Author Birthday – 29 October – Wendy Corsi Staub

Happy Birthday, Wendy Corsi Staub, born on 29 October 1964.

Wendy Corsi Staub Quotes

1. Coming up with ideas is never a problem—they come at me all day, every day, and I will never have enough time to write them all.
2. Every author’s process is unique, but what works for me is total immersion. It means dragging myself out of bed every morning by around 4:30 AM and writing for about 14 to 15 hours, seven days a week, until the book is done.
3. When I’m in the thick of it, there’s very little time in my life for anything else—socializing, hobbies, even sleep. But if I’m all in from beginning to end, I can fully inhabit the world and become the characters, and that’s what keeps it fresh.
4. If you’re writing as a hobby—because you enjoy it or it’s cathartic—then there are no ‘rules’. But if you intend to launch a writing career, then you need to invest (time, energy, perhaps money) in educating yourself about the profession, developing your craft, creating your product, and building a business.
5. I never let anyone read a work-in-progress, because my process is to constantly rework the earlier pages as I edge forward. I do one ever-evolving draft for each book, and when it’s done, it’s done. No second draft until I get notes from my editor.
6. A twisty plot full of clues and red herrings is a must [for a cozy mystery]. So is worldbuilding—a three-dimensional cast of characters and a vivid backdrop that seems simultaneously familiar and unique. The protagonist should be resourceful, courageous, and eventually a few steps ahead of the antagonist, and readers. And of course, the crime is always solved in the end, and the bad guys never get away. Which ingredients are forbidden? Graphic violence, sex, language.
7. I’ve always approached my novels more as part of my brand than as belonging to a certain genre. I’m fulfilled if I’m writing a page-turner with plenty of twists, a touch of humor, a hint of romance, and multigenerational characters. Tweens and teens are a great source of domestic conflict in fiction as in life!
8. There’s nothing more creative and gratifying than building a world and developing characters who become as familiar to me as the places and people I know in real life. I love to explore how events and relationships past and present can propel a plot.
9. Thematically, I have always loved to explore friendships—how they evolve over the decades, and how our formative years relationships help to influence and shape who we eventually become.
10. I’ve always felt that a worthwhile setting functions as character; that my characters should inhabit a three-dimensional and realistic community.

Source for quotes 1-4: The Big Thrill and 5: Facebook and 6-7: Publishers Weekly and 8-10: Crime Reads

Wendy Corsi Staub is an award-winning New York Times bestselling American author of nearly 100 novels. She is best known for the single title psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. Her current standalone thriller, Windfall, is about a trio of friends who chip in for a lottery ticket, win a billion-dollar jackpot—and the one who’s holding the ticket goes missing. Her critically acclaimed Lily Dale paranormal cozy mystery series centers around a widowed single mom—and sceptic—who moves to a town populated by spiritualists who talk to the dead. She also writes women’s fiction under the pseudonym Wendy Markham. She is a three-time finalist for the Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award. She has won an RWA Rita Award, an RT Award for Career Achievement in Suspense, the 2007 RWA-NYC Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement, and five WLA Washington Irving Prizes for Fiction. Follow her on Facebook @corsistaub and on Instagram @wendycorsistaub

Source for photograph: Author’s website

by Amanda Patterson
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