Ask the Author: Anna North
Answered Questions (4)
Anna North
Hi, thanks for asking! It probably took about 4 years to write Outlawed. I spent some time after Sophie Stark came out promoting it and writing essays, then got to work on Outlawed, then sold it about 1.5 years ago. So far my novels have all taken about 4-5 years to write -- it takes me a long time to figure out where I'm going with the story, and then there's usually a point where it clicks into place and things go faster.
Anna North
This is a hard question because every aspiring writer is different. A lot of people will tell you to write every day, but I remember one of my teachers in grad school really pushed back against this advice -- she pointed out that a lot of people have caregiving responsibilities that make sitting down to write every day just impossible. For me, something that's been helpful is finding my best writing time -- in my case that tends to be early mornings -- and making space to write then as often as I can. That definitely happens less often than it used to now that I have a small child, but at least I have a routine established, and I can slide back into it when kid stuff permits.
I think, too, forgiving yourself when it doesn't happen is important. There's a lot of emphasis on productivity in writing and in American culture more generally, and right now there are so many things working against us trying to do the creative work we want to do. It's also okay to spend that time reading, being with loved ones, being alone, sleeping, taking care of yourself -- what you need on any given day may not actually be working on your writing project. This isn't exactly writing advice, but it's something I need to hear sometimes these days, so I'm leaving it here in case anybody else does too.
I think, too, forgiving yourself when it doesn't happen is important. There's a lot of emphasis on productivity in writing and in American culture more generally, and right now there are so many things working against us trying to do the creative work we want to do. It's also okay to spend that time reading, being with loved ones, being alone, sleeping, taking care of yourself -- what you need on any given day may not actually be working on your writing project. This isn't exactly writing advice, but it's something I need to hear sometimes these days, so I'm leaving it here in case anybody else does too.
Anna North
Since I have a book coming out, I'm not spending as much time on new fiction as I should be -- a lot of my "fiction time" (mostly early mornings and a couple hours on weekends) goes to book-business stuff. But I do have a couple of ideas I'm thinking about. One of them, which I started writing a tiny bit of earlier this year, is a mystery. But frankly since the pandemic began, it's hard for me to think about stories set in the real world -- I don't even know what that world looks like anymore. So I'm being drawn again to more speculative fiction. I have a couple of ideas set in the future that I'm playing around with, mostly just taking notes on my phone. Which one I end up pursuing might depend on what the world looks like in a few months, when I (hopefully) have more time to write again.
Anna North
Like a lot of people, I haven't been doing as much reading this summer as I would want, but right now I'm reading Girlhood, a forthcoming essay collection by Melissa Febos. I just finished The Vanishing Half and am looking forward to The City We Became and maybe How Much of These Hills Is Gold next.
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