Interview with Michaela Riley, Author of Embittered Justice - Page 2

How would you describe your creative process while writing this book? Was it stream-of-consciousness writing, or did you first write an outline?

I started writing Embittered Justice as an outline and kept journal entries and a notebook to write down ideas as they came to me. It was easier for me to complete research and understand components of the judicial system before writing the entire book.

From the moment you conceived the idea for the story, to the published book, how long did it take?

The entire process from start to finish took about a year. Of course actually writing the book once the outline and research was completed was only a few months. Editing and reading the book took the most amount of time. My writing experiences before this were technical papers and research, so it was harder for me to give the book life and invoke emotions in the reader. I wanted the reader to feel what the main character had to endure during her fight for freedom and attempt to prove her innocence.

Describe your working environment.

I have a laptop and I work wherever I am. I really don’t have an office that I sit in daily as I write. I love being mobile and having the ability to write when I am sitting in the back yard or at the beach. I find that I get lots of ideas when I don’t have anyone around and get to enjoy the serenity of writing.

Are you a disciplined writer?

I am not as disciplined as I would like to be because I have many things going on in my life. I do set deadlines for myself and find that if I stick to the time frame I get a lot more accomplished. Since the release of the book, I have spent a majority of the time marketing and promoting Embittered Justice. I do have outlines and ideas for several other books completed and hope to have the sequel to Embittered Justice completed by fall of 2008.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? What seems to work for unleashing your creativity?

Article Author: Mayra Calvani

Mayra Calvani is the National Latino Books Examiner for Examiner.com.

Visit Mayra Calvani's author page — Mayra Calvani's Blog