Q & A with JoAnna
How did you get the
ideas for Restless Mind and The View From The Fishbowl?
I started writing a short story during my junior year of
High School that was the ultimately the hatching of Restless Mind. The short story turned out not to be so
short, and I abandoned the project for over a decade. Eventually, I returned to the core idea of
writing about a woman with mental illness; this time with greater skill and
enough follow through to write the whole novel.
I really liked writing about mental disorder, and how that
impacts the protagonist, so I started researching other conditions to write
about. Fishbowl was originally conceived
because I have a friend who suffers from agoraphobia. My friend's experiences are nothing like what
Caleb goes through, but the emotional attributes of agoraphobia is what planted
the seed for the book to bloom into Fishbowl.
How do you come up
with plotlines?
I brainstorm a lot before I write. I hated pre-writing when I was a kid, but now
I realize it's a necessity. I start with
one character and one general plot concept and keep adding other characters and
subplots until I have an entire outline of the story. This outline changes multiple times
throughout the writing process as I continue to think of new ideas during the
rough draft stage. I think of it more as
a map, with many directions, rather than a turn-by-turn that I have to stick
to. That way, if I want to change
course, I can because I will always know where else I can go if it doesn't work
out.
Where do you seek
inspiration?
I use music to inspire me.
Songs help me capture a character by listening to what I think the
character would choose. If I want to
write about a cowboy, I wouldn't be as successful doing so while listening to
rap.
I also look to my own life experiences or the experiences of
people I know for inspiration. I often model
my characters after people I know or have known, even though I usually change
certain attributes to make them unique and separate from the person the
character was inspired by. Sometimes, I
just like one thing in particular about a person, like a devilish laugh, the
color of someone's eyes or a mannerism that I think is endearing.
How long does it take
you to write a novel?
My first novel, Restless Mind, was written in 5 weeks from start
to finish. I was writing up to twelve
hours a day, though, so that's not representative of the time frame that's
actually necessary to write a 100,000 word novel and be thorough about it. The View From the Fishbowl took a bit more
time, about four months to write, but I got writer's block half way through and
took close to a month off from working on it.
The story I'm currently writing, Under the Maple Tree, has
been a work-in-progress for almost two years.
I haven't had much time to write, and it has slowed my progress down
immensely. Plus, writer's block comes
and goes and when I can't write I go back to pre-writing. Maple Tree has already been through a lot of
pre-writing and has morphed into a tale far different than what I started out
with. I am looking forward to finishing
it and see how it turns out, that's still a long way off from now.
Do you feel
self-conscious about allowing others to read your work?
The first time I was asked this question, I was surprised by
it. I'm not overly confident, by any
stretch of the imagination, but it also never occurred to me to be self-conscious
about my writing. I guess I have always
been too excited to share it to ever be shy about being judged. I also invite feedback from all my readers,
because there's always room for improvement!
Which one of your
books is your favorite and why?
Fishbowl is my favorite.
I like it better than Restless Mind because I feel like it's a more
skillfully written novel. The plot and
subplots are more complex, the cast of characters is bigger and the emotions
run much deeper. The whole novel is a
lot heavier than Restless Mind, but in a good way, probably because it's more
suspenseful. Fishbowl more entertaining for the reader.
Altogether, I feel like it's just a much better book.
That being said, I would still say that I enjoyed writing Restless Mind the most simply
because the excitement level was much higher since it was my first book.
You never know though, maybe my seventeenth or my seventieth
novel will be my all-time favorite!