On January 28, 2017, James Morgan-Jones, the author of On the Edge of Wild Water came to the Octavo’s Book Cafe & Wine Bar chatting with local book lovers and signing them copies.
“Some writers say it’s fun to write, they enjoy writing, but it’s really difficult for me. I don’t enjoy writing, I force myself to write,” said James.
James got published his first book and became a published author last year.
He said that although he feels amazing when he finishes writing stories, he doesn’t enjoy writing process.
It is quite common for writers to find it difficult to name their characters. For instance, Haruki Murakami, who is one of the best-known Japanese bestselling authors, says that he couldn’t name his characters until he wrote Norweigian Wood. Instead of naming them, he called his characters as mouse or sheep-man.
However, he said once he came to be able to name his characters, they started to drive his stories. Therefore, it may be helpful to name your characters.
Jones said he tried to be aware of TV series when he was not writing, and write strange or cool names down on his notes. He refers these notes when he can’t think of any names.
Also, if you have ever written a story, you must know how difficult it is to end the story. Though Jones sometimes comes up with a scene of ending first and think how stories go towards the end, he said it would be important to ‘just wait’. He said you’d know when you got the right ending. Claire Fayers I interviewed before also said exactly the same thing. Therefore, what we need to do is to forget about it and wait for the answer for a while.
Jones let us know that it’s good to force you write every day, if you write only 500 words daily, which isn’t too difficult, you’ll have 15,000 words in a month.
However, we don’t have to worry too much. He said: “If your time is meant to come, it will.”
There are loads of chance to meet published authors in Cardiff. The Octavo’s Book Cafe & Wine Bar has an event almost every week. To get more information, go to the website.