Years ago, before any of my books had been published, I was invited into the kind of writing group that all unpublished authors dream about: five professional writers and me. It was an amazing experience that taught me a ton, and not just about writing. Margaret Reyes Dempsey was one of those writers, and she’s been a friend ever since. A former technical writer, she’s the author of the psychological thriller Mind Games and The Benefactor, as well as a fantastic Substack on practical spirituality.

On to the questions!

Question 1

Your novel Mind Games is a twisty-turny psychological thriller, the kind of page-turner that keeps people reading through the night. Now, you’re writing an uplifting Substack that explores spirituality in everyday life. Can you talk a bit about the two genres? What influenced you to move from one to the other? Is writing about spirituality something you were always interested in?

Life itself often seems like a twisty-turny thriller. Our days start one way and then something arises that takes us in another direction. We tend to classify incidents as good or bad, and obviously we prefer the good things. But there will always be cycles of good times and challenging times. Studying spirituality through the ages and practicing on my own path have allowed me to observe these cycles and become increasingly aware of how our fears and perceptions color our experience of this world.

I’ve always felt there would be some nonfiction writing in my future. At some point, my interest shifted from thrillers to practical spirituality. There’s no doubt that when I begin my day walking in nature, when I sit in stillness and silence with something greater than myself (whatever you choose to call that), when I go out into the world with the intention of being a loving force, when I am kind to everyone I meet, my days go a lot smoother. And when they don’t, I am in a better, grounded place to deal with whatever arises.

So, I suppose I started my Substack on spirituality to remind people that when their lives start resembling a twisty-turny thriller, they can choose how they respond to it.

Question 2

I started these questions with a brief intro of our old writing group. Can you talk a bit about what a writing community means to you? What are the hallmarks of a good one? Any red flags people should be wary of when joining a group?

Our writing group was the best! I learned so much from all of you, and the laughs we shared went a long way in reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously.

Writing is a solo experience. After spending hours each day in your head, you manage to get some words on paper. When you read them back, you are sometimes pleased…when you shouldn’t be. LOL. All of those “little darlings” we sprinkle onto the page need to be hunted down and eliminated, but we’re too close to the work to be objective. That’s where a good writing group, or even just a critique partner if you can’t find a group, comes in handy. But first, you have to know yourself.

If you are very sensitive or overly identify with your writing, there’s going to be some pain when those critiques come in, even if they are communicated in the kindest, most constructive way. As a career tech writer, I was accustomed to clients’ opinions and requests for changes. It was just part of the job. I never took it as a personal attack. But I’ve been around enough writers to know, we can be a sensitive bunch. So, it’s important to get your head in the right place so you don’t roll into fetal position during every critique.

We had such an eclectic bunch of writers in our group. Novelists, short story writers, poets. We wrote in various genres. Thrillers, romantic suspense, historical fiction, and fantasy. And some of us were professional writers, such as tech writers and investigative journalists, in our day jobs. The wealth of writing experience was vast. Some might argue that a group focused on the same genre might be preferable. But I’m always going to choose the can of mixed nuts over the can of peanuts. For me, it just worked and kept it all fresh.

Regarding red flags, make sure the individuals in the group you join are dedicated to improving their own writing as well as assisting others improve theirs. A critique group isn’t a dessert club, though there’s nothing wrong with a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. I’d also be wary of “experts” who dispense advice with an authoritative tone. Writing is hard enough…the critique group shouldn’t be a place where punishment is doled out. The guidelines in our group about how we operated, the commitment involved, the tone of comments, and the content of comments (e.g., don’t dictate how the writer should edit their work; trust that they will find the best way if they choose to heed your comments) were invaluable to our success. In fact, that might be a great article for one of your future posts, Pat!

Question 3

In your substack post The False Crawl (https://margaretreyesdempsey.substack.com/p/the-false-crawl), you find meaning in turtle tracks on the beach. Can you talk about how you maintain a mindset that lets you see these kinds of analogies? As we’re going about our daily lives, how can the rest of us see inspiration, either for our lives or our creative projects?

This may sound odd coming from a writer but sometimes the words we have just aren’t enough. Analogies and metaphors, especially drawn from nature, get me as close as possible to understanding what is not easily explained, such as spirituality.

When I watch a group of brown pelicans soaring high above a beach or skimming a wave, there is an effortlessness there that inspires me. Even with the sea turtle mentioned in my post about the false crawl…though finding a place to nest is physically demanding, the turtle gets the job done and returns to the sea. It occurs to me that what feels like exhausting effort for us as humans is usually the result of how we choose to think about things. I doubt the pelican is thinking “Oh no! I have to dive headfirst into the ocean again to get a fish for lunch. Sigh.”

You asked how we can see inspiration for our own lives or creative projects. Sit in nature. See the patterns. Notice the deviations from the patterns. Question how your observations can be applied to your own life. How does the strength but flexibility of a palm tree allow it to withstand hurricane winds? What are the “hurricane forces” in your life and how can the idea of “strength and flexibility” be helpful?

This is pretty much how my mind works 24/7. Though I was a New York City kid, my family did a lot of cross-country camping, my grandmother was always seeing interesting things in cloud formations, and I loved stories like Charlotte’s Web and Aesop’s Fables. So there were always lessons and inspiration from nature that informed how I thought and lived.

Question 4

Technical writing, thrillers, and spirituality all seem (to me) to require different skills. Do you find that working in different genres helps each? Does your technical writing background help inform your other work?

This question reminds me of a funny but helpful experience. But first, there is no doubt any writing you do will inform your other work. Grammar, punctuation, and clarity are transferable skills. But you have to remember that each type of writing has its own aims and, therefore, “rules.”

A wise friend, familiar with my tech writing career, once commented that the scenes in my novel were too stark and concise, kind of like a tech writing project. She encouraged me to take more time, to set the scene with vivid descriptions to pull the reader in, to intersperse mannerisms into the dialogue to support or contradict a character’s spoken words, and to use interior monologue to reveal a character’s inner thoughts.

This was great advice, but really difficult for me. It took a lot of practice. Other writers may have the opposite problem. Perhaps they need the person steeped in tech writing to show them how to tighten up their scenes. That’s why I thought our writing group was so powerful…we had all the bases covered.

Question 5

Let’s talk about process for a moment. I keep a stack of cookies next to the keyboard as motivation. Every time I meet a goal, I literally give myself a cookie. How about you? Any tips or tricks for getting through the difficult parts of creating? How do you move forward when the words seem to be fighting your every effort?

You have great willpower. I don’t. I would eat those cookies all at once.

Snacking serves more as procrastination to me than reward. Why am I procrastinating? Usually because I don’t know how to proceed. The term writer’s block comes up a lot. I can’t say I have suffered from that in any paralyzing kind of way. When I feel that snacking urge come on, I know it’s time to change course.

For example, if I’m struggling in the middle of a chapter, I give myself permission to jump to a completely different scene in the book and write that instead. That always breathes new life and energy into the book and me.

When even jumping to another scene doesn’t help, it means I need some simmering time. Simmering is part of the writing process. Sitting in nature, staring into space, or rolling towels in my linen closet are activities that provide space for the creativity to flow and for new connections to be made.

We shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves when we’re not sitting at our desks. As a writer, I am always writing, even when my pen isn’t moving on the page or my fingers aren’t tapping on a keyboard. During our sunrise walks on the beach, my husband will sometimes ask what I’m thinking. “I’m writing,” I respond and he nods knowingly as he’s a writer, too.

Free writing can also help when I’m feeling stuck. You sit and write without lifting the pen from the paper for a set amount of time. And when I say without lifting the pen from the paper, I mean it. So, if you run out of things to write you actually write “I’ve run out of things to write” and just keep writing gibberish to keep the flow going. This sounds silly, but it works.

I know from experience that the worst place to spend too much time is at the beginning of my story. I may have a great idea to start a story and I’ll brain-dump it onto the page, but I don’t allow myself to get caught up in perfecting that beginning because it will ALWAYS change. This is actually something I learned from technical writing. I’d write an introduction to a user manual and by the time I’d interviewed developers, played around with the system, and written up the actual procedures, the introduction needed to be edited to include all the other stuff that came up during that process. A novel is no different. You will be led this way and that and your beginning will likely need to be rewritten.

I also never edit during the early stages of writing. Creating is right-brain activity. Editing is left-brain activity. No need for civil wars during the writing process. I write the first draft of a novel pretty quickly and straight from that creative space. Even Mind Games, which eventually turned into a much more complex novel, started out as a linear, straightforward kind of story. In subsequent drafts, I rework the story, adding to it, reordering it, etc. In Mind Games, new characters and subplots were part of these subsequent drafts. In hindsight, those changes made the novel much richer than it was in its first draft.

Question 6

I always end with the same question. What’s next? Do you have any new projects you can tell us about?

It seems there’s always something new happening here. In early 2024, my husband discovered he was on the autistic spectrum. Suddenly, so many things made sense. But knowing the diagnosis was just the beginning. We had to take that newfound knowledge and put it to work in our lives. I encouraged him to start a Substack to write about his midlife diagnosis (https://autisticallalong.substack.com/). Meeting other people with similar experiences has been invaluable to him. Recently, I’ve wondered if my experiences as the partner of someone who has been diagnosed in midlife might be helpful to people in the same position. So that’s one idea.

Then there’s an idea for a whimsical story based on a character I created many years ago.

Or the travelogue, as narrated by our late cat, who traveled cross-country with us for 3.5 years.

Or the spiritual novel I’ve been pondering.

Or even the sequel to Mind Games.

You’ll be the first to know which I choose, Pat. Thank you for this lovely invitation to discuss my favorite topics. 

Thank you, Margaret! This has been fantastic!

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