In Writing Magazine, author Jack Gantos shared a bit about his writing process. These tips are great anytime, but they may be especially helpful if you're blocked or just feeling uninspired:
COMING UP WITH IDEAS
"A lot of my books are based on personal experiences. Since I keep a journal and write in it every day--even a sentence or two will do per day--I manage to discover something interesting that takes place each day."
GETTING READY
"When I get ready to write a book I try to find about 10 books to read that I think will be helpful--perhaps they are full of characters I find inspiring, or settings I find engaging, or themes and problems that I find fascinating and will help me think through the story."
CREATING CHARACTERS
"I pay close attention to people I find interesting as I walk down the city streets, or in libraries, or at the mall, or in grocery stores. I find restaurants are a very good place to find characters because people are very honestly themselves when they are hungry."
BECOMING A WRITER THE HARD WAY
Here, from the Amazon blurb for his book, Hole in My Life, is the unusual way Gantos' writing career started:
"In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison.
In Hole in My Life, this prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos – once he was locked up in a small, yellow-walled cell – moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how dedicating himself more fully to the thing he most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life."
