
(generated from
Life at Willow Manor) © Shers Gallagher 2010
1) What’s the last thing you wrote? What’s the first thing you wrote that you still have?
In novel form, I last wrote
Murder On The Rocks! – a suspense set in a sleepy Irish harbour town, involving a visiting lecturer from Holland.
I still have some of the ‘angst’ poems I’d written in my early twenties while recovering from a counterculture lifestyle and mainstreaming into a world I found scarier than the one I’d recently emerged from.
2) Write poetry?I love the terseness of the poetic challenge and how its demands one to invade the senses. So, yes, I love writing poems and songs...always.
3) Angsty poetry?Of course! Why not, that is when I’m feeling ‘angsty’?!
4) Favorite genre of writing?Novels – mainstream fiction – I love the feel of creating a world of characters out of empty space. I always smile to myself, thinking that the experience causes me to empathise with God. :)
5) Most annoying character you’ve ever created?Myself – when I get autobiographically pedantic. And some of my ‘preachy’ characters , who definitely annoy me with their cocky ‘know-it-all’ attitudes.
6) Best plot you’ve ever created?The one about the two musicians from immigrant families - modern ‘star-crossed lovers’ - caught up in the turbulent ’60s -‘70s of the American counterculture movement.
7) Coolest plot twist you’ve ever created?I don’t know if it was the ‘coolest’, but it was definitely the most fun to write, which was the antiquity smuggling scene in
Dancing Spoons and Khachapuri.
8) How often do you get writer’s block?I would say that I have a heavy dose of it right now, as my current perspective on life is so unsettled that I’ve become quietly reflective and have lost a lot of energy and laughter. Yet, I see this as only a phase, a rhythm of life that I truly feel I’m travelling through gracefully enough.
9) Write fan fiction? Only to Fred Wolf, AKA, Dr Quantum – a zany quantum theorist and delightfully quirky brain who was featured in
What the Bleep Do We Know? A few years back we shared a few thoughts on the notion of quantum physics. He’s a personable soul, who also admitted that he could never quite figure out what the ‘WTB’ movie was all about. Hahaha
10) Do you type or write by hand? I suffer from horrible penmanship – all over the page, literally. My students can never read my handwriting. Not only that, but I’ve had a secret fear half my life that a writing analyst would get a good look at my handwriting and stamp me ‘verifiable’ - LOL. That is, until I read about another prolific writer who had a similar fear. Birds of a feather? I’d like to think so, anyway.
11) Do you save everything you write?I have no problem tossing material I deem substandard. Then again, I keep material that may not be publishable but includes sections worth fleshing out later.
12) Do you ever go back to an abandoned idea?Always. I hash and rehash like a good psychiatrist.
13) What’s your favourite thing you’ve ever written?My poem: ‘Angel in Distress’. It touched a lot of people, which gave me a secret thrill. As for me, I loved how it just seemed to flow out of me and bounce along the virtual streets the poor angel was travelling through.
14) What’s everyone else’s favourite story you’ve written?I think that ‘Death of the Saint’ hit a raw nerve when it first came out around Christmas time year ago last, causing me to be
Irish Abroad’s featured blogger. Sláinte
15) Ever written romance or angsty teen drama? Oh, yes. Those are fun and silly pieces, which I wrote mostly when I was of the selfsame age. Later, I never laughed so hard when watching
Bridget Jones Diary – equally silly, but of a girl stumbling and bumbling through life in her twenties. What could be more humorous? But I get a kick out of young girls, now watching with such delight my young stepdaughter adventuring through her first pregnancy.
16) What’s your favourite setting for your characters?Colorado has been my favourite character setting – going back and tapping into rich memories of such beautiful landscape, clean skies and clear-headed people while painting the scene of what it was like in the ‘60s and ‘70s during the writing of
Boulder Blues.
17) How many projects are you working on now?I’m supposed to be preparing lesson plans before my return to China, teaching at a language and culture university. Yet, I’m being so lazy these days, procrastinating while thinking: What’s with me?
18) Have you ever won an award for your writing?’Candy Lee Osgood’ and ‘Colorado Scholars’, paying off a big chunk of my student loan in my last year of university. It was a great honour and some well needed cash.
19) What are your five favourite words?Miasma, aesthetic, obtuse, prosaic, ululate – not for their meaning, but more for their rhythm and flow.
20) What character have you created that is most like yourself? Stevie Kelly in
Boulder Blues.
21) Where do you get your ideas for your characters?Like many here, I get my ideas from my own background that I’ve, of course, fictionalised and embellished on. The fictional characters resemble nobody in particular; yet, I’ve drawn upon memory of composites of types I’ve known and others I’ve interacted with in my life’s journeying.
22) Do you favour happy endings?Yes, actually, mostly because I’m such a sensitive soul with too many sad endings in my own life. But my characters usually go through hell to get there.
23) Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write? Unfortunately, yes. It’s just been drilled into me, but I think it can really block writers and should be low on their priority list. Save all the corrections till later – think about crafting first, and then correct mechanical errors after the story is written and plots are shifted around and firmly placed.
24) Does music help you write?Because I’m a musician, myself – or, should I say, I have been for many years, now retired - I find music a great distraction while writing. I need complete silence. Music comes later with the rewrites, which can be a stimulus to create more mood while fleshing out pieces. With that said, I admit that I’m keenly aware of the music of words, their rhythm and flow – or not – across the written page.
25) Quote something you’ve written. Whatever pops in your head. “When you walk in truth you become dangerous to a sleeping world” (SM Gallagher 2006)
*I'm tagging the ONE person I know who’ll really get into this: Jacqui Binford-Bell.
www.aislingbooks.nl