Author Quirks: Susan Meissner

Next up is Susan Meissner, author of White Picket Fences. I asked her:

What's a quirky or little-known fact about yourself, your writing, and/or one of your novels? (For example, you can tell us about a non-standard pet you have, an unusual way you do your writing, a strange real life incident that inspired a scene in one of your novels, or so on.)


Susan Meissner's answer:

Sometimes I will see a person writing madly in a cozy corner at Panera Bread or Starbucks. A warm cuppa rests at an elbow and his or her gaze rests easily, comfortably on their laptop screen. All around them is noise and music and clinking dishes and one or more unhappy toddlers in a stroller, a guy on his Bluetooth talking deals just over their shoulder, and a couple teens giggling about the boys they like. And this writer just keeps writing as if the chaos around them is the fuel for their creativity and yet they aren’t even aware of it.

I look at those people and I envy them. I (insert grumpy face) need silence when I write. No noise or music of any kind, not even an ethereal Enya track floating around me. I need to be in my writing room with either coffee (the morning medication) or a Diet Coke with Lime (the afternoon addiction) and everything around me must be quiet. If I have to write with noise around me, and sometimes when I am on a deadline that happens, I become very Scroogey. I just want to mute the whole world. Not a pretty picture.

Thank you, Ms. Meissner, for sharing this quirky story about your writing habits.