Today was a great day again for our “Seconde” class. We have interviewed the charismatic American author, Eric Price. We have learnt very much about him, and about what he thinks and feels about literature. He has on this day written 2 fantasy novels, many short stories and articles. He has been living in the south of the U.S. for a few years, with his wife and 2 sons. Besides his writing he also helps his wife working on her family farm. He writes in the fantasy genre, and tells us that when he writes, he wants to write a book that somebody like himself when he was younger would have liked to read.
He confesses that, when he was young, he was not interested in reading. This was his short presentation, but we have learnt a lot more about him through our questions:
“How did the idea of becoming an author come to you?”
“I thought: authors are ordinary people, if they can write a book well so can I.”
“How much can you write in a day?”
“It all depends on my inspiration, I never set a limit on myself, some days I can write up to 3000 words, whereas sometimes I only write a 100.”
“Where do you work?
And where do you get your inspiration from?”
“I work in my office, on my desk, but I try to be as isolated as possible, not to get distracted by any interference or movement. I even often close the shutters, to be in my very own world and be able only to think about what I am writing.”
“Do your books convey any particular messages?”
“No, I don’t particularly try to convey any political messages through my stories. I feel like it could get stuck in time and dated, because with time things change, but the message would stay the same.”
“Do you have any writing routine?”
“I guess to a certain extent I do, I like to write my books in chronological order, from the beginning to the end. But if I think of a passage which seems to be later in time, I would keep it and insert it later on in the story.”
Eric Price reveals that writing a book is something very personal. For instance, he tells us that most of his characters come from people he admires, such as other authors, celebrities or even characters from other books. He also says that his writing depends a lot on his mood, he will write better if he is in a good mood.
And there ended our wonderful interview with the very interesting and inspiring Eric Price. It was another wonderful experience, thanks to our teacher Mrs. Fasquel for enabling us to meet and talk with authors, and to Eric Price for answering our questions.
Noah.
