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Interview with author Laine Cunningham
This month we welcome author, Laine Cunningham whose first book is Message Stick, set in Australia’s unforgiving outback. Laine Cunningham: I was a technical editor for an
environmental consulting firm. I had left my position with that company
to take a six month spiritual sabbatical in the Australian outback.
When I returned, I found that the experience had changed me so much I
couldn’t return to my old lifestyle. It was just too stultifying. So I
cashed in my 401K
and started writing fulltime. The first thing I wrote was a memoir
based on my outback journey; the memoir won an award and is posted to
my blog every week. Diverse Traveller: Why did you decide to become a full time writer? Laine Cunningham: Ever since I can remember, I knew
I was going to be a writer. My first effort at writing a story was in
the second grade. The teacher had told us to "write a story." I clearly
remember turning in a page and a half about a pony. Now, the only reason it was a page and a half was because we were
still using that paper with the giant lines. But it had a beginning,
middle and end, just like I knew a story should. Everyone else had
written only a paragraph. I knew that was wrong. No story could be that
short! Imagine how crushed I was when I got the story back to find this
written across the top: "This is too long." I knew she was wrong. Good
thing I realized that early on. My first novel came out this January (2009).
Message Stick has won two national awards, and coverage has included
MSNBC, USA Today, and a variety of regional newspapers in different
states. Diverse Traveller: When you started writing, name one major hurdle and one advantage? Laine Cunningham: The biggest hurdle for all
writers is lack of funding. Nearly everyone has to carve out time to
write from the time it takes to generate income. I solved that problem
by opening my own business. As a publishing industry consultant, I am
able to help other writers improve their work and then take their
manuscripts to the market. The business took some time to grow, of course, and there were some
very difficult years. Although at times I wanted to give up, I didn’t.
I did whatever was necessary to keep going. I took part-time or
temporary jobs doing everything from receptionist to deer hide
processing. I even worked in an egg factory! Eventually the company
took off. Now I have the freedom to travel as much as I need to
research my novels. It’s a great life! The biggest advantage has always been my ability to structure my own
time. I can schedule every day according to differing priorities. I
have become the CEO of my life…maybe not as well paid as most CEOs but
I do all right! Diverse Traveller: How do you balance writing full-time and your personal life? Laine Cunningham: Ha! Balance has been an issue
since day one. For a while I actually didn’t have the money to go out.
I was too ashamed to tell my friends the real reason why I declined
their invitations to movies, clubs or weekend trips. Now I know better
but back then it was a major issue in my life. Nowadays I find that I have enough disposable income to enjoy fun
events but much less time. My clients need my full attention so they
receive the quality my company is known for providing; I also need to
stay fully focused on my novels for long periods of time during the
writing and editing stages. So things have reversed. I handle this in two ways. First, I spend quite a bit of time on the
powwow trail. I dance at Native American powwows three seasons of the
year. These are weekend events and I book the dates months in advance.
It’s a social outlet, a spiritual activity, and it feeds my soul in a
way that is very important to me. The other thing I do is join groups. I don’t join many and am pretty
selective but I’ve found that the members in groups I enjoy have become
friends. We are all very busy and since they have families, they might
be even busier than I am! But we manage to get together at least once a
month as a group and often more than that individually. These are
fellow writers and shamanic practitioners from a variety of programs.
They feed two very important things in my life: writing and
spirituality. Diverse Traveller: Describe an average day in the life of a writer (if there is such a thing)? Laine Cunningham: The first hours of every morning
are dedicated to writing. Nearly half the year, that means writing or
editing my novels. The rest of the time I work for clients. It’s not
six months concurrent but spread out over the year…some mornings I work
on the novel, others I write or rewrite client projects. In the late morning I ghostwrite novels and nonfiction books,
generate book proposals to help other writers approach agents and
publishers, and edit and rewrite drafts other authors have created. Then it’s on to those emails and doing a little marketing for
Message Stick. I usually take a break in the early afternoon and go to
the post office and run errands. Then I return refreshed for another
few hours of client work. An hour of exercise, mostly hiking with my dog, follows, then
another couple of hours of work…mostly stuff that doesn’t require much
thinking like filing. I do a little housework before sitting down to
dinner very late, usually around 9 p.m. This schedule is necessary because I live alone and must support
both myself and my four-legged friend. He is very good about fetching
the paper every morning but he doesn’t have many marketable skills!
Although he does help with the marketing campaign…he posts Australian
slang to his Twitter feed under the handle DingoWannabe every day! Diverse Traveller: What is the best thing about being a writer, and the worst?
To read the rest of my interview with Laine click here.
Diverse Traveller: Laine, what did you do before you started writing?
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