5 Questions with Author Victoria Hamilton

 

Today we welcome author Victoria Hamilton to the blog. Here are her answers to the 5 questions I posed. 

Q1 - How did you become an author, was it an overnight event or birth rite?

A1 - I always wanted to be a writer, but it took a while for that desire to turn into anything. For a long time lack of confidence and laziness kept me from even trying. I knew I needed something to learn the ‘self starter’ habit, so even before online college was a ‘thing’, I took distance courses from the University of Waterloo. Back then it was all by mail, with lectures on tape. It forced me to sit down every morning to work at home, and though I didn’t finish my degree, it did the trick. I got in the habit of sitting down every morning to work, and here I am, thirty years later, with 40+ published books to my credit.

Q2 - What or who inspired your writing?

A2 – I, like many writers, started reading early. My mom handed me the Agatha Christie book she had finished, and from that moment I was hooked on mysteries! I blazed through Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, and in the 80s and 90s started reading Grafton, Paretsky, MacLeod, Hess and many others. I think I absorbed the patterns and rhythms of mystery novels from that.

Q3 - How do you keep track of your ideas?

A3 – Hmmm… keep track of ideas? Do people do that? Maybe organized people do, but I’m not that organized, I guess. My brain can be a chaotic place and I know by not writing down ideas when they occur to me, I’ve probably lost a few good ones. But I’ve learned to have confidence that if one idea goes missing, there will be ten to take its place.

Q4 - What is the one thing you need, while writing?

A4 – Coffee! Coffee is my fuel, my inspiration juice, my necessity. Other than that it’s just me, butt planted in my chair, eyes on my screen, fingers on the keyboard and GO! (Tea, on the other hand, is for relaxation with a good book, to pair with cookies, to sip as I sit outside under a tree and dream!)

Q5 - How would you end this sentence, "Every author should own at least one of these things..." 

A5 - A notebook. I know in the earlier question I eschewed the need to keep track of ideas, but by that I meant, random ideas unattached to the book I’m currently writing. It’s completely different for the book I’m writing at the moment. I don’t know how it is for other writers, but the WIP (work in progress) lives rent free in my brain. It’s there 24/7 whether I like it or not. I wake up with it, and it churns through me all day long. Ideas for the story, plot twists, emotional points, all these things come to me at odd times. I have a notebook and will often dash in, sit down, scrawl an idea or point, at any time of the day or night. Absolute necessity.

Thank you so much, Karen, for inviting me. This has been fun!

Thank you Victoria for joining us here today! To learn more about Author Victoria Hamilton please click here.