Donna Andrews writes two award-winning mystery series, one of which features a blacksmith, the other featuring an artificial intelligence personality. Donna has won the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Romantic Times, Lefty and Toby Bromberg Awards, and is a member of MWA and Sisters in Crime.

Tayler Bloom: What authors and films make you laugh? What specifically do you like about their humor?

Donna Andrews: Let's see...long list, and I'll probably leave someone out. Monty Python. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. (Especially Bedazzled.) Joan Hess. Sharyn McCrumb. Charlotte MacLeod. Terry Pratchett. Alexei Panshin's Starwell trilogy. The Twelve Chairs. The Wrong Box. Black Adder. Robin Williams. George Carlin. The Marx Brothers. The Crimson Pirate. Richard Lester. Under the Rainbow. Tom Conti. Boston Legal. Bringing Up Baby. Philadelphia Story. Holiday. The Far Side. Dave Barry.

And as with most humor, if I could articulate what I liked about any of the above, they'd probably stop being funny.

Tayler Bloom: Is writing humor something that comes naturally in the first draft, or something you craft in the rewrites? If so, how?

Donna Andrews: It varies. Some things arrive in the first draft and never change. Others things I tweak and twiddle with a hundred times until I get them right--or until I finally decide they're never going to work and I toss them out.

And I work on humor--especially humorous dialogue--while driving. Honestly. If you see me driving along, apparently talking to myself, I'm probably deep in the throes of creating a really funny scene. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Tayler Bloom: What advice would you give a writer wanting to inject humor into their writing?

Donna Andrews: Stop now while you can! Seriously, humor is very hard; and the idea of
someone making a conscious decision to inject it into his or her writing
doesn't ring true. If humor is the way you react to the world. . . if
it's a tool you use to cope or a weapon you keep in your arsenal against
life's battles . . . if it's second nature, then you should use your
humor in your writing--provided you can capture on paper what amuses you
when you think or say it. Some people appreciate humor and can't
produce it; some people are funny in life but not on paper.

I'm not sure it's possible to teach someone how to write, much less
write funny--you can give people tools and tips and encouragement, but
it's like riding a bicycle--at some point you have to let go of the curb
and do it. And one reason humor is so hard is that analyzing it is like
performing what scientists (and CSIs) call destructive testing--by the
time you're finished, your sample is gone. Is there anything worse than
someone trying to explain a joke? Trying to teach humor is like that.

I remember when my writer friend Ann McMillan was giving a talk doing
research for historical writing. She quoted someone--I can't remember
who, so apologies to the writer I can't credit--who said to do all your
research and then lock it all in a trunk--you won't have to go open your
trunk; the bits of your research that you need for the work your doing
will claw their way out of the trunk on their own and onto your page.
Humor's much the same way. If you're meant to write funny, humor will
creep into what you're doing in spite of you.

So put it on the page, slave over it until you think it's right, then
test it on your trusted critiquers--and brace yourself, because you
might find out that you weren't meant to write humor.

Or maybe, if you're lucky, that you were born to do it.

Tayler Bloom: What does an average day look like for you? Is your writing
schedule set by page counts or hours at the computer? Advantages of this?

Donna Andrews: Well, there's no such thing as an average day--it various enormously,
depending on what stage of the book I'm in. When I'm researching a book
and trying to come up with an outline--yes, I'm an outliner--I might
spend time reading books, searching for information online, and hunting
around for experts in whatever I'm writing about so I can go and pester
them. I work on my outline until I'm happy with it. Remember the Anne
Lamotte advice (in Bird by Bird) about giving yourself permission to
write a shitty first draft? My outlines are like that first draft--not
only are they far from perfect, but they're way too short. Then, when I
am happy with my outline (or, less optimally, if time is ticking away
and I really need to start writing even with an imperfect outline to
finish the book in time), I set myself a schedule--so many words a
day--and try to stick through it until I finish the draft. The number
of words might vary: if I know I have something scheduled for a day, I
might plan only 500 words; if I pretty much have the whole day to play
with, I might plan to write 1000, 1500, 2000 words. I don't worry about
making the draft good--I just try to get that many words I'm reasonably
happy with, and declare that a success--although one of the ways I get
myself into the zone is to reread and revise and polish what I've
already written. Then I usually try to spend at least a few months and
optimally six to eight weeks revising and polishing the book before I
turn it in.

One good thing about having an outline is that if I feel absolutely
stuck about writing the next scene, I can skip ahead to the scene after
that--or to any other scene in the book. I once realized that I had
finished one of my books except for three or four scenes that I just
couldn't see how to write, which left a couple of gaps in the flow of
the book. And the book was quite long enough already So I was relieved
when, on closer inspection, I realized that I didn't actually need
scenes in those gaps--I just needed transitional sentences--something
along the lines of "The next day, after we'd mopped up all the blood and
sent the rug out to be cleaned . . . ")

I find that word counts are much more productive goals than hours at the
computer. It's so easy to fool around with minor, though
writing-related tasks, like tracking down little useful but noncritical
bits of information or agonizing over le mot juste, and fritter away an
hour without getting any appreciable amount of writing done.

  Tayler Bloom: What would you say is the best thing about being a writer?

Donna Andrews:Not sure I can say what's the best thing about becoming a writer, since
I can't remember when I wasn't writing--it just took me a long time to
get published. But the best thing about my current life as a full-time
writer is that I get to set my own hours and I have the shortest commute
I've ever had. I remember when I first quit my day job, people kept
asking me how I liked "being retired," or "not working." I got a little
worked up as I explained to them that I was still working, sometimes
harder than ever, I was just doing it from home and on my own schedule.
Reminds me of my friends Tracey and Bill, who quit working for the same
corporation I used to work for to run a small business. I asked them
how they liked it. "It's great," Tracey said. "One thing I like that
now, if management is doing something really stupid--we can just stop
ourselves." Yeah.

Thank you Donna for a great interview. Visit Donna Andrews website at:

                               www.donnaandrews.com