Author Bio:
Angelika Rust was born in Vienna in 1977. These days, she lives in Germany, with her husband, two children and a hyperactive dog. After having tried almost every possible job from pizza delivery girl to HR consultant, she now teaches English to pensioners.
She doesn’t know yet what she wants to be when she grows up, whenever that may be. In the meantime, she writes the occasional book.
What inspires you to write?
There’s inspiration everywhere. Sometimes it’s a song, a bit of emotion traveling on a melody, or a line from the lyrics. Sometimes it’s just something silly someone’s said on the bus, or a pun, or a lonely jacket hanging over a fence. Sometime’s it’s past experiences that demand some sort of closure. Nothing and no one is safe when I’m out looking for a story 🙂
Tell us about your writing process.
I’m probably both an outliner and a seat of the pants writer, but with a heavy tendency toward the second. I usually start with a basic premise and a vague idea where I’d like it to end, but I always let the characters get in my way. They have their very clear opinions on what they are or aren’t willing to do, so any attempt to stuff them into a stiff plot is doomed to fail. Hence my writing process is a rather active one, with me moving to and fro between chapters, adding and deleting, or completely rewriting what sounded like a good idea on page 5 but was rendered completely absurd by what one character decided to do on page 57…
In one of my books, the entire story takes place within more or less 24 hours, involving quite a few people all over town. I really needed an outline there, or else I would have ended up totally confused as to who is where, when, doing what. I found an Excel sheet to be pretty helpful.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Yes, I probably do that. I tend to talk them through dialogues. Aloud. I also assume posture and facial expression of the POV character, and run through the same set of emotions as they. Means I laugh when they laugh, get angry, even cry (which is completely useless – try writing when your vision’s completely blurred!). Which is why I prefer to be alone when I write. Don’t want to frighten people 🙂
What advice would you give other writers?
Only one: Do it.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I can’t really say what made me decide to self-publish. I guess I was simply overwhelmed by the amount of publishers and agents, like the proverbial mouse in the supermarket, who can’t decide on which brand of cheese to eat first. Also, I was curious to see whether I could pull it off. Being my own boss and setting my own deadlines has its distinct advantages, too 🙂
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
There are so many theories…the self-pub hype will end, e-book will kill paperback, people will stop reading altogether…I simply don’t know. I think there will always be people who appreciate a good book, and independent publishing is adding to that, in so far as people get much more to choose from, and not just what the big publishing houses supply them with.
What do you use?
Beta Readers
What genres do you write?
Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
What formats are your books in?
Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Angelika Rust Home Page Link
Link To Angelika Rust Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7205139.Angelika_Rust
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Angelika-Rust/642236502455275
https://twitter.com/AngelikaRust
http://www.pinterest.com/angelikarust/
