Who: Alison Gaylin
Latest Book: Never Look Back
Follow! @alisongaylin
What do you tell yourself when you begin to doubt yourself as a writer? How often do you doubt yourself?
I doubt myself pretty much every day – my impostor syndrome runs deep. But I tell myself the same thing I do when I think about getting older: It beats the alternative. If I’m not writing something, if I’m not in the process of telling a story, I feel deeply unsettled and unhappy. All the insecurities that plague me while I’m in that process of writing are nothing compared to the feeling of having no story to tell. And those days when the process is going well – when I come up with a solution, or get to know a character better, or just have a good writing day – nothing beats that feeling.
What is the worst reason to become an author?
To make money and/or get famous. You can do both of those things a lot more easily on Instagram.
What is the best?
Because you can’t not do it. I think writing should be something of a compulsion.
How long did it take to complete your latest novel?
Not counting revisions, about nine months. Though, as I always say, it takes me six months to write the first hundred pages, three months to write the rest of the book. I find creating characters and setting up a story to be the hardest part, and I tend to do a lot of rewriting then, as I have a lot of false starts. Once I get the boulder to the top of the mountain, the compulsion kicks in, and it’s a lot easier to finish that first draft. NEVER LOOK BACK, though, was an especially arduous revision process, as I changed a lot of the structure. So, while that part took me about a month, there were many, many sleepless nights.
What’s your favorite thing to do to procrastinate from writing?
Reading or watching movies, because it’s inspiring. But if I’m going to be honest, the way I procrastinate most often is clicking on Twitter hashtags.
Who has been the most difficult character for you to write?
Probably Brenna Spector because she has perfect autobiographical memory, and I definitely do not. Though there were only three books in the series, I really had to re-familiarize myself with each one before writing the next – and still, I’d get tons of copy editors’ queries about things I’d gotten wrong. You want to set yourself up to big fail, write a series based on a character with perfect memory.
The easiest?
Probably Jackie from If I Die Tonight, because when I was writing her, I got to put a voice to my biggest fears as the mom of a teenager.
Probably Jackie from If I Die Tonight, because when I was writing her, I got to put a voice to my biggest fears as the mom of a teenager.
