How do you get inspired to write?
I think most of us write because we must, not because we choose to. Writing is compulsive, addictive, therapeutic, tortuous, seductive, exhilarating and painful … but if it’s in you, it just becomes a part of who you are.
I mean, everyone needs creativity – whatever form it takes – and for some of us, writing is how that creativity is generated. I think inspiration in the sense of excitement and hope and anticipation does play a role, but not nearly as often as most of us would like it to.
I get very inspired by ideas, first, facts that I’ve learned, history that I’ve read, people I’ve met, places I’ve been. From that initial burst, my brain starts to put stories together. A second level of inspiration is when you’re lucky enough to have a really good writing day—when you know what you’ve written has swept you up, has met the needs of character and plot and pacing, and has maybe elevated your personal reading experience. After that, you’re just hoping your agent or editor agrees with you, and if not, it’s back to editing, lol!
The point is this: if you write, you can’t wait for something called inspiration. It may already be in front of you and you just don’t see it. Or it may be buried inside of you. But unless you start the process—face the scary, blank page monster—you won’t write anything. From the great Margaret Atwood: “A word after a word after a word is power.”
How do you deal with writer’s block?
I think the best writing, art, etc. comes from the subconscious, tempered and guided and shaped by the craft of the conscious. If you’re stressed out, depressed, going through any difficulties emotionally, tapping into the subconscious can be temporarily too painful … what usually flows freely gets sticky and stuck.
And that’s how writer’s block forms.
I’ve had to work around it at different periods of my life—when my parents passed away, for example. Grief or the pressures of survival or any other life trauma may bring it on. I think the best and only thing you can do is realize that there is something happening inside you that needs to be dealt with. Don’t blame yourself and internalize it as something related to you as a writer—it’s actually related to you as a human being. So work on it, give it and yourself some time and breath, and it will pass.
What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?
Well, THE RECKONING is as close as I plan to come in terms of writing about things that are based on personal experience. And let me tell you—that isn’t an easy process. I’d much rather stick with wholesale imagination, as it’s much less sticky. There is a genealogical mystery in my 18th century ancestry, which has to do with a direct ancestor who was first pardoned by George Washington and later hanged for counterfeiting during the Revolutionary War, and his story would make a fascinating historical novel, but that setting is not one of my passions. I’m afraid the most frequent mystery I personally experience is “Where did I leave my phone?”, lol!
What are you currently working on?
Right now I’m on a deadline for finishing up the sequel to THE RECKONING—the working title is WHERE THE RAIN NEVER FALLS.
Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
THE RECKONING emerged from a combination of things: a decades-old idea about a murderer shielded from justice because of governmental status (diplomatic immunity) and what that kind of horror would do to the family of the victim; my realization that I had lived through a modern-day Prohibition in 1980s Humboldt County during the CAMP prosecution of cannabis; a desire to write about what happens to a community when boundaries are so bent and broken that ethics, morality and law seem to offer little-to-no relationship with the necessities of survival.
So all of that came together and really, just needed to come out in a book. Writing is therapeutic, or can be, and writing THE RECKONING gave me a chance to deal with things I’d seen or heard about or witnessed in my past that had bothered me for a long, long time … I was able to secure justice in fiction for real-life people whose victimization had never been publicized.
What kind of research did you do for this novel?
As primarily a historical crime fiction author, I typically research constantly, even when writing a book. For THE RECKONING, though, the research was spottier—more of a refresh, really, since I was a young adult in 1985. Specifics are still critical—I had to research CAMP very thoroughly, of course, and things like Greyhound bus schedules for that fateful day when Renata rolls in to Garberville on the run from the FBI.What was playing at the movies? What songs were at the top of the charts? What was going on in the country, the state, the county? All of those facts inform the environment you’re recreating and fictionalizing, so they are crucial to immersing both yourself and your readers.
In general, what emotions do you usually wish to elicit with your writing?
I write to be re-read. My own most profound literary influences are classics—books that I can read time and time again and discover another nuance, another bit of meaning. In the crime fiction world, my particular influences are Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Cornell Woolrich. In the literary world, the list is much more far-ranging—Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams, and more.
Then there’s the fact that I have a Master’s Degree in Classics (Latin and Greek), and I’ve taught, so I also like to leave readers with information they may not have known—another reason for copious research. History is sometimes harder to believe than fiction! I want people to feel like they’re immersed in the worlds I recreate—I want them to feel like they are in 1940 San Francisco, in Londinium in the first century CE, in Garberville in 1985.
Finally, I try to leave them with something to think about. Something to discuss. Something to mull over.
Ultimately, the entertainment part—the genre part—is the surface, and it needs to be tight and well-constructed and page-turning and as suspenseful as possible in order to be enjoyed … but my aspiration and goal is to make my books exhilarating and exciting but also something more long-lasting than a thrill or a scare or a round of nail-biting.
My hope is that once the answers have been discovered and the crime is solved, you can re-read my books and experience them in a whole other way.
Best advice on writing you've ever received?
Not every sentence has to be perfect. Write what you feel like you want to write or must write. Don’t write to market. Keep going!
What is the weirdest/wildest topic or fact that you’ve had to research or uncovered in your research?
One particular piece of research led to the first Miranda Corbie novel, CITY OF DRAGONS. I was researching Chinatown in the late ‘30s and ‘40s, and discovered that there was a boycott of Japanese-owned businesses within the district; that tensions and animosity and actual hatred between neighbors ran high at the time.
The tragic fact is that because of racist real estate law, Asian-Americans were restricted in terms of where they could live in San Francisco. Many people from all over Asia were forced into Chinatown—not only the Chinese. Then in 1937, Japan invaded China in the Sino-Japanese War. The barbarity of the assault is infamous … most people have heard of the Rape of Nanking. The result was that in Chinatown, neighbors were at war with neighbors within what was basically a pan-Asian ghetto.
This discovery directly inspired the plot of CITY OF DRAGONS. Chinatown is one of my favorite places in the world, and I enjoyed every hour I spent in research.
Can you tell us a two-sentence horror story?
I was a horror fan in high school; I read quite a few classics of the genre. Once I got older, I turned away from it—I saw too much real-life horror for it to provide any escape value (with a few exceptions—I thought the film Get Out was brilliant.)
Anyway, I’d say we are living in a horror story every day. And the sentence I live in dread of is “The elections will not be held.”
What else would you want readers to know about you?
I have been a comic collector since I was little—mostly DC—and ran a successful comic book/pop culture store with my family (only woman-owned store at the time in the US) before going back to school for my graduate degree and (from there) becoming a novelist. I met and knew some wonderful, fascinating people—comic book legends like Jack Kirby, science fiction legends like Harlan Ellison, and all-around legends like Robin Williams, who was a customer.
Batman has been my favorite superhero since I can remember.
Where can readers find you online?
My website has a lot of information and videos and playlists at www.kellistanley.com.
I’m also on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Threads, and am always happy to hear from readers!
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