Thursday, August 26, 2010

Charlaine Harris: In her blood -Writers Digest

Q/A: Charlaine Harris, the author behind True Blood, shares her writing insights - and even the scoop on her custom vampire fangs

In the current issue of Writer’s Digest, we have a profile of Charlaine Harris, the delightful and hilarious author behind the Southern Vampire Mysteries—the basis for the HBO series “True Blood.”

But even though the story is on newsstands, I still have a mountain of leftover notes from the interview. So rather than let them sit dormant in my WD vault forever (insert egregious vampire-stuck-in-coffin pun here), here are some of the highlights and outtakes from the interview with Harris—in which she talks about everything from why she tends to stick to first person to the future of her vampire series and, yes, how she owns her own custom fangs. As always, a regular writing prompt follows. (And for a prompt directly from Harris, click here.)

How old were you when you first felt the need to write, or where did it come from in your history?
“That was always my secret identity. Other kids want to be other things, but all I ever wanted to be, really, was a writer.”

[You became a full-time writer after your husband presented you with an electric typewriter and an offer to stay home and work on your material.] Is writing full time an important development for a writer?
“It is. It was for me. I know a lot of writers who are still coming home in the evening from their day jobs and writing. That would be incredibly hard.”

Did you ever feel compelled to give up over the years?
“Oh, no. No, that’s where just burying my head in the sand had its uses. Because I thought, well, I’m just gonna keep going, I’m just gonna keep on doing whatever I can think of to do and it’ll just work out somehow. And it did. But of course I had the luxury of doing that because my husband’s a chemical engineer and he was able to support me and the kids. If it had been my income that was my sole means of support, I certainly would have reacted differently.”

read on QA buy copy of magazine for profile article here

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