LYNDI SCOTT

An Interview with Lyndi

 

1. When writing, do you wait for the muse, or do you see creating as a job to be done whether the muse is there or not? And by the way, what is your muse.

 

LYNDI: By nature, I am a creator : I paint, I play the piano and improvise melodies and compose. Creating is not what I do - its what I am.

My creative moments – whether I am looking at a tree or coming to a new understanding about my life – are moments when I see myself in touch with my own authentic truth, when I experience my unique presence in the world; a sensation of myself being indivisible from the whole.

I guess you could say the world is my muse, and so are my emotions and reactions to what I experience.

 

2. Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?

 

LYNDI: It was like any other school day - I was writing an essay about shells on a beach - a homework assignment. I realised how in love i was with words. I started out a terrible writer - full of cliches and spelling mistakes. My stories were given low marks no matter how hard I tried to elevate my scores. My poetry on the other hand, was good. I won the High School Poetry prize almost every year. My very first book I wrote as a teenager - it was a children's book based on the CS Lewis Narnia Range - children escaping into a world via a closet. I had my own escaping to do, and I used the story to imagine my escape from my own life. I gave the story to a girl in my class to read - she was the English boffin. She brought it back to me the next day encouraging me to keep going, that she loved my ideas. I think she was being polite - I read it years later: it was boring and riddled with grammatical errors.

 

3. Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?

 

LYNDI: As a young girl, my mother read Enid Blytons Faraway tree to me. Every night I couldn't wait for bedtime to see what new world was waiting for me at the top of the tree. I read almost every book by Enid Blyton, and spent hours pretending I was the girl detective, Nancy Drew.

 

4. Describe your desk.

 

LYNDI: My desk sits on my balcony looking out on the Indian Ocean - my laptop, books I am reading and using for research, a desk calendar, pens, pencils, notebooks are neatly arranged.

 

5. Where did you grow up?

 

LYNDI: On a farm in the apartheid era where black was black and white was white and that boundary was never crossed.

 

6. When did you first start writing?

 

LYNDI: From the very beginning. the day i held a confused emotion in my head. i wrote to make sense of the world - i still do it today. My thoughts are much closer and clearer when i put them on paper. my great loves have always been stationary stores and libraries - there is something about the smell of paper and pencils - I have always been a reader and had journals where I kept my thoughts. I have been writing since I could hold a pencil.

 

7. FANS?

 

LYNDI: I see my fans as family - they probably know me better than my real-world family and friends. My verbal communication is unsteady and I am misunderstood easily. If you ask anyone who knows me, they will say I am very rarely out and about. When it comes to family get togethers I don't stay very long or don't go at all. I keep myself for my books. Readers know me better than anyone because it is in my writing that I come alive. I would say the same for music, but music is not as direct.

 

8. What made you want to be a writer?

 

LYNDI: I wanted to be HEARD. I wanted people to know me. I am a terrible verbal communicator and easily misunderstood. This frustrates me. If I write, then I am understood - both by myself and by others.

 

9. How do you write?

 

LYNDI: Mostly on my IPad on my lap while I watch my kids play. Other times my laptop. Always have a pen and notebook ready for jotting down ideas. Ideas come to me while I'm driving in my car, usually from lyrics from a song - I stop my car and write them into a notebook. My kids always ask, 'Mom, why are you stopping here? Has the car broken down?'

 

10. What are your WRITE conditions?

 

LYNDI: You need to know that I am naturally obsessive compulsive so I need order - order in my environment and order inside my head - that's when I write the best. But being compulsive, I need to write and read all the time. If I stop, I just get depressed. It's almost as if writing keeps the Ghosts of the Past at bay. I love to write in solitude, early morning when its quiet. There is a special energy at 4am in the morning - humanity hasn't woken up and the life energy in the world is very clear and honest. It's a wonderful time to write...and meditate.

 

11. What does true creativity require?

 

LYNDI: The artist to surrender to the moment. It's called getting into the Zen Zone. Zen lies dormant, deep inside us, only coming into the world when we are being fully present. In order to do this, one has to be ready and become “one” with – the music, life, the opposition, the moment, your instrument, the other musicians, the audience, the universe. The writer, musician, creator becomes “the music.” 'The words' 'the canvas'. The true writer goes through deep internalization and processing to come up with art of great depth. They go to a different dimension. It's almost as if there are forces beyond yourself that are driving your writing to higher planes of consciousness.

 

12. What is the most difficult part about writing?

 

LYNDI: The Editing process - I must have edited and rewritten my latest book Have Piano Will Travel over 18 times. It's exhausting never feeling something is complete or perfect. I intuitively realise my book will never be perfect because I am evolving into a better writer as days pass.

 

13. What is hardest – getting published, writing or marketing?

 

LYNDI: Writing, the creative energy is always in flux, ebbing and flowing. It takes a huge amount of self discipline to keep going.

 

14. What marketing works for you?

 

LYNDI: Social media has been the best thing to happen to artists - music, photography, art, writing - it's blossomed as the audience has exploded. You can now reach anyone and everyone without the need for an in-between man. You can be your own SUCCESS.

 

15. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned as writer?

 

LYNDI: That people love what I write, that they connect with me and my life. I find it incredible to be valuable to others, to touch others

 

16. What’s your latest big project?

 

LYNDI: I am working on my memoir Have Piano Will Travel and short story compilation.

 

17. How did you come up with the title for your memoir?

 

LYNDI: I knew I had to incorporate two words - Piano and Travelling and make the title as short and quirky as possible.

 

18. WHEN YOU THINK IT WILL BE RELEASED? End of 2014 hopefully.

 

19. The book that made me want to become an author was...

 

LYNDI:  Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby - I have read that book at least ten times and it still creates within me an intense desire to become a better bolder writer. 'Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, ' Priceless. And Jane Austen... My favourite line comes from her book, Emma, 'Seldom, very seldom does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.'

 

20. What is the secret to enticing writing?

 

LYNDI: Show don't tell. Show your story through living, breathing, bleeding, hurting, happy people. Draw an intimate picture of what's going on in your scenes as well as inside your characters. Don't tell the reader what to think. Oh, and it helps if you nail spelling and punctuation.

 

21. Can you share some tidbits about your passions?

 

LYNDI: I am PASSIONATE about breathing! About life! And I am passionate about HONESTY.

 

22. What is the writing process like?

 

LYNDI: Exhausting and invigorating, intense, nourishing, experiencing a rainbow of emotions in a shower of rain.

 

23. How many hours a week do you spend writing?

 

LYNDI: I write 5- 6 hrs a day, and spend the rest of my day on social media and with my kids.

 

24. When do you do your best writing?

 

LYNDI: Early morning, when my mind is open and focused - which is anytime I've had a cup of coffee.

 

25. What inspires you?

 

LYNDI: Humanity, humbleness, guts, boldness, courage, my children's innocence, love.

 

26. Revisions; love 'em or hate 'em?

 

LYNDI: HATE. The End.

 

27. What compels you to write the genre that you do?

 

LYNDI: I like to be intensely personal. I love honesty. And I love hearing and witnessing other people's life stories and evolution. I love writing about being human and what it means to suffer and still have the courage to stand up and move forward towards the light. What makes someone decide to fight the storm and even thrive in it? Humans fascinate me.

 

28. How do you write what you know about without writing about yourself?

 

LYNDI: I place myself in someone else's shoes. I get personal stories and relate it back to myself. I find it easy to empathize. I EXPERIENCE very easily.

 

29. Do you put people in your books you know?

 

LYNDI: Absolutely. But they'll never know and if they surmise I am talking and writing about them, I will deny it or call them narcissistic. If they didn't want me to write uncomfortable situations about them, they should have behaved better.

 

30. Where did you get the inspiration to write?

 

LYNDI: Through music, through art, through a desperation to create, to matter, through a desire to live deeply, through the sheer desperation to be SEEN and HEARD.

 

31. Complete this sentence:The Writers Inner journey is…

 

LYNDI: ….complicated, obtuse, confusing, invigorating, surreal, dreamlike, atmospheric, enigmatic.

 

32. Who are you when you write?

 

LYNDI: An OBSERVER. With a closely guarded secret.

 

33. When do you think of ideas for your stories?

 

LYNDI: Through Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook - human stories and experiences, driving my car, walking on the beach.

 

34. Finish this thought: You love to write because…

 

LYNDI: ....it makes me feel alive.

 

35. Using words like a faucet-is that the way they pour out of you?

 

LYNDI: Absolutely, once my pen touches paper, words start to pour through me. I sometimes wonder if I plug into an eternal intelligence because most times I read over what I write and say, "Wow, that is good stuff. And hell, it surely wasn't me who wrote that, was it?"

 

36. Beginning, middle, or end?

 

LYNDI: End, please let the agony of writing the story end. Neatly, deeply, significantly.

 

37. How do acquire the discipline to write every day?

 

LYNDI:  I have been a musician all my life, which is a form of meditation and requires a huge amount of discipline and persistence. You could say it trained me to be the writer I am today. I also have an inner drive, a passion that needs to be fed each day with 1000 words haha.

 

38. Words of wisdom for aspiring authors?

 

LYNDI: Learn to be disciplined. The more time you spend writing, the better you will become at it - writing is like a muscle - train it by sticking to 1000 words a day five days a week. Anyone can say they want to write a book - anyone can start a book - what separates the true writer from the wannabe's is the able to persevere until the end. Of course, then there is the editing process and criticism from those in the field. Writing is noble art and also injurious to the spirit - you must develop a deep belief in what you are saying and doing, a strong foundation of self belief or you will wither under the spotlight when you put your writing out there.

 

39. What is the principal message you want to send to your readers?

 

LYNDI: Be aware. Be present. Be alive. Seize the day, cherish those you love, sleep when you're dead.

 

40. Should the power of fiction soften reality?

 

LYNDI: NEVER - truth is incredibly intoxicating and addictive. Tell it like it is - don't candycoat.

 

41. What are the main themes in your book?

 

LYNDI: Death, and life, and what happens inbetween.

 

42. What is the best advice anybody every gave you?

 

LYNDI: Be yourself, persevere until you reach success. No one will drive your success but you. Dr Seuss said 'today you are you, that is truer than true, there is no one alive that is you'er than you'.

 

43. What do you like best about being a writer?

 

LYNDI: The creativity, the individuality - no boss telling me what to do. And ofcourse, it settles my obsessive need to create and find meaning. What do you like the least? Lack of reliable income, writers block, self doubt, depression, editing.

 

44. Where can readers find out more about you and your book on the internet? EatSleepWrite.net and my Facebook Lyndi Scott and Twitter @AuthorLyndiS.

 

45. Would you read us an excerpt from…..Have Piano Will Travel?

 

LYNDI:  Yes I would love too!

 

I am here to write my story. I want you - allow you - to get to know me, understand me before I die. I won't only be a beautiful face faded with age, or the wonderful mother of two children. I won't be the woman who, to everyone's amazement  left her first husband and married a second kinder, moreforgiving, man. I won't only be a piano player that traveled a good few countries, or the inspiring teacher who left behind a string of successful musicians. None of this seems important right now. Allof us are so much more than what's on our surface, more than our memories, our jobs, our assets, our titles.

 

Why must I wait till death to give you an understanding of who I was?

 

Right here, this moment, I am ready to receive your mind and let that invisible shaft of the light that joins you to me, connect your understanding with mine, Be gentle with me, for I write for you gently too. You will hear of my hurt, I will remember yours as I unfold my story. I will close my eyes and bear for your fingers to dig deeply into my sensitive existence.

 

My story begins with a diary. When she died, my mother found my Grandmother's diary which no one knew anything about before. You must understand: my gran had spent her life living for the happiness of others; in the family she was always portrayed as someone with strength and presence and such a concern for others, were she ever to have had any thoughts for own thoughts and feelings?To us, she was jolly and when she laughed, laughed always deeply from the heart - the gut - so it seemed, so content in her cuddlesome splendour. But ...a diary?

 

The numerous crossings-out and rewriting bore testimony to a tortured soul trying to exact understanding from her paper companion. It is clear she wanted to say her piece truthfully - like it was. Not happy with a sentence, she  put a line through it: ''feeling sad most of today', replaced by 'total despair.'  Importantly, she had sprinkled random notes about her sad marriage. I never knew it. I never knew how sad and lonely she was, how desperately purposeless her life felt to her.

 

Makes me think: how many others have I similarly blindly misunderstood? How many around me are unable to paint me a truthful picture of themselves because they acted in fear of my judgement? We are dishonest on purpose, I suppose; our fear holds us back from telling the whole truth about ourselves. As if fearing Life swiftly brings it closer to us. Most of us are, in fact, metaphorically dead to one another, paralyzed; one black mass of quivering anxiety, sinking into a Nebulous Void of not really understanding one another.

 

46. What five words best describe you?

 

LYNDI: Obsessive, compassionate, dandy, contagious, enigmatic.

 

47. If you were to create a writing soundtrack, what artists would be on it?

 

LYNDI: Coldplay, Evanescence, Beethoven, Guns 'n Roses, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Queen, Beatles.

 

48. Do you laugh at your own jokes as you write them?

 

LYNDI: Absolutely - and during the editing stage, I laugh at them again. I find myself ridiculously funny.

 

49. Do you write full time or do you keep a day job?

 

LYNDI: I write five days a week and over weekends I play the piano.

 

50. What do you do when you are not writing?

 

LYNDI:  I read, play piano, research online for writing advise, play games with my children,.. And walk alone - that's great for opening the mind - walking is like a shower of rain for the creative mind.

 

51. What is the best piece of advice you ever received from another author?

 

LYNDI: Randall Andrews SHOW DON'T TELL

 

52. What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?

 

LYNDI: Are you ok? Are you lonely? What's bugging you? What makes you feel alive? What makes you feel loved? What touches your soul?

 

53. Who are you reading right now?

 

LYNDI: Jonathan Safran Foer Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

 

54. You are hosting a dinner party and must invite 3 famous people. Who would you choose and why?

 

LYNDI: Deepak Chopra, Albert Einstein, Seinfeld - spiritualist, scientist, comedian - perfect mix - I'll let them thrash it out.

 

55. Are you a morning person or a night owl?

 

LYNDI: Morning.

 

56. Biggest fear.

 

LYNDI: Rejection, insignificance, decay.

 

57. Favorite TV Show?

 

LYNDI: Seinfeld.

 

58. First item on your bucket list?

 

LYNDI: Fly in a hot air balloon over the Serengeti.

 

59. Happiest moment in your life to date?

 

LYNDI: The birth of my son and daughter.

 

60. If aliens landed in front of you and, in exchange for anything you desire, offered you any position on their planet, what would you want?

 

LYNDI: Philanthropic Peacemaker - give to the poor and keep everyone communicating without judgement of our differences.

 

61. If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?

 

LYNDI: Healer - heal physical and emotional pain. I would love to be a psychic or medium and bring people messages from the Other Side.

 

62. If you could meet anybody in history, past or present, who would it be?

 

LYNDI: The character in Breakfast at Tiffany's played by Audrey Hepburn. That girl is me and I know we would understand each other perfectly.