Ignore that book you read that said you couldn't write a proper novel till the age of 40 or more because you didn't have the life experience. What nonsense. Yet, it was there in a book about writing. Sometimes, it's too easy to believe the things that you read. It's like all writing advice. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. That whole 'write every day' mantra. I think that's nonsense. Of course that also depends how you define writing. Is the formulation of ideas writing? Is the processing in your back brain writing? I think they probably are. But sitting down, fingers to keyboard, pen to paper, no. My process doesn't work like that.
I write early in the morning, mostly, and then in hour sessions during the day. I will write until I stop, get up, wander around, go for a walk and then come back. In the morning probably because I do my best thinking in the shower.
All the time. As I wander around, I am gathering sights, smells, interactions, events. All of these are grist for the mill. I have written a couple of ghost stories based on true events. I wrote a book based around some things that happened. I think every author does to some extent.
All authors have a certain level of vanity, so yes. Good ones, I accept gratefully. Bad ones? Well, they're just rubbish, aren't they? Often I find a bad review comes because I pushed someone's buttons, or they came in expecting something else. Expectations can be very limiting.
