New York Times best-selling author M.J. Rose grew up in New York City mostly in the labyrinthine galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, the dark tunnels and lush gardens of Central Park, and reading her mother’s favorite books before she was allowed. Her novel The Collector of Dying Breaths was chosen as an Indie Next Pick, and her latest novel, The Secret Language of Stones, will be released this month. She has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, WSJ, Time, USA Today, and on the Today Show and NPR radio. The television series Past Life was based on novels in Rose’s Reincarnationist series. She is one of the founding board members of International Thriller Writers and currently serves, with Lee Child, as the organization’s co-president. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, the musician and composer Doug Scofield, and their very spoiled dog, Winka.
What made you decide to be an author?
When I was 12 I wanted to be a poet and painter. When I was 18 I wanted to be a painter. When I was 30 I wanted to be a screenwriter. I was always in love with art and very much wanted my life to be about creating beautiful things that would move people. To make a living I went into advertising and at thirty I was the creative director of a big NCY ad agency. I started writing screenplays — hoping one would get produced and I’d move into telling stories full time. When one was stolen and made into a very bad movie, I started my first novel.
Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants?
I need to see my characters, hear them, smell them and really understand them before I start writing. So I spend three months creating a scrapbook with collages and images in it while I do my research . . . the scrapbook becomes a blueprint for the main characters. I draw in it, make notes, cut out images . . . have fun with it really. I call it procrastinate your way into writing a novel. By the time I’m done I know about 10-20 big beats — or scenes in the book.
What non-crime books do you enjoy reading?
I actually read very very little crime. I read historical fiction and gothic novels more especially they have a little paranormal, a little magic or witchery.
How do you handle rejection or bad reviews?
I invite the criticism of people I trust and take it to heart and try to improve my work basted on it. I want to know what my editor, agent and beta readers say. I want to know how they think I can improve my work.
But I can’t read reviews of my work — bad or good — too many comments are subjective. One person finds my book too erotic, another not erotic enough. Another reader damns me for writing about a witch and say I’m going to hell.
There’s simply no way to deal with all that and stay sane.
What advice would you give to beginning writers?
Writing is an art, publishing is a business and an oft broken business at that. You can’t control the market or the fads. Write only because you love it — because you cannot dream of not writing. Write for your own pleasure, write for your heart, your soul and your own entertainment.