a direction to follow. After I get the line, I rub it over and over again like a worry stone until the line becomes an idea. After that happens, I'm ready to sit down in front of the computer.

In SEEING RED, I had the opening line of the book before I knew it was a book. I just knew I wanted to write what comes after "Twenty minutes into all movies, the first plot twist occurs. I've known this since fourth grade...........which makes it all the more ironic that when the first plot twist occurred in my own life, I didn't even recognize it for what it was."

What well known writers do you admire most?

I love reading Stephen King - his characters are as real to me as my own first cousins. I never miss reading a book by Alice Hoffman or Anne Tyler. I adore Augusten Burrough's words. And John Irving. And Michael Crichton. I recently read a novel by Toni Jordan and was taken by her way with words.

Are you equally good at telling stories orally?

Nope. The connection from my brain to my fingers is faster and surer than the connection from my brain to my mouth.

Do you participate in competitions? Have you received any awards?

I've entered very few competitions over the years, but have inadvertently found my essays awarded with some nice accolades nonetheless. I recently found that "Return of the Ugly Little Girl" is listed in the Feminist Periodical Journal for Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin. An early essay of mine entitled "Dear Dave" was used in an oration contest and the orator won a national finalist prize reciting/performing my essay about date rape. A current essay of mine, "If My Body Were A Car" is splattered all over the internet and has been used, without my permission, in hundreds of church bulletins, club newsletters, magazines, newspapers, etc. Another recent humor essay, "Worry Wart" was a finalist in a national magazine's non-fiction essay contest.

Do you write on a computer? Do you print frequently? Do you correct on paper? What is your process?

I write on a computer --after I have written in my head. I don't print frequently, sometime I don't print at all until my final copy. I usually have three drafts:

#1. I get my words down on the computer.
#2. I read it to myself and make minor changes.
#3. I give it to a reader who has instructions to read slowly, clearly, and without any dramatic emphasis and I listen closely to the timing and rythym of my words. It's during this part of the process that I make last-minute changes --rearranging words and slowing things down, or speeding things up. Then I print and hit Save.

What do you recommend I do with all those things I wrote years ago but have never been able to bring myself to show anyone?

If you have a drawer full of things you wrote years ago, I suggest you dust them off and read them again. You'll either be amazed at how well you wrote back then, or you will find ways to edit and improve your work. Either way, don't be afraid to examine what you did. They were important enough to you to be stored, they should be important enough to you to be reviewed.

And then submit your work. Send it to magazines or newspapers. Finish that novel. Start blogging. Don't let your words stay hidden in a dark drawer. They deserve to see the light.

In the end, you will either write or not write, depending on your passion. If you have the passion for writing, no one will stop you. You'll write on a laptop computer, you'll write in a journal, you'll scribble on any scrap of paper.

If you don't have the passion for writing, everything will stop you.

Follow your passion.