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All Quotes by author - Jennifer McMahon
" All my life, I had this idea that if I could unravel the mystery that was my mother, then I could help save her. But it didn't really work. We were close, but she struggled with mental illness and alcoholism, and it was rough at times. "
She
My Life
Work
" Although in my life the level of loss has never reached the extremes it does in 'The Winter People,' I certainly can identify with being both a daughter longing for her mother and being a mother who is almost scared by the intensity of her love for her daughter. "
Daughter
Love
Life
" At the heart of every story is conflict - whether external or internal, make it a good one, and remember that this problem is going to shape your character, leaving her forever changed. "
Good
Heart
Story
" Do me a favor - right now, today, start a list of all your crazy obsessions, the things that get your heart pumping, that wake you up in the middle of the night. Put it above your desk and use it to guide you, to jumpstart your writing each and every day. "
Writing
Today
Night
" I absolutely love writing about the things that scare me, the things that keep me up at night. I don't quite know why. Perhaps because so many things do scare me, and this is my subconscious way of trying to exercise some control over things that go bump in the night! "
Writing
Control
Know
" I believed then - in a deep, easy way that is impossible for me as an adult - that there was more to this world than meets the eye. Trees had spirits; the wind spoke. If you followed a toad or a raven deep into the heart of the forest, they were sure to lead you to something magical. "
Deep
Heart
Impossible
" I do believe in ghosts, or at least in some kind of persistent spiritual echoes of the past in certain places. "
Ghosts
Believe
Past
" I found many treasures in the woods over the years: shotgun shells, empty Colt 45 bottles, old railroad spikes, orange and black beetles eating a dead mouse, pebbles that looked just like teeth, old stone walls and cellar holes, a rusted out frying pan, the skull of a cat. "
Black
Eating
Orange
" If there was a way to bring someone back, would you do it, no matter what the consequences might be? I know that for me, my logical mind says, 'Of course not!' But the truth is, when you lose someone who is so close to you, it's as if they are a part of you; there's always one more thing to say, one more moment you wish you'd had. "
Me
Truth Is
Truth
" I graduated with a B.A. from Goddard College in 1991 and then studied poetry for a year in the M.F.A. in Writing Program at Vermont College. "
Poetry
Year
Writing
" I have a friend who calls me the queen of the nightmares because I've always had really bad nightmares. I keep a notebook by the side of my bed, so I'll wake up in the night from a bad dream, and my heart's pounding, and I'm really scared, but I write it down, and sometimes I get ideas for books that way. "
Friend
Queen
Night
" I have a pretty open mind about supernatural stuff - I do believe that there's more to this world than what meets the eye. "
Believe
Eye
Mind
" I just try to write the best story I can, a story I would love to read, and hope that readers feel the same. "
Story
Hope
Feel
" I practically lived in the woods when I was a kid, avoiding grown-ups and my dysfunctional family, pretending I was half-wolf, a feral child who napped in nests made out of ferns, ate wild blueberries, and wove sticks and feathers into her hair. "
Woods
Family
Child
" I studied poetry in college and for a year in an MFA program. As time went on, my poems got more and more complicated. What I was really trying to do was tell stories. "
Trying
College
Got
" I think of setting as almost a character of its own, influencing the other characters in ways they're not even aware of. So much of the success of a good ghost story rides on creating a creepy atmosphere; details of the landscape itself can help create a sense of dread. "
Character
Think
Success
" I think we all have a kind of dark side, and that's what keeps life - and characters - interesting. That's one of the things that I'm drawn to write about again and again, the secrets we keep and how they shape us. "
Interesting
Think
Secrets
" I was born in 1968 and grew up in my grandmother's house in suburban Connecticut, where I was convinced a ghost named Virgil lived in the attic. "
Ghost
House
Born
" I wrote my first short story in third grade. "
Story
Wrote
Short Story
" My grandmother was a psychiatrist and possibly the ultimate of all skeptics. But even she couldn't explain the strange noises we so often heard in the attic. "
Explain
Strange
She
" One exercise I always do when I'm getting to know a character is ask her to tell me her secrets. Sit down with a pen and paper, and start with, 'I never told anybody...' and go from there, writing in the voice of your character. "
Voice
Writing
Character
" Over the years, I have been a house painter, farm worker, paste-up artist, Easter Bunny, pizza delivery person, homeless shelter staff member, and counselor for adults and kids with mental illness - I quit my last real job in 2000 to work on writing full-time. "
Job
Work
Homeless
" Poetry taught me a great deal about language and images, but when it came to plotting, I was stumped. It's been very much a learn-by-doing thing for me. "
Great
Much
Poetry
" Some people say, 'Write what you know.' My thing is, 'Write what scares you.' "
You
Some People
Know
" Some things, I think, like fairy books and secret doors, are only meant to be found by children. "
Children
Meant To Be
Think
" You can have the greatest characters in the world and write beautifully, but if nothing's happening, the story falls on its face pretty quickly. "
You
World
Nothing
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