Author Interview – Madeleine McLaughlin

What inspired you to write your first book? I just wanted to tell a story.

Who or what influenced your writing once you began? Other writers. I loved travel books and have always wanted to try my hand at one. I’ve practiced a lot with things that happen close to home because in travel you don’t just write about where you’ve been but how you feel about it, along with some bio and smells of the place etc, etc. The reader needs to see the world you’re in.

Who or what influenced your writing over the years? Everything I’ve read, every writer.

What made you want to be a writer? I just needed an outlet for my thoughts and something to work on that was interesting.

What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel, or about writing in general? In most long works, there comes a point where it doesn’t work or what you thought would work, doesn’t. So then you have to go back and start from the beginning to see where it starts to go wrong.

Did writing this book teach you anything and what was it? It taught me to keep at it no matter what, even when it seems like the best place for your story is the trash, don’t! Keeping at it will teach you how to turn something that isn’t doing it into something that is. It means learning how to excise whole paragraphs in order to get your story back. If you never learn how to take out large parts, I don’t think you’ll ever write.

Do you intend to make writing a career? Yes.

Have you developed a specific writing style? I never want to get into a rut. I always want to try things. Right now I’m experimenting with putting my story on cards. One card, one scene. And I store them in a little office box.