Back when I was a student in high school, I was faced with the challenge of shadowing a professional in the field of my choice as a part of my senior project before graduation. Wanting to be a writer, I knew I couldn’t just go and watch one writer go about their day so I proposed an amendment to the project requirements and was allowed to instead interview several different authors about their work, experience, and advice.

Years later, I want to share these interviews with you all (with permission from the authors) because I believe the best way to learn about how to be a writer is to learn from the many different ways each author approaches and completes their work.

Charles de Lint Biography

Charles de Lint is a prolific Canadian writer with over 70 books published across the fantasy, horror, urban fantasy, and magical realism genres. Known for his memorable characters and a tapestry of cultural knowledge in both Welsh and Native American folklore, his stories will pull you in with their otherworldly themes. De Lint is a writer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and has won many awards over the years including but not limited to the Great Lakes Great Books Award for The Blue Girl, World Fantasy Award for Best Collection for Moonlight and Vines, and the Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award. (source)

Works

I’m sure if you look up some of his titles, you will recognize a few. My personal favorites are Wolf Moon, Someplace to Be Flying, and Dingo. Many of de Lint’s novels are set in his Newford Series, all sharing the same fictional setting in a North American City. The Dreaming Place, Forests of the Heart, The Onion Girl, The Hour Before Dawn, Old Man Crow, Muse and Reverie, and more are a few titles in this series. His collection of works are a wide assortment of novels, YA novels, collections, short stories, and novellas.

De Lint’s most recent book, Juniper Wiles and the Ghost Girls came out last fall.

Amazon Link | Goodreads Link

Interview

Question:

How do you find an Agent/Publisher for your book and how do you find one that you can trust?

Answer:

I can’t really answer this question because it’s been far too long since I started in the business and everything has changed more than once during that time. But some things hold true: Write a good book. Research which publishers publish that kind of book. Submit it to themafter first making sure you fulfill their submission requirements. It’s pretty much the same thing for agents. The way you find out if they can be trusted is to get a hold of their client list (a good agent will provide one upon request) and talk to the authors on it. If you can also track down authors who left that agent it will give you a helpful perspective as to what might not work for you with that agent.

Question:

Are you satisfied/happy with your book?

Answer:

Once a book is published, I have to be happy and proud of it or I wouldn’t have submitted it. I will admit that I can look back on early work and find nits to pick but that’s not something that’s worth dwelling upon except to keep in mind so you don’t make the same mistakes again in your current work.

Question:

How would you describe the moment when you first held a published copy of your book?

Answer:

I must have been happy but it was over thirty years ago and I don’t remember the details.

Question:

What is your motivation? How do you keep working on something that takes so long?

Answer:

I write books I’d like to read but nobody else has written them yet so I have to write them myself. I’m motivated each day because I want to find out what happens next.

Question:

Did you have a contract with your publisher? Was there a set time that your book(s) needed to be finished?

Answer:

I’ve had contracts and deadlines and I’ve also written on spec. I prefer the latter.

Question:

What is your process in writing a book? Ex. Writing from beginning to end or at random until you piece the whole work together?

Answer:

I write from beginning to end, then go back in with rewrites and edits to make sure everything hangs together.

Question:

What is your view on the beginning of a book? The first page is what the reader depends on to judge it all. How do you overcome that first part?

Answer:

They say that your first paragraph has to be great, to grab a reader’s interest. Then the whole first page. Then the first chapter...well, you get the idea. The whole book has to be great. I will say that the beginning of the book should start with the story already started. Too many new writers start with background on their setting or characters and that gets quickly boring. I don’t agree with a prologue either. Get the story started, then fill things in as you need them in a natural way.

Question:

When did you start writing, why and how?

Answer:

I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember and probably started writing them down when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. Why? Because I love stories but couldn’t always find the ones I wanted to read. How? You just do it, whether using a pencil/pen, typewriter or computer. Stories don’t get written by talking about them.

Question:

Did you ever feel lost while writing your book? If so, how did you get your focus back?

Answer:

That happens. When it does I go back in the manuscript to where things were still working and figure out a way to get back on track.

Question:

If there was one, what was the biggest obstacle or problem that you had to overcome in the writing? – Anything within the entire process.

Answer:

Finding time to writeor at least that was the case when I was starting out. I worked full time, played in a band three nights a week, and also wanted a social life. It was hard to fit it in sometimes. But I always made time.

Question:

Did you have a lot of say with how the cover was made?

Answer:

Unless you write it into your contract, or you’re an indie publisher and doing everything on your own, you don’t get any say in the cover art.

Conclusion

I’m so thankful for all this amazing advice and the chance to learn about de Lint’s writing process and experience. Be sure to check out his works as well as his website to learn more about his expanse of stories.

If you want to learn more about de Lint’s works, please check out the links below!

Novel Recommendation: Juniper Wiles