N.P. Thompson once had a goal of reading every single book in her elementary school library. She was the kid who never went anywhere without at least one paperback tucked away in her bag and she wrote her first story, a fanfic based on The Black Cauldron, in third grade. She is the author of River of Crows (both a 2023 Canadian Book Club Awards finalist and a 2023 international Wishing Shelf Book Awards Silver Medal winner), Mirror of Wolves, and Stone of Serpents.
1. Do you prefer ebooks, printed books, or audiobooks most of the time?
Printed books are definitely my favorite medium for reading. There’s just something about holding a book in your hand and flipping the pages that can’t be replicated with e-books. But my eyesight is not as good as it used to be, so I have started using e-books because I can make the font as big as I need to with them. I’m actually not a fan of audiobooks – I just don’t have the patience to sit and listen to someone else read a book to me. I always want to read a book myself, at my own speed!
2. What are common traps for new authors?
I certainly can’t speak for all authors, but I do think a lot of people sometimes run into trouble with perfectionism. They end up getting stuck because they feel that first draft has to be the draft, and they can’t seem to get the words down unless they’re convinced that they’re the right words, right from the start. But you’re not aiming for perfection with the first draft. The first draft is just you trying to get the story out. At this stage, you’re basically just trying to get yourself to understand what needs to happen and when – the broad strokes. These aren’t necessarily going to be the words you end up keeping, however.
And that’s the way it should be. Because the real magic in writing comes in the revising stages. That’s where you take that first, beautifully imperfect draft, and rework it and refine it and polish it up into something wonderful. You don’t want to get stuck in that first stage, because then you’ll get frustrated and start doubting yourself, and then you’ll never actually finish any of your stories.
3. Have pets ever gotten in the way of your writing?
Oh, yes. I have a very lazy cat who spends most of her day rotating between her various nap zones. But when she wants attention, she is very demanding and very yowly. And she will interrupt writing time and even work meetings if she thinks I’m not paying attention to her when she wants to be petted.
4. What is your schedule like when you’re writing a book?
I have a full-time day job, so most of my writing is done in whatever little pockets of time I can carve out around that and my other responsibilities. Sometimes I write early in the morning, and sometimes I write for a bit after work. Most of my writing is done on weekends, though.
5. Do you ever stop writing and start something different?
I try not to. I think the key to writing, at least for me, is to stay focused on the current project and just get it done. People always ask where a writer gets their ideas, but once you start writing you quickly learn that ideas aren’t the hard part. You will have more ideas for books than you ever thought possible. The hard part is cultivating the discipline that keeps you focused, despite all those tangents you desperately want to go off and explore, so that you can actually finish a project.
My best advice to new authors is to pick a story idea, put every other idea on hold, and throw everything you have into getting that first book done. Prove to yourself that you can finish writing an entire book, and then you’ll know that you can get those other ideas written out, too. I heard somewhere once that something like 81% of the population “wants to write a book someday.” But the vast majority of those people will never actually do it because writing is hard and most people like to avoid hard things. But you can take on that challenge and be one of the very few who has the determination to follow through on that dream. You can build an entire world that never existed before. That’s power. And it can be a real force for good because you never know how your story will touch other people. Think about the books that got you through some of the rough stuff in your own life. Your future book could be the one that helps someone else someday—but only if you finish it.
(Oh—I should also mention that when you do get all those other book ideas you should definitely take a moment to jot some notes down. If you don’t, you’ll be kicking yourself later because you’ll remember you had a fantastic idea but you won’t remember what that idea actually was – trust me on this one!)
6. Do you only write for one genre?
For now, yes. My focus for the foreseeable future is to finish my current middle grade series. I do have an adult action-fantasy series on the backburner that I’ll get to at some point.
7. Do you let people read your work before it is finished?
Never. First drafts are not meant for other people’s eyes. First drafts are just me telling the story to myself. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say they’re the stories telling themselves to me. But, until they’ve gone through several rounds of revisions and are “mostly finished”, they’re not ready for anyone else to read.
8. Do you write on the computer or freehand?
Both. I mostly write on the computer, but I do write freehand in a notebook, too. Especially when I’m feeling stuck with a particular scene. Sometimes the change of medium helps me break out of a writing slump.
9. What do you do when you feel stuck?
I pace back and forth in agitation, muttering darkly about plot holes, mostly. 😉
In all seriousness, when I get stuck, I sometimes try brainstorming the scene in Scapple to try and work out the issue. (Scapple is a software application that allows me to make digital sticky notes and move them around the screen and draw lines between them and color code them and stuff.)
Sometimes I try writing in a different location than I usually do, or I switch over to using my trusty purple pen and a notebook instead of my computer.
Sometimes, I’ll move on to another book in the series for a bit to see if I can get the words flowing, and then I switch back to the project I’m supposed to be working on (see the question above about finishing projects)!
And sometimes, no matter what I try, the Muse simply will not cooperate. And that’s okay, too. Sometimes you need a writing break. And you just have to trust that you’ll get back to your story once your brain has had some time–be it days or weeks–to decompress. I find the answers to thorny writing problems always come eventually, even though it can be very frustrating when you’re really stuck with a scene and just can’t seem to figure it out right away.
10. How do you celebrate when you finish a project?
I start working on the next book, of course! My kids, however, think I should be baking cakes to celebrate. (They’re probably right. Any excuse for cake!)
Thank you for the peek into your writing process, Nathalie! Please check out River of Crows in our Bookshop, Nathalie's website, and her social media accounts. Keep shining!
Website: https://NPTwrites.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/npt_writes
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