Saturday, April 9, 2011

Write What You DON'T Know . . .

BUT ARE PASSIONATE TO LEARN.

JANICE: The oldest advice for writers is to write what you know. Don't let yourself be limited by this advice. You can learn what you don't know. You can live other lives in other places in other times. How? By doing research, by reading about another time, another place, by visiting the place, by becoming another person. But you must be passionate.



My work-in-progress, Ariadne's Choice, is mythical fiction set in Knossos three thousand years ago when King Minos, Queen Pasiphae, and Princess Ariadne lived in this palace. I have always written about the past, striving to make it come alive for young readers. But never have I tried to go this far back in time. The only way to connect to Knossos and the ancient Minoans is to go to Crete. And so Tom and I flew to Athens and took the night ferry to Heraklion, the major port and only a few miles from Knossos. Tom took this photograph of the north gate to the palace, and later made a watercolor painting he calls "Knossos Vision."