Ask the Author: Sarah Stewart Taylor
Answered Questions (7)
Sarah Stewart Taylor
Manuscript lost
Sarah Stewart Taylor
Being able to live, for a part of every day, in imaginary worlds of my own creation. I also love the rhythm of the writing life, the long periods of working and not knowing where I'm going and then the feeling when it all comes together. And I even love being on deadline. There's something so exciting about how a deadline focuses me and drives me to do more than I thought I could. Of course once the book is done, I love meeting and hearing from readers and getting to meet a few of my own writing heroes!
Sarah Stewart Taylor
I rarely find myself with the classic writer's block -- where I can't write at all. Instead, I find that I sometimes reach a point in a book where I'm writing but it doesn't feel productive, if that makes sense. I can write, but it doesn't feel like I'm writing *the right things*. When that happens, I've found that the best thing I can do is to take a break and sort of let my unconscious writer's mind take over. Going for a long walk or (sadly) cleaning often serve to sort of get me out of my own way and help me figure out what should come next.
Sarah Stewart Taylor
Thank you, Claudia! I hope to write quite a few more. I have pretty solid ideas for at least six more novels and more amorphous senses of where I could take Maggie beyond that. As you can probably guess, Ireland (and Maggie's Long Island hometown) are sources of endless inspiration for me!
Sarah Stewart Taylor
Read a lot. Don't be afraid to write terribly. First drafts are meant to be messy and incomplete and they're the only road to a finished draft. But so many aspiring writers give up when they can't achieve perfection the first time they sit down to write a novel.
Sarah Stewart Taylor
I don't wait for inspiration. You have to show up at your desk every day and just . . . do the work, whether you are inspired or not. But, when I find myself at a crossroads or stuck on something, I find that a long walk in the woods often shakes a good idea loose.
Sarah Stewart Taylor
A Stolen Child, the latest Maggie D'arcy mystery, came out of my long walks in the Portobello neighborhood of Dublin, where the book is set. I spent a lot of time there in 2021 and because of Covid restrictions, I was outside on the streets a lot more than I usually am when I'm in Dublin (as opposed to inside a pub!) I started thinking a lot about neighborhoods and windows and how we never really know what's going on in all those houses and apartments we pass by as we're walking around in cities. The victim in A Stolen Child, former model Jade Elliott, came to me as I was people watching in the neighborhood!
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