Part #4 of our conversation with author @kdcaseywrites LUV: Many people dream about being a writer. What is the one thing you wish you had known when you started your career? KD: I think the biggest thing would be that I like to let stuff marinate for… a while. Slow cook. Ferment. I come from a writing background—I have a degree in fiction writing, though my education was mostly in short-form literary fiction. That’s its own kind of difficult in terms of portraying characters in moods in very limited space. Writing full-length books is a lot like a baseball season; it’s about endurance as much as anything. The more I’ve written the more comfortable I’ve gotten comfortable with my process, which is fairly chaotic. I’ll often write a significant chunk of character exploration before I begin formally drafting. I had to get used to tossing out 20-30,000 words or so in the quest to really discover who the characters are and what brings them into conflict. I’ll also set that aside for months, sometimes years, and come back to it when I’m prepared to write it. Obviously, that has to intersect with the reality of writing on contract, but I’m mostly talking about stories that I haven’t pitched yet. So maybe the lesson is: there’s no timeline on a book from an artistic perspective—it’s there when you’re ready for it. #QOTD - What advice would you give new writers?

Posted by LUV Team at 2023-04-13 14:00:35 UTC