Literary Birthday – 16 July – Marti Leimbach

Happy Birthday, Marti Leimbach, born on 16 July 1963.

Marti Leimbach Quotes

1. Our feelings inform how we respond to everything around us. Nowhere is this more obvious than in fiction. Writers are forever revealing human nature through how characters relate to others, as well as the environments in which we place them.
2. Setting is always informed by the emotional prism through which our characters respond to it, and we mustn’t forget this dimension of characterisation when painting portraits of those who populate our novels.
3. Part of our job as writers is to be psychologists, able to imagine responses to situations that may not be our own, but that make sense for our characters.
4. If you’ve spent any time on the craft of writing you know about setting up an inciting incident. In the simplest terms, it’s the event that occurs in the early part of the plot that moves your main character in a different direction. As your character feels their way through the new conditions of their lives, the story unfolds, deepening with every page.
5. I find point of view slippery and also boring as hell to talk about, but it’s important. I have to remind myself to watch every word and what it conveys of point of view. It never hurts to realise the power of even a single word in a story.
6. We imagine that writing a novel is difficult due to the challenges of its length, the gathering up of all that fabric into a complete whole. We worry that we’ll get lost in the reams of slippery material, unable to find its edges or shape it into anything worth the tremendous effort it takes to complete the work end-to-end.
7. You don’t need to get through the first draft as though you are running through a graveyard at night. Have faith in the story, that it is worthy, and that the core of it will be found. Have faith in yourself, that you’ll finish the novel.
8. First, don’t compare yourself to other people. You are on your own timeline and your own trajectory to success. Next, read a lot and try to keep the love of reading for its own sake instead of being very clever and looking at everything from a kind of professional point of view (you can do that when you re-read!). Finally, don’t be afraid to love the work that speaks to you regardless of what anyone else says about it. Work daily if you can. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t. Don’t try to write when you’re exhausted. It will only discourage you. Finally, if none of this works, write to me and I’ll cheer you on.
9. My writing habit is so firmly established after all these years that there is only one way I could get writer’s block and that would be to worry about the publishing industry, what other people are writing and and even (dare I say it!) reviews. As long as I’m focussed on what I love about reading and writing, I never have too much trouble.

Source for quotes 1-7: Great On The Page Substack and quotes 8-9 : Goodreads Interview

Marti Leimbach is an American author of several novels, including the international bestseller Dying Young, which was made into a major motion picture starring Julia Roberts; Daniel Isn’t Talking; and The Man from Saigon. She lives in England and teaches at Oxford University’s creative writing program. Her latest novel Dragonfly Girl is a YA action/thriller about a high school girl with a gift for science who discovers a ‘cure’ for death and ends up embroiled in an international rivalry. Follow Marti on Instagram and Facebook.

Source for photograph: Goodreads

by Amanda Patterson
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