Let’s chat with Lynne Cantwell
Lynne Cantwell grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, and worked as a broadcast journalist for many years. Now she lives near Washington, D.C., where she writes speculative fiction and contributes to the superblog Indies Unlimited. Now let’s chat with Lynne.
Q. What motivated you to start writing?
A. When I was in the second grade, the kid who sat in front of me brought in a story he had written and illustrated. I looked at it and thought, “I could do that.” So I did. The result was called “Susie and the Talking Doll”. My illustrations were terrible and I had no idea about how to write dialogue, but I was still pretty proud of myself.
Q. How was your first writing experience?
A. I don’t remember the reaction to that first story I wrote, which might be a good thing! But I’ve been lucky in that my family and friends have been supportive all along.
Q. Your favorite 3 books?
A. How about my three favorite authors? Those would be Stephen R. Donaldson, Kent Haruf, and Graham Joyce. There are also a lot of talented indie authors out there these days, and my favorite indies include Laurie Boris, Leland Dirks, and Melissa Bowersock.
Q. Your favorite quote?
A. I don’t know that I have a favorite, but here’s one about writing from Neil Gaiman: “This is how you do it: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”
Q. What is the most important thing required to be a writer?
A. I would say it’s perseverance. You have to be willing to keep writing, even on days when you’re not happy with anything you’ve written or when you’ve received a bad review or when you haven’t sold a single book. Sometimes the writing itself is the point.
Q. Your advice to aspiring writers?
A. Read. A lot. Read everything you can get your hands on. And read not as a reader, but as a writer: look at how the author did what he or she did, and whether it worked for you.
Follow Lynne Cantwell on TaleHunt app to read her interesting very short stories. http://talehunt.com/u/lynnecantwell
