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The Interview - Chuck Morgan
https://www.chuckmorganbooks.comCan you explain your writing process? Do you prefer to create an outline and plan beforehand, or do you prefer to write more spontaneously and organically?
I start with an idea and I don't sit down to write until I play that idea around in my head like a movie. This can take several weeks and there are plenty of loose ends. When I feel the idea is ready, I sit down and start writing then I sit back and follow my characters around taking notes. There have been many times when I sat back after writing a chapter, re-read the words and think. Well, that's not what I expected. It always fun to see where the character take the story.
What have you found to be most challenging about writing in [genre]?
Coming up with fresh ideas. My characters are very grounded people and I need to put them into storylines that show them as regular folks who solve crimes. hey are not heroic and they don't always solve the crime, but they act like people you would meet on the street.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I am not a disciplined writer. When I started I was still working full-time and would need to write whenever the opportunity presented itself, so it was not unusual to find me sitting at my desk at 3 AM. I also write in a very linear fashion. One of the most interesting aspects of my writing is that I start with a well-developed idea but without much direction, I then turn my characters loose in the story and see what develops. sometimes I'm surprised by where the story goes.
Did you always want to be an author? If not, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I have always had the writing bug, but when I started 60 years ago, everything was done on a typewriter with a ton of whiteout sitting next to you and you had to send the entire manuscript to a publisher and hope that they even took the time to read even a small part of it. Fifty years later it is easy to write and self-publish a book and not to even deal with a publisher. So I took up writing. Now that I'm retired I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.
Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind of music do you like to listen to?
I need a distraction when I am writing, so I will have music or the television on as background music. I like to listen to Jazz or 70s & 80s rock.
Are any of the characters in your book based on people in your real life? If so, can you tell us more about that process and how it influenced your writing?
One of the characters in my first book, Crime Interrupted, A Buck Taylor Novel is based on a real person. She was a friend of my late wife and we got to talking one night over dinner. Somehow we got around to dream jobs and she said that she always wanted to be a civil rights attorney. The novel I was working on had the perfect part for her since her character was a lawyer and she was going to represent a bunch of kids that were kidnapped by a drug cartel and spirited into the US illegally. Her character played a pivotal role in the storyline.