What if your entire life passed by in just seven days? 16-year-old Delaney Archer is always chasing the last minute. Even so, she’s about to graduate as valedictorian . . . until one morning she wakes up . . . in graduate school. 7 years have disappeared overnight. Then she wakes up the next day, and another 7 years are gone. Now she must figure out what’s happening . . . before time runs out . . .
What would you do if you woke up and seven years had passed overnight? Here to explore the mysterious life of Delaney Archer with me is R.T.W. Lipkin, author of the coming of age time travel novel, ‘Never Enough Time’. Time is such an important part of our lives, and I really love that this novel challenges the reader to really think about the passage of time as they follow Delaney’s path. Looking back, do you remember the first sparks that lead to this adventure through time?
The idea came to me out of nowhere, really. A flash of inspiration, which isn’t always how it goes. I knew instantly that I had to start writing this book immediately even though I was in the middle of writing another, unrelated, novel that I was very involved with. I ended up writing both books at the same time, which I’d never done before. But it worked out.
Writing two entirely different books at the same time is quite the challenge! Were you lucky enough to find that the characters, like Delaney, developed in a flash like the plot?
The characters were just there. The book flowed. I never had to stop or grind. It was pretty damned miraculous, and I hope that I’ll have a few more books work out this way. But I’m happy with the other way, too, which is to just sit down and write every day. The work creates its own inspiration.
That’s awesome, I love that your book creates its own inspiration! Even though the inspiration was self-creating, did you find yourself ever dipping into events from your own life to add a little texture to the tale?
Although Delaney’s experiences are not mine, I drew on my lifetime of experience in writing this. Because I have certainly wasted many days, months, and years.
I think everyone has wasted days, months or even years, but I feel that is important to try and reduce that waste. And perhaps one way that people could do this is by understanding the important messages of books before they take them on. What did you feel was the most important message that you wanted to communicate to readers in this book?
Time races by, faster than we think. Cherish every moment.
Time does race, but I’m sure you cherished every moment of the writing process. Now that your work has been published, what do you feel was your greatest learning experience getting it to market?
The biggest was that I’m capable of writing two unrelated books at the same time. I was writing 4,000+ words every day, which I never thought I’d be able to do.
4,000+ words a day is fantastic! I’m sure when you managed to get your writing up to this pace it simply couldn’t be turned off, so I’m sure you’ve followed this up with another book. What can you tell us about your next project?
I’m going to publish a four-book dystopian fantasy in the fall. It’s completed, but right now I’m concentrating on marketing Never Enough Time, so prepping the new series for publication will have to wait another month or so.
I’m also writing a new series, but I don’t discuss unfinished projects. Call me superstitious!
Let’s not tempt fate! Since we can’t divulge all of your secrets let’s go back to that awesome 4000+ word daily output. With such a large output, do you feel that writing energizes or exhausts you
Energize. Always. Doing nothing exhausts me.
Well, with so many words been turned out on a daily basis I don’t imagine that you sit around doing nothing for long. When you are writing, what are you thinking about?
I have nothing in mind while I’m writing. The mind interferes, getting between inspiration and production, so I leave my mind out of the creative process.
As you’ve learnt to keep your mind away from your creative thinking, and you’ve kept writing, do you think you’ve seen significant improvement in your skills?
Yes. And no. Because when I see the couple of things I still have that I wrote when I was a little kid, I see that I was interested in the same things then that interest me now: love, transcendence, the wonder of everything, the cosmos. So my topics are similar. But my voice has changed. It changes with every book.
How has this changing voice affected your branding efforts? Have you worked on developing an author brand to tie your work together?
I write what I want to write. When I was setting up my website last year I brainstormed about what it is that ties everything together, which is how I came up with my tagline: transcendent possibilities.
I think it’s too soon to tell what rewards this branding has produced.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see! In the meantime, what advice do you personally follow, or do you recommend for other authors looking to develop themselves?
Advice to aspiring writers: Write every damn day. Don’t let anything stop you. Write even if you think you have nothing to say because if you want to write, you do have something to say. The more you do this, the more inspiration and ideas will just come to you. This works. No kidding.
I have to agree with you there! The more you write, the more you can write because your brain kicks in and starts tossing you more ideas than you could ever write! But not all of these ideas are undocumented, from time to time they turn into interesting things like quickfire questions! Let’s try a few of them on for size today to see if we can get our minds in top writing gear. And the first question is, if money doesn’t grow on trees then why do banks have branches?
You crack me up! And everyone knows that banks defy the laws of nature.
*Laughs* Okay, let’s see if we can figure out the laws of nature in the next question, can you cry underwater?
Underwater is not my preferred milieu. I’d probably be screaming!
*Laughs* I’m not sure how much experience you have with underwater situations, but an open mouth is not a good idea! You know, if you’re going to open your mouth you want something good to come out it, like some awesome words. What’s your favourite word?
I envision a universal language made up of the best words from every language. For example, I love the Korean word for “no”–aniyo. It’s so emphatic!
I love the idea of a universal language made from the best of every language on earth. You really should put this idea into action in your next book! Actually, I love this idea so much that I’m going to let you go back to your writing projects so you can get this moving! Thanks so much for joining me today, and sharing a snippet of ‘Never Enough Time’.
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Excited to read the book we discussed today? Find it here on Amazon: ‘Never Enough Time (Bargain Book $0.99) ( ASIN: B07DHCBSNH )‘.
Want to find out more about R. T. W. Lipkin? Connect here!