Jack Canon's American Destiny

Sunday, January 12, 2014

#YA #Author Peter Clenott Discusses Life & #Writing @PeterClenott

Image of Peter Clenott

When you are not writing, how do you relax? My son Stephen and I climb small mountains. My kids keep my quite busy. I visit family in Maine, enjoy the local Boston sports teams, and like the occasional movie. Recently I enjoyed LINCOLN and LES MISERABLES. I would travel more, but have to be frugal until I hit the best seller list.

How often do you write? And when do you write? Right now I am busy promoting, so don’t do any writing. When I am writing, I try to maintain a rigid schedule. If a novel is going to be about 400 typed pages, I try to sustain a goal of five pages a day. This means I finish the novel in under two months. So far, I have been able to maintain that regimen. I write when I can. Early morning is best. Afternoon is worst.

Sometimes it’s so hard to keep at it—What keeps you going? Writing is the one thing I feel confident about, the one thing I feel I have an aptitude for. I enjoy doing it and live with the hope that all that work and all of those years will eventually pay off.

What do you feel people will take away from your writing? How will your words make them feel? I have always felt that a good book entertains, but a very good book does more. It teaches. It uplifts. It leaves you wanting more. It’s not a summer at the beach book that passes the time. It is something that stays with you when you go to bed that night and for weeks thereafter. I hope people will learn something in a subtle way as they read my books. In DEVOLUTION, while they are enjoying the exploits of Chiku Flynn, I hope they will learn something about chimpanzees and about the rainforest and the Congo. My novels should stir debate and start conversations going and they should make the reader feel good. I hate unhappy endings.

How do you feel about social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter? Are they a good thing? I’m not crazy about them. I find that the more sites I am involved with, the less time I can commit to writing. I think these sites are over-rated in what they can do to promote your work. For example, on Twitter I feel I’m am tweeting about my novel to other authors and they are tweeting back to me. I am concerned about the trend in education where people are taking on-line classes. Physical human interaction is vital. As long as social media doesn’t supplant physical interaction, fine. If that is the end game, then we are in for trouble.

Devolution
Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords
Genre - Young Adult
Rating – PG
More details about the author and the book
Connect with Peter Clenott on Facebook & Twitter




0 comments:

Post a Comment