A collection of stories centered around vengeance, obsession, cravings, and life.
Pick one item of the Menu or devour the entire buffet
Make sure you don't bite off more than you can chew
Read, but not with greed for
Death awaits, ready to come and collect its due
Today I am so excited to be hosting Lucy Pireel, an avid reader and dabbler in the kitchen. Lucy doesn't like to be confined to one genre of work, and so she writes whatever comes to mind which makes for a very varied collection of work. Today she is celebrating the release of A Menu of Death, and she took a quick time out to answer a few of our questions.
Lucy, welcome! Looking at your collection of work, you seem to enjoy writing short stories. What is it that draws you to the short story writing, rather than a full length novel?
I actually am writing three full lenght novels too at the moment, but in the mean time I write shorts and publish those to fill up the gap until my first full length novel is ready for publication.
Wow, you are busy! I have been thinking about writing a short story for a submission to a magazine. How do you make sure that you develop well rounded and real to life characters in a short story?
Ah, it's all about words and in a short the arc is there just as in a novel, you just have less words to make everything work. While in a novel you have 'time' in a short every word counts as if your life depends on it. There is no room for fillers or frills. No side-tracking and focus on what is necessary to the story and the character development.
What is the hardest challenge that you have to overcome as a writer?
Don't let myself be distracted by social media! :-)
HA! I know all about that! I notice on Amazon that sometimes you have co-authors for some of your work. How hard is it to collaborate? How to you resolve artistic differences?
A slight correction. Even though I do have a few collaborations on the go, all of the work that is published until now is solely my own. None of the shorts published is a collaboration of any kind. But it is not that hard to collaborate, it is just a matter of finding the right person and be ready to adjust what you think the work should be like. For example I'm at the moment working on a conversation in poetry collaboration. It's fun to do, because while each 'message' is a poem, the whole will eventually become a rounded out story.
If you had to stop writing tomorrow, what would it be that you miss the most?
Being able to create a world and characters that, even though I am the author and their creator, is an essential part of me. The way how writing lifts my mood when I'm down, or relieves anger when I can kill of that character instead of swear at someone who doesn't deserve it.
What are your future writing plans? Any more work lined up?
As I mentioned, I have three WIPs and one novel in its final stage of editing. And I intend to keep writing shorts to complement the longer works.
Thanks so much for joining us!
You can find lucy in the following places
And don't forget that you can enter the competition here!
Thanks Michelle, for this great post on me and A Menu of Death. You had some surprising questions for me which I had fun answering.
ReplyDeleteHope you entered the Raffle too!
xoxo
It was a pleasure to host you! I did enter!
DeleteAlways welcome back if you want to come again!