This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Wendy Wax's newest book, While We Were Watching Downton Abbey, was released last month. She is the author of nine novels, and has been published in ten countries.
Can
you tell us a little about your average writing day?
I first began writing fiction while at home with a two year old and a newborn – a decision I chalk up to lack of sleep and post-pregnancy hormones. I had no idea what I was doing and the little writing time I had took place while they were napping.
As they got older I learned to sit down as soon as they left for school and I would write until they came home because the afternoons were filled with afterschool activities, homework, dinner, etc. By the time I got them in bed I was far too brain dead to write a word.
Nine novels later my sons are in college and I’m writing full time. As Claire Walker, a writer who’s one of the characters drawn into weekly Downton Abbey viewing parties in her building discovers, writing time is like closet space – the more you have the less efficiently you use it. I can and do spend most of every day writing, but when things aren’t flowing I’m online checking email, Facebook and/or Twitter and make far more trips to the refrigerator than I should. I’m fairly certain that if I lived in a stately home like Highclere Castle / Downton Abbey I’d be thinner because the kitchen would be so much farther from my office.
As Claire Walker observes as she battles writer’s block, “You could force a writer’s butt into a chair, but you couldn’t make her think.”
When you are writing, do you use any famous people or people you know as inspiration?
All kinds of people and things have inspired characters and storylines in my novels… Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme inspired Ten Beach Road in which three strangers lose everything to a Ponzi scheme and are left with only co-ownership of a dilapidated beachfront mansion. My experiences in publishing inspired The Accidental Bestseller – a story about four writers who help each other survive the publishing industry. (The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but I do hope some people in New York recognized themselves.)
I’ve enjoyed a lot of television programs in my day, but Downton Abbey is the first one that inspired me to write a novel. It’s apparently the first novel written about fans of a program.
My characters are, of course, fictitious but bits and pieces of real people, including myself, do find their way into those characters.
What is your favourite Women’s Fiction book of all time and why?
I’ve read lots of wonderful Women’s Fiction novels – I write stories about women discovering who they are and what they’re made of and also love to read them. If forced to choose only one I have to go with Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. I see lots of parallels, intentional or not, between Downton Abbey and GWTW. To me Lady Mary is very Scarlett O’Hara.
What is your writing process? Do you plan first or dive in? How many drafts do you do?
I am a perfectionist (my sons call this something less flattering) and I keep hoping to find the ‘right’ and most efficient way to write a novel. So far each book has been a combination of planning, diving, and then hanging in there until things come together.
My books are very character driven and so I spend a lot of time getting to know my characters and thinking about what they’re going to learn and how they’re going to grow before I begin, but the plot details and even their growth arcs change and take unexpected turns as I write.
Getting through the first draft is the most difficult and consuming thing. Revision and rewriting is crucial but easier in a way because the bones are there and you have something tangible to work with. Each book is different and in the end I do as many ‘drafts’ or as much rewriting/revision as it takes.
What was your journey to being a published author?
Although I didn’t realize how unusual it was at the time, I sold the first book I wrote – though not quickly or easily. Things got quite bumpy after that—aspiring writers often think that once you’re published you’re set. But I don’t know any writers whose trajectory has been straight up. John Steinbeck said, ‘The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.’ John was right!
What do you think is the biggest myth about being a novelist?
See above. And possibly the idea that anything you can do while in your pajamas might be glamorous.
What advice can you give to our readers who want to write a novel of their own?
If Nike doesn’t mind I’ll borrow their famous slogan: ‘Just Do It!’ Nothing replaces sitting down in front of the computer on a regular basis and doing the work, getting it all down.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m currently writing a third novel that follows the characters from Ten Beach Road and its sequel Ocean Beach. It’s set in the Florida Keys and is about an aging down on his luck rock star that must turn his Key West estate into a Bed & Breakfast over which he’ll be forced to preside as reluctant host.
Thanks Wendy!