Member Spotlight: Wayne L Wilson

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Growing up I loved to spend endless hours in the library. I am an only child so I learned to master the art of self-entertainment. After reading a great book I’d often borrow the characters and develop entirely new stories. If it was a movie I loved, I’d often sit in my bedroom, rewrite the movie, and then try to act out all the actor’s parts. When I reflect on it, I suppose it was all about creating my universe. Writing is a vital medium for the world. It’s about communicating, and by reading and living inside someone else’s skin you gain a greater understanding of what shapes that person’s existence.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Exercise helps to wipe away the stress that may impact that blockage. My favorite is listening to music and getting lost in all the musical moods I can construct from my eclectic music collection.

What is your favorite time to write? I’m a night owl. If I’m on a serious roll – early morning.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? When you start writing a book, don’t stop to spend time perfecting it as you’re moving along in the work. Focus on getting the entire idea and story of the work out in the first draft. Otherwise, you may lose your thought process and momentum in trying to perfect and correct words and sentences in the process. Moreover, you may find yourself getting stuck and unable to proceed forward. Before you know it, you’ve spent a year on two chapters, forgotten where you were going in the first place, and lost your steam! It doesn’t matter how bad and absurd it may look while you’re writing the story. Don’t let your ego rule you. The point is to get all your ideas and thoughts out and finish the story. Revision is the “real” writing. Now that you’ve laid out the whole narrative, you can truly work with it. Revising and reconstructing the work is where you will find your buried gems and treasures that will provide you with the impetus and motivation to advance your writing and pursue your vision.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? The advanced technology makes it so much easier to do research.

Wayne L Wilson’s The New Frontier is out now with Artemesia Publishing.