I interview writers every week here on the Booktopia Blog.
My Ten Terrifying Questions have been answered by over 250 published authors ranging from mega selling global stars like Jackie Collins and Lee Child to brilliant, relatively unknown debut authors such as Miles Franklin shortlisted Favel Parret and Rebecca James.
In each of these interviews I ask the following question:
Q. What advice do you give aspiring writers?
Now, for the edification of aspiring writers everywhere, I will pull together answers to this question from three very different writers and post them here once week. Some will inspire, some will confound but all will be interesting and helpful in their own way…
INDIGO BLOOME
“I consider myself an aspiring writer! I suppose my advice, for what it’s worth, is to write what you would love to read – that way your passion will shine through naturally.
Write for yourself, not what you think others want to read, and give yourself time and space to see what evolves before your eyes. I never in a million years thought this would happen to me!”
Click here to order Destined to Play from Booktopia,
Australia’s No. 1 Online Book Shop
PHILIPPA GREGORY
“Please, please, for your own sake if not for your readers – don’t read something trashy and think that you can do something similar. Especially, in the current days don’t read mild pornography and mistake it for literature. Read good things and try to write well.”
Click here to order The Kingmaker’s Daughter from Booktopia,
Australia’s No.1 Online Book Shop
DANIEL H. WILSON
“Find something that you love to think about (other than yourself). Learn everything you can about it. Now write about it. If you’re very lucky and the timing is good, other people will care.”
Click here to order Amped from Booktopia,
Australia’s No.1 Online Book Shop
For more advice from published writers go here
About the Contributor
John Purcell
While still in his twenties, John Purcell opened a second-hand bookshop in Mosman, Sydney, in which he sat for ten years reading, ranting and writing. Since then he has written, under a pseudonym, a series of very successful novels, interviewed hundreds of writers about their work, appeared at writers’ festivals, on TV (most bizarrely in comedian Luke McGregor’s documentary Luke Warm Sex) and has been featured in prominent newspapers and magazines. Now, as the Director of Books at booktopia.com.au, Australia’s largest online bookseller, he supports Australian writing in all its forms. He lives in Sydney with his wife, two children, three dogs, five cats, unnumbered gold fish and his overlarge book collection. His novel, The Girl on the Page, was published by HarperCollins Australia in October, 2018.
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