Q&A With Julie Clark 

Tonight I’m doing a Q&A with Julie Clark who is the New York Times, USA Today and International bestselling author of “The Last Flight,” and “The Lies I Tell.” 

Q:  What is your advice to anyone wanting to be a writer, especially someone wanting to write mystery thrillers like you do?

A: First and foremost, read a lot! Pay attention to how thriller writers pace their books, the different ways they reveal secrets and when. Pay attention to where the twists are in the book – big twists and smaller ones. Don’t give up on books you don’t like, learn from them. Read them and study what went wrong. Think about what you would do to fix them if you were the author. The second piece of advice is to write every day. You don’t need hours and hours either. Carve out fifteen, thirty, sixty minutes every day and use that time to put words on paper. Pretty soon those words will add up to a book.

Q: What advice do you have for anyone who is struggling with writers block or lack of inspiration? 

A: One of my go-to strategies for writer’s block (or a plot problem in general) is to journal about the problem. Write long hand in a notebook with a good pen. Let yourself put all your worries and frustrations onto the page – the parts that are still confusing, the parts you know aren’t working. Pretty soon your mind will feel ready to tackle them and solutions will appear where there weren’t any before.

Q: If you had to choose which book did you have the most fun writing? 

A: This is a hard question – it’s like asking me which of my kids I like the best. They were all fun for different reasons. I loved doing the genetic research for The Ones We Choose and turning those into very short, emotional interstitial chapters. In The Last Flight I loved trying to figure out how Eva was going to convince Claire to trade plane tickets with her. In The Lies I Tell my favorite part was thinking through Meg’s cons and how meticulously she researched and got ready for them.

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to any of your novels? 

A: Yes, we have optioned all three books, but that’s all I can really say about it right now.

Q: What were your favorite novels you read this year so far?

A: So many! But just turning around to look at my bookshelf, I loved The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson. Another fun favorite was Alexandra Andrews’s Who Is Maud Dixon? I absolutely loved Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow as well as an upcoming book by Wendy Walker titled What Remains which is releasing next year.

Q: Are you writing a new novel now? If so can you spoil a little bit about it? 

A: I am, but I’m not in a place where I’m ready to talk too much about it. Stay tuned!