For all that is good and holy in the world, what possessed you to become an author?
Because I can’t afford really good drugs, so I thought I’d destroy my sanity this way instead? That’s the only reason that makes even a shred of sense.
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Pantser! Pantser! Pantser! With each new novel, I determinedly write a synopsis and a semblance of an outline. Usually, by the third chapter, it’s all gone to hell. One of my favorite writers, Dana Stabenow, said some of the most creative fiction she wrote involved the outlines she sent her editor. There’s a reason she’s my hero.
What does your writing routine look like?
On my ideal day, I get up before 6 a.m. and am at a coffeeshop across the street from my office by 7. I don’t start work until 11, so that’s a good amount of time to get some significant work done. Ideal days per week? If I get two or three, I jump for joy. On the non-ideal days, I try to squeeze in 500 words where I can. Weekends are a gift.
How many books did you write before you published/sold your first?
Two—and I’ve had the extreme satisfaction of revising (for about the millionth time) the second, and seeing it sold. It comes out in July as SILENT HEARTS. I thought I could do the same with the first, but it was hopeless. About ten pages of it survive in my third novel, DISGRACED. The rest were deservedly trashed.
Do you have pets? If so, what kind and how many?
I have a batcrap crazy Brittany spaniel named Nell.
What is the best advice you have for aspiring and pre-published authors?
Write and write and write some more. Read as much as you write. More, maybe. Whatever you do, don’t give up. Find a good writing community and give as much as you get. Grow a very thick hide. Develop superhuman patience. (It took me 20 years from my first writing workshop to seeing a novel published. Was it worth the wait? Every minute.) Savor and celebrate each and every bit of progress—and be sure and celebrate your friends’ achievements, too. And, even if you haven’t been published yet, say it loud and say it proud: I’m a writer.
Award-winning journalist Gwen Florio has covered stories ranging from the shooting at Columbine High School to the glitz of the Miss America pageant and the more practical Miss Navajo contest, whose participants slaughter and cook a sheep. She’s reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, as well as Lost Springs, Wyoming (population three). She turned to fiction in 2013 with the publication of her first novel, Montana, which won the Pinckley Prize for Debut Crime Fiction and a High Plains Book Award. Under the Shadows (Midnight Ink, March 2018) is the fifth novel in the Lola Wicks series, termed “gutsy” by the New York Times. She turned to literary fiction with Silent Hearts (Atria, July 2018), a novel set in Afghanistan. She’s the city editor of the Missoulian newspaper in Missoula, Montana, where she lives with her partner, Scott, and an exuberant, manuscript-chewing bird dog named Nell.