Interview: Kristine Kathryn Rusch on The Write Attitude
Kristine Kathryn Rusch is a New York Times bestselling author who has sold more than 35 million books worldwide. She’s also the curator of the Write Stuff StoryBundle, a collection of 15 books on writing and publishing. Her own contribution to the bundle is The Write Attitude, originally published in 2015 and now substantially revised—about two-thirds of the content is entirely new! It’s a book about the attitudes writers need to survive and thrive, drawn from Kris’s five decades as a professional writer.
The Interview
This book includes content from posts you published on your Patreon. Your intent was to write about how to write, but instead you found yourself writing about attitudes. How does a writer’s attitude affect their writing, and their writing career?
Sometimes a writing career is all about survival. We writers work in our heads, so we’re prone to making things up. We also work alone, unless we’re working in theater or film, so we don’t have anyone to bounce the realities of business off on. The so-called helpers, like agents, have their own businesses, and they put themselves and their most lucrative clients first. So, they’re not going to help a writer either.
Family doesn’t always understand, and neither do friends, who are sometimes jealous.
So writers must learn how to modulate their attitude, figure out how to get through the tough times in a way that will keep them writing. It takes a bit of self-knowledge and the confidence to realize that with the right attitude, you can survive anything.
When you come across a book where the author uses a technique you’re not familiar with, you’ll sometimes type in a section from that book to better understand how it works. In The Write Attitude you mention that you did this with about 6,000 words from Mick Herron’s book Bad Actors. What did you learn from that session, and how did you realize typing the words yourself would help you better understand new (to you) writing techniques?
I think what I learned the most from this was his fearlessness. Entire paragraphs, entire pages were a single sentence with the proper punctuation, and he changes point of view and location sometimes within a phrase. The reader does not get lost, though. What’s most fascinating, to me at least, is the breathless sense of city-wide mayhem that he manages to create with this technique.
You can bet I’ll be working on it myself in the right story with the right scene.
I posted the chapter on this technique free on my website to promote the bundle. It’s available here: Getting Lost in the Words
You’ve sold more than 35 million books, and yet you still have moments where you struggle. What have you learned that helps you keep going when the chips are down?
I used to joke that I can’t do anything else, but that’s really not true. What keeps me going is a love of storytelling. I’m very privileged to be able to make a living at telling stories. I have to remember that sometimes.
Also, I think there are more stories in my head than I’ll ever get to in my lifetime. So I’m working hard to get them written and out to readers.
The Write Attitude was originally published in 2015. The 2026 version isn’t just an updated version, about two-thirds of the content is entirely new! Was this a surprise to you? Why did you end up replacing so much of the original content?
The attitudes remain the same, but the details are different. I wrote all of these chapters as blog posts first, and much of the first book refers to publishing companies long gone or indie publishing techniques that are very old-fashioned now. I maintain a business blog on my Patreon page, and I’ve written newer versions of the attitude advice, so I used that instead.
You’ve been a professional writer for over five decades. If you could go back in time and give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Keep at it, kid, and stay as fierce as you are. Also, watch out who you trust and verify, verify, verify.
How has your own writing attitude changed over time, and how has this impacted your career?
I believe in myself more. The world has changed as well, so those ideas that were “dangerous” or “unpublishable” according to traditional publishing are something I can do now. That’s very freeing.
What are you working on now—and what’s fun or exciting about it?
I’m working on the second crime novel in a series set in 1969 about 3 women in Berkeley at the beginning of the rape crisis/battered women’s shelter movement. The book is challenging—it’s amazing how different that world was and yet, thanks to political changes the last few years, how similar. I am balancing three distinct points of view, writing realistic historical fiction without destroying these characters’ dreams, and figuring out how to explain things.
It’s a challenge, one I welcome.
About the Author
Kristine Kathryn Rusch sold more than 35 million books worldwide. She publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance.
Her novels made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction appeared in more than twenty best-of-the-year collections. She won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.
She occasionally blogs about publishing on her website. However, she blogs about publishing weekly on her Patreon page, patreon.com/kristinekathrynrusch. Her newsletter often contains information about deals for writers.
Find Kris
The Write Attitude is available now in the Write Stuff StoryBundle, curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. 15 exclusive books on writing and publishing—pay what you want, starting at $5. Customers can choose to direct a portion of their payment to World Central Kitchen. The bundle runs through May 14, 2026.