An Index of Guest Posts from Authors of 2014 Short Story Collections

Hit parade: Antonya Nelson (top),
Ben Marcus, and Hilary Mantel

In 2014, we once again invited each author of a collection we received as an entry for The Story Prize to contribute a guest post to this blog. Out of 125 authors, 71 chose to participate.* Since 2010, the TSP blog has featured 337 guest posts from 328 writers.

According to Blogger's statistics, most 2014 guest posts received 300 or more page views. The most popular post, "Antonya Nelson's Ten Writing Rules," went viral (by our standards, at least) and has so far drawn more than 12,000 page views—by far the most of any TSP blog post and nearly five times as many hits as the next most popular we've ever had. The author posts with the second and third most hits this year were "Hilary Mantel's Ten Observations About Writing" and "Ben Marcus' 'Dear Writer' Letter"—both with more than 2,300 page views.

When we ask the authors if they'd like to contribute, we give them several options. One is to answer any or all of a series of questions, which we change somewhat each year. The 2014 questions were:

• If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?
• Describe an unusual writing habit of yours.
• Do you ever borrow characters or situations from real life, and has anyone ever confronted you about it, been angry or pleased? 
• What's the worst idea for a story you've every had?
• What's the best story idea you've had that you've never been able to write to your satisfaction?
• What one story that someone else has written do you wish you had written?
• Where do you do most of your work?
• What do you do when you're stuck or have "writer's block"?
• What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
• What else (beyond books and writing) informs or inspires your work?

We also suggest some possible topics:

• A literary touchstone (e.g., a book or books you have reread many times and return to often).
• An aspect of craft you struggled to learn, and how you learned it.
• Your publishing experience.
• A letter to a young writer, a la Rilke.
• A list of ten pieces of writing advice.

The last topic was a popular one this year, with about a dozen authors offering their advice. Contributors also, of course, had the option of coming up with their own ideas.

This index is in alphabetical order by last name, with author names linking to their book on IndieBound (unless a book wasn't available on that site) and the rest of the guest post titles linking to the posts themselves.

A-D

Kim Addonizio "Borrows" from Real Life

Molly Antopol Embraces Solitude
Jacob M. Appel and the Door to Eternal Life
Vanessa Blakeslee Hits a Nerve
Michael Blumenthal's Unusual Habit
Catherine Browder and the Unmet Mentors
Kelly Cherry Makes a List
Judy Chicurel and the Atmospheric Aura

Mark Chiusano on Finding the Right Cover
Diane Cook Writes from a Place of Fear
Tracy Daugherty on Walker Percy's Thought Experiments
Halina Duraj's Ruthless Story-Brain

E-G
Sean Ennis Puts in the Time
Elizabeth Eslami Embraces the Mess
Why Ali Eteraz Stopped Trying to Be an American Writer
Murray Farish's Writing Advice from Other Writers

John Henry Fleming's Writing Tips for the Tip Averse Writer
Amina Gautier Says: "Remember Who You Were"
Joseph Gentile: Eight Things All Writers Should Do at Least Once
David Gordon Talks to Himself
Nicholas Grider's Ten Pieces of Advice
If David Guterson Weren't a Writer...

H-L
Arna Bontemps Hemenway's Walk into the Otherworld
Jennifer Horne Wrestles with Her Conscience
Alden Jones's Writing Advice: "Don't Listen to My Advice"
A.L. Kennedy Gets Out of the Way
Laurence Klavan and the Sense of Unease
Phil Klay's Middle School Stint
Doretta Lau Does the Work
Peter LaSalle Considers John Cheever Across the River
J. Robert Lennon and the Sweet Spot
Deborah Levy and the Essential Obstinacy
Karin Lin-Greenberg: Notes of a Failed Cartoonist
Sara Lippmann Gets Over It
Jack Livings on Dealing with Rejection
Shelly Lowenkopf's Good News and Bad News

M
James Magruder and the Boyhood Tribulations
Hilary Mantel's Ten Observations About Writing
Francesca Marciano's Ten Writing Mantras
Ben Marcus' "Dear Writer" Letter
Elizabeth McCracken's First 21st Century Short Story Collection
Monica McFawn and the Pursuit of Clarity
Kseniya Melnik's Competing Passion
Jen Michalski Starts with a Dream
K.D. Miller Works with What She Has
Kyle Minor's Unwritten Time Travel Story
Dolan Morgan's Treatment for Writer's Block

N-R
Antonya Nelson's Ten Writing Rules
Kent Nelson and the Quest for the Right Cover
James Nolan and the Singular Element
Tom Noyes Keeps the Faith
Kathy Page Encounters Other Places
Vikram Paralkar and the Agent's Letter
David James Poissant's Letter to His 25-Year-Old Self
Nick Ripatrazone's Sacramental Vision
Eliza Robertson Rocks
David Ryan and the Crowded Room

S-W
Diane Schoemperlen Works with Words and Pictures
Aurelie Sheehan Sneaks up on Plot
Susan Sherman on the Significance of Place
Heather A. Slomski Prepares Herself
Justin Taylor and the Unwriteable Idea
Johnny Townsend Wrestles with the Truth
Lee Upton Breaks the Ice
Anne Valente on Fiction and the Language of Film
Marek Waldorf Paints a Picture
John Warner's Unlikely Inspiration

D.W. Wilson's Headspace Thing

Christian Winn and the Search for Meaning
Kathleen Winter and the Scary Fat Boy Story
Jonathan Woods and The Hard-Boiled Tradition

* Whether or not someone contributes a post has nothing to do with the books we choose as finalists or for our long-list. We received 129 books, but some authors published more than one this year. One 2014 contributor to TSP, Jacob M. Appel, published two short story collections in 2014, but we only invite each author to contribute to the blog one time in any year. Appel's other book is Einstein's Beach House (Pressgang).

Dolan Morgan's Treatment for Writer's Block

In the 71st in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Dolan Morgan, author of That's When the Knives Come Out (Aforementioned Productions) describes his solution to an all too common malady.

For years, “writer’s block” eluded me as a concept. I did not understand what it meant or even how it could be deemed a real affliction. Were people really having this problem? How did they know? I considered the term at best a melodramatic cover for laziness, and at worst a sign of innate inability.
I was wrong, of course, and a fool. I cringe now thinking of the way, in my youth, I would parade around and demand that people who think they have writer’s block should just sit down, get over themselves, and write already, that ideas come from action and not from perfect planning. Anyone who has experienced writer’s block knows that this is not only terrible advice but dangerous too—because writer’s block is real. It’s physical, invasive, and persistent. I learned this the hard way, and spent weeks recovering.

Now when I have writer’s block, I follow a strict regimen that I think many others could benefit from. First, I remain ever vigilant for symptoms and signs. With every new word, paragraph, or edit, I take stock of my surroundings and consider my mind and body. This must be done holistically, as things aren’t always cut and dry in life. To be safe, I go immediately into action if two or more of the following circumstances present themselves while writing:

• Persistent checking of social media.
• Discoloration around mouth and lips.
• Hands that smell like chemicals, such as white out or mercury.
• Burns, stains, and odors on my body (or even clothing, desks, laptops, and other objects in the area, especially paper).
• Vomiting, labored breathing, drowsiness, confusion, or other deviations from my usual routine.

If confronted with these, I step slowly away from my computer and retire to the bathroom—where I keep a special kit containing all relevant tools.

Tweezers: Aggressive treatment

First, I give my body a quick search for the affected area. This is usually indicated by redness, swelling or tenderness to the touch. I carefully soak the affected area with a hot saline solution. This helps to draw the writer’s block to the surface. If necessary, I prick the center with a needle (but generally the sensitive skin opens all on its own as tension grows). From there, I use an index finger and thumb to squeeze the so-called hotspot, puckering the opening to reveal my wriggling writer’s block, and then I pull out “the head” with a set of tweezers. A long string or tail will emerge behind it and must be gathered from the body. It will come out smoothly if there are no sudden movements. When I feel a tug or tightness deep within the chest (usually near my heart), I sever the tail with scissors or sharp blades. After placing the writer’s block in a sealable container and cleaning up the blood, I apply rubbing alcohol and a household band-aid, then let out a sigh of relief.

It can be a little tedious, but dealing with this unsightly and embarrassing ailment is well worth the effort and preparation. After just a few minutes of simple first-aid, I can get back to work. It usually takes at least four more hours for any significant writer’s block to build up in the blood, during which I can often harvest a healthy series of workable paragraphs and plot points by dissolving the extracted writer’s block chunk in a pool of water – because writer’s block survives in the body by consuming my best ideas during a rapid gestation period. 100% of one of the stories in my collection emerged whole and complete from a juiced chunk of writer’s block after medical extraction. I never would have “written” this piece if it weren’t for my dedication to home remedies and self-care.

Conversely, the accumulated effects of untreated writer’s block can be debilitating and demoralizing, even deadly, since the human body is comprised not of flesh, as is commonly repeated, but instead almost entirely of ideas and abstractions.

John Warner's Unlikely Inspiration

In the 70th in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, John Warner, author of Tough Day for the Army (LSU Press) talks about the movie Airplane.

There is no movie I’ve seen more times than Airplane. There was a period when I could recite the dialogue almost word for word. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more charming than a ten-year-old quoting lines like, “Joey, have you ever been in a…a Turkish prison.”

Airplane may also be the single greatest influence on my writing, period.

The main reason I’ve seen Airplane multiple-hundred times is an accident of history, in that the movie was released near the dawn of the home VCR era when my family acquired a Buick-sized VHS, a gift to my father on his 40th birthday. This was 1980 when the video store was the camera store, the entire selection a shelf of maybe 50 titles above the tripods.



The first two movies we rented were Kramer v. Kramer (both dull and weirdly upsetting to my ten-year-old self), and Airplane ,which I watched over and over and over again.

In a movie of legendary gags, my favorite one is in the credits. As the characters make their way into the airport, we hear a series of parking announcements from what seem to be pre-recorded voices over the public address system, alternating between male and female voices.

The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the red zone.

Soon, though, a dispute breaks out between the two voices:

Male announcer: The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone.

Female announcer: No, the white zone is for loading of passengers and there is no stopping in a RED zone.

Male announcer: The red zone has always been for loading and unloading of passengers. There's never stopping in a white zone.

Female announcer: Don't you tell me which zone is for loading, and which zone is for stopping!

Male announcer: Listen Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again.

After a break, we hear the true nature of the argument.

Male announcer: There's just no stopping in a white zone.

Female announcer: Oh really, Vernon? Why pretend, we both know perfectly well what this is about. You want me to have an abortion.

Male announcer: It's really the only sensible thing to do, if its done safely. Therapeutically, there's no danger involved.

Even as I barely understood the dark subtext underneath, I was tickled by this notion, that one thing could suddenly become another and that under everything there were characters and stories.

This impulse is carried out in a number of the stories in Tough Day for the Army.

One of them, “Return-to-Sensibility Problems after Penetrating Captive Bolt Stunning of Cattle in Commercial Beef Slaughter Plant #5867: Confidential Report” is inspired by a study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Association (JAVMA) that was one of the most horrifying reading experiences of my life, as a detached, clinical tone outlined the “mooing,” “bellowing,” and “twitching” of “improperly stunned” cattle that had been hung on the “bleed rail.” The events underlying the published report must have been horrifying to witness.

I wondered what would happen if the author could not contain that horror, and it began to leak into the report itself, and soon I had a story.

Another story, “Corrections and Clarifications,” is written entirely in the form of newspaper corrections for a small town newspaper. It is explicitly inspired by the “Red Zone” scene from Airplane, where a formal, official voice slowly breaks down and reveals what’s going on underneath all of these mistakes.

While other stories in the collection are less formally inventive, I realize that all of them share a similar sensibility in that they are grounded in the same manner as all good jokes. They ask a “What if?”

What if a fraternity decided to waterboard its pledges?

What if Jesus had a first career as a minor league hockey player?

What if a con-monkey blackmailed an innocent man?

All of these stories owe a debt to Airplane, a movie that asks, “What if?” of everything – What if the co-pilot was Kareem Abdul Jabbar? What if we make Beaver Cleaver’s mother speak jive? What if we make a running gag about the homonyms “surely” and “Shirley"?

The movie is unrestrained, downright risky in its willingness to be goofy.

I can’t think of a better source of inspiration for writing fiction.

Murray Farish's Writing Advice from Other Writers

In the 69th in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Murray Farish, author of Inappropriate Behavior (Milkweed Editions), cobbles together some appropriate words of wisdom.

1. “The writer is the person who stays in the room.” – Ron Carlson

2. “‘There is only one thing in life,’ she went on, laughing, ‘that I must and will have before I die. I must know whether America is right or wrong.’” – Henry Adams

3. “Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it." – Cormac McCarthy

4. “Effectiveness of assertion is the Alpha and Omega of style.”
– G. B. Shaw

5. “I put my face against the soft hair at the back of her neck and breathe her in, baby powder and child’s washed flesh and shampoo, with an undertone, the faint scent of urine.”  – Margaret Atwood

6. “Simplicity is not a given. It is an achievement, a human invention, a discovery, a beloved belief.” – William Gass

7. “Agonies are one of my changes of garments, / I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” – Walt Whitman

8. “The point for us if we write is that nearly everything we can learn about writing can be set down only in fiction’s terms. What we know about writing the novel is the novel.” – Eudora Welty

9. “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.”
– Henry David Thoreau

10. “There is a world inside the world.” – Don DeLillo

Diane Cook Writes from a Place of Fear

In the 68th in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Diane Cook, author of Man V. Nature (Harper), explores the symbiotic relationship between reading and writing.

When Mark Strand died I went back to his books. I hadn’t read him in many years but long ago he was my first favorite poet. The one I found all on my own from just browsing my college bookstore, feeling cool that I was someone who spent her own money on books. No one had to tell me what to read or when, I just found what I wanted. I was 18 and learning to be a reader. I was hardly even learning to be a writer yet. That would come a little later. After I learned to really read. As it should.

One of my favorite Strand poems was always “The Tunnel” so I re-read it. It begins:

Tunnel vision: Poet Mark Strand

A man has been standing
in front of my house
for days. I peek at him
from the living room
window and at night,
unable to sleep,
I shine my flashlight
down on the lawn.
He is always there.

I was stunned to see this again. In my collection, Man V. Nature, one of the stories, “Somebody’s Baby,” begins with a man and woman who come home from the hospital with their newborn daughter to find a man standing in their yard. The man is there to try to take their baby, as he’s done to all the other new babies in the neighborhood. It is a story grown from fear of the unknown and the familiar. It is a fable of sorts, surreal. I had not realized until this moment of re-reading that it is also inspired by Mark Strand. When I wrote my story, my man seemed to organically emerge from my personal preoccupations, a vision of anxiety that made the most sense to me. But the image of Strand’s strange and unappeasable man had stuck in my mind for almost 20 years waiting to find a reason to reappear. Now I see that while my story sprung originally from my brain, in some wonderful way it is also an homage. Would I have ever written “Somebody’s Baby” if I hadn’t read Strand’s “The Tunnel”? Maybe Strand read some piece of writing that led to his own haunting figure of a man in a yard. This is what is great about the symbiotic relationship between reading and writing.

Personally, I can’t do one without doing the other. I can’t join the conversation writers are having about being human, about fear, about creation, about writing, if I haven’t read what they have to say. That said, I’m not the most well read person you’ll find. Far from it. I’ve learned to be okay with that. I do my best. My own reading is rollercoaster-ish. Sometimes I’ll read a book in a day. This fall, I mainly read for work. It took me weeks to finish a book. Even though I may have loved what I was reading, the pressure of having a responsibility toward each book slowed me down to a crawl.

This month, I’m reading for pleasure. I have a box of books with me I can’t even hope to finish. But I know that reading and losing myself in other people’s words is one way I kick my own writing into gear. It’s inspiration for me. I read several books at once. They are piled on the other side of my bed. I pick one up, read some, pick up another, and so on. It’s not economical but it’s fun and it feels freeing and inspiring and a little intellectually naughty.

Right now I’m in a cabin two miles up a mountainside dirt road with views of the Pacific when the fog cooperates. I am not remote enough to be in any kind of danger, but I’m remote enough to feel scared. Scared of the dark, of what’s beyond the tree line, of my own thoughts. This is what I do. When I’m ready to write I go to places where I feel on the edge of security. The part of my imagination rooted in fear stands up. When this stands up, everything stands up. This wasn’t always my process but it’s my process now. Read books and be scared. Then, write. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it this way, though I’m sure others have. I came upon it once I stopped trying to mimic other people’s processes—write in the morning, write at night, write every day, don’t force your writing, ass in chair, go for walks, outline, don’t outline, always finish books, life’s too short to always finish books, read the classics, read your friends, writing is just your job, writing is your life. There is a lot of advice out there and it’s not meant to be contradictory but it can feel that way sometimes. What I’ve learned is to just do whatever I want. It might mean I’m reading 12 books at one time, or reading novels like they’re books of poetry. It might mean I’m shaking because every sound outside my door could be some stalking cougar, or maybe worse, a man in my yard. Ideally, it means that I get to a place where I write stories that feel like no other stories I’ve read but are somehow still a part of the conversation. When I do what I want, I write better. Is this essay a kind of advice to young writers? If so, then don’t take my advice, except, do take my advice, if you know what I mean. 

Judy Chicurel and the Atmospheric Aura

In the 67th in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Judy Chicurel, author of If I Knew You Were Going to Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go (Putnam), discusses real life inspiration for her stories.

If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?

I would have been a social worker with a private therapy practice. Years ago I had been accepted into an MSW program and was set to pursue it, but then I was offered a job at a Long Island newspaper and I chose that instead. Second choice: full-time lit professor at the college level, though those jobs are now exceedingly difficult to come by even with a Ph.D, which I don’t have, and publications. When I was freelancing, I used to read Tarot cards on the side to supplement my income, which was really fun and interesting. Sometimes even now, I’m a little envious when I pass one of those storefront psychic places in the city, with the requisite crystal ball on a small round table inside and the “palm reading special” sign in the window. I joke about that as a retirement gig and my husband never knows if I’m really kidding. I’d also love to be a vintner and live on a winery, in Napa or on the North Fork of Long Island.

Describe an unusual writing habit of yours.

I write everything longhand first, and I’ll often write the ending to a story or novel before anything else. I know how things will end before I know what else is going to happen, so I’ll write the last sentence, which frequently comes to me very clearly, and then develop the story around it.

Do you ever borrow characters or situations from real life, and has anyone ever confronted you about it, been angry or pleased?

It’s probably the most frequently asked question about the book; “How much of this is based on real life?” I’d say it’s more emotional reality than anything else, and the atmospheric aura of the book resonates from the physical setting of the beach towns I lived in during the seventies and early eighties. They all had commonalities, chief among them a willingness to tolerate local eccentricities without harsh judgment. Those circumstances allowed you to meet some really interesting people and I tried to bring that across in writing this book, because I had such affection for those times and those places. I think you always tend to borrow from real life people and situations but the characters and circumstances in my stories are inventions of people who seemed to fit in those settings. For instance, years ago, I attended a party in the more upscale part of town and the hostess took us on a tour of the house; there was a room at the very top, a kind of enlarged widow’s walk, and she told us that during the 1920s or 30s a doctor had owned the house and performed abortions in this room. I was always struck by that story, and used it in this collection, about two girls going in search of an abortion and the doctor’s office is in a beautiful house by the beach, while they’re expecting a back-alley entrance on the seamy side of town. I’ve never had that particular experience, but that house was definitely the inspiration for the story.

What's the worst idea for a story you've ever had?

This is such a great question, but I honestly can’t think of one! Not because my story ideas are always so amazing, but I usually pursue the ideas that I have because I like them or love the character I’m developing. I’ve had story ideas that I think are fascinating but might be considered too controversial by editors or even the reading public. I have one short story, “The Whistle,” about the woman that Emmet Till allegedly whistled at, which resulted in his hanging death, that’s written almost like a monologue. I think editors, even actresses I knew when I was trying to arrange a reading, might be a little afraid of it.

What's the best story idea you've had that you've never been able to write to your  satisfaction?

I’m worked on two of them on and off over the past several years, both with young immigrant boys at the nucleus. But the work is too new at this point to predict the outcome. What’s prevented me from really polishing them to a finish are time constraints, so perhaps you can ask me again in a year or so.

What one story that someone else has written do you wish you had written?

It’s a story called, “Wonderland,” and I’ve spent some time trying to find the author’s name without success; I read it back in the late eighties, I believe, in one of the Best American Short Story anthologies, though I can’t remember the specific year. It was a story about two young boys whose mother goes off with a boyfriend for a month or so and leaves a note for the oldest telling him that they’re old enough to look after themselves for a few weeks. Which they aren’t. It was a great read and a moving story. The writer was skillful in painting a somewhat sympathetic portrait of the mother, and though she didn’t appear much in the story, you really felt her presence on the pages. The nuances of the older boy’s feelings about his mother—anger, fear, reluctant love—were very well drawn, particularly because he’s trying to be so tough and keep it together for his younger brother. I’ve actually spent time on and off over the years thinking of one scene where the brothers are walking home from the grocery store; I’ve envisioned different ways the story could have gone, the introduction of new characters, usually when I’m on one of my nocturnal walks around the neighborhood. Wish I could remember the writer’s name.

Where do you do most of your work?

I like to edit at home in our office/guest room and often write first drafts while out of the house. It sounds strange, but I can concentrate better sitting in a café or a library, and I’ve been quite prolific while riding the subway. People always balk at that, but for many years, the only real time I had to write was while traveling to and from work or to the city—we live in a more remote part of Brooklyn, the only advantage to this being that I can get a lot of writing done while traveling. I’ve written at our home in upstate New York as well; it’s a great writing retreat.

What do you do when you're stuck or have "writer's block"?

Walk. I’m an avid walker; it helps me relax and sometimes things will just come to me, phrases I was searching for, story ideas, plot innovations. I especially love walking on beaches and am fortunate enough to live close to several. Once I hit the bricks—or the sand, in this case—I just feel freer, less constrained. I also like to work on two projects simultaneously; the obvious reason is that if you get stuck in one place you can move to the other. But I’ve also found that each project can serve as motivation for the other, and the advantage is that after being away from one project for a few days I start missing the characters and can’t wait to get back to them again.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

This is a response I actually wrote for another Q&A that I’ve edited a bit, but I do think it’s valid enough to give again: Find situations where you can get your work noticed by people who are willing to help you and where you can build a supportive community, whether it’s an MFA program or other type of writing environment. And I’m going back to advice given to me by a friend’s father years ago at an elementary school track meet: I was running a 50-yard dash and I came in second, and he told me afterwards, “You know, you would have come in first but you were too busy looking around to see who was ahead of you.” Don’t look around at where everyone else is or where you think you should be and neglect the writing in the process. Because everything begins with the writing.

What else (beyond books and writing) informs or inspires your work?

A sense of place often provides the impetus for my writing. I’ve always said I’m very character-driven, but lately, looking over my work, it’s more the physical spaces and settings that have formed the inspiration. I’ve also been inspired by the young people I’ve worked with; I recently left my job as a Development Director for a youth empowerment organization and I was feeling somewhat jaded about the current political and economic landscape; part of my job was reviewing current events for my research file and by the time I’d finish cruising the Web I’d be ready to pack it in. But the young women we served really helped pull me out of this psychic stagnation, just by observing their accomplishments. They just do it, you know? Without money, without the kind of backing middle and upper class kids receive; they pursue their choices, get to college, go after the career...they make you feel better just knowing they’re out there tackling life. I also belong to an organization, the New York Writers Coalition; we facilitate writing workshops in underserved communities and that’s been a source of inspiration as well. I’ve done workshops with cancer patients, cognitively disabled young adults, teens and tweens in Coney Island…populations I might never have spent this kind of time with if not for these workshops. And the writing is amazing. 

D.W. Wilson's Headspace Thing

In the 66th in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, D.W. Wilson, author of Once You Break a Knuckle (Bloomsbury), explores alternative careers.

If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?
I suppose in the best possible world where I wasn't writing, I would be a masked vigilante, not unlike Batman. It's in my blood: My old man's a (retired) Mountie and my grandfather was a town cop (so they say) and my sister works in the courts, and I had every intention of being a lawyer until about my third year in the University of Victoria's writing program, when after class one day my professor asked me if I'd applied to grad school yet.
  – No, I said.
  – You should, she said.
  – Okay, I said, and did.

Vigilante: Patroling the hood

Or I'd be doing Judo professionally, though I'm not sure that pays any better, and I never had the discipline to maintain the Grecian-God physique required to stay competitive. More realistically, I could probably pull wire for cash or make bank in, like, Fort McMurray doing my part to wreck the globe, or other miscellaneous construction (I lay a mean parquet floor) or I could teach, though the inescapable truth is that I've now spent my formative skill-learning years doing one thing. (This)

Describe an unusual writing habit of yours.
Well. I sing. Not in public and not with any success (I am flatter than some well-leveled hardwood) but late at night with my headphones on (noise-cancelling; I can hear nothing) I will belt out the lyrics to whatever bad eighties rock song happens to be blaring in my ears. It's one part an energy thing, since I work so late at night and will take any boost I can get, but it's also a headspace thing. I need music to write effectively. Something to do with syllable counting, maybe, the arrangement of Latinate versus Germanic words. I dunno, it's mysterious to me, too. Something to do with maintaining a certain rhythm in my prose.

What's the worst idea for a story you've every had?
I suppose this depends on how you want to use the term “worst idea.” For instance: A few years ago I wrote an essay that is one part fascinating exegesis about voice in fiction and one part a verbatim recount of the first (not last) time my (now) wife declined to go on a date with me. I used her real name and for some reason a magazine published it. I think I had some grand plan that in the distant future when we were both middle aged and bored, I'd dust it off and show her and we'd have a good laugh and maybe rekindle our sex life, remembering how young and stupid we once were. Instead, she showed up by coincidence at the launch of the magazine that published it, so I took the only option available to me and necked five glasses of wine and spent the evening reciting the most embarrassing lines to her. You know, grab the dilemma by the horns and all that jazz. And now we're married! So perhaps there's a lesson there.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Write constantly. Read deeply. Do your best not to despair but in moments of darkness know that every successful writer has shared that same darkness. As in all things, persistence beats resistance.

Heather A. Slomski Prepares Herself

In the 65th in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Heather A. Slomski, author of The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons (University of Iowa Press), discusses a story she wishes she'd written and offers her advice.

What one story that someone else has written do you wish you had written?
The story I wish I’d written is “Father’s Last Escape” by Bruno Schulz. For those unfamiliar with the story, it’s a very short story—barely five pages long—about a small family grieving for the loss of Father, who, prior to the story’s start, has been dying and returning to his family in different forms. The last time he returns, which the story chronicles, he does so as a crab or a large scorpion (the story doesn’t clarify further).

"Father's Last Escape": Returning as a scorpion

While the story is laced with dark humor (Uncle Charles comes to stay, for example, and as a result of his depression, he gets a strange pleasure out of trying to viciously step on Father), it is incredibly tender and sad. Schulz bestows upon Father-the-crab/scorpion such a convincing blend of crustacean/human attributes, and the combination of knowing that there is a kind and gentle man embodied in this crab/scorpion, of witnessing this “man’s” crablike behaviors (zigzagging across the floor at lightning speed; his desperate and futile attempts to right his position when turned on his back), and observing Joseph and Mother’s mixed feelings of Father in his latest form, is immensely moving. I still laugh out loud in a few key places while reading this story, though my laughter is not lighthearted or joyous, but the spent laughter of the bereaved.

Do you ever borrow characters or situations from real life, and has anyone ever confronted you about it, been angry or pleased?
I do occasionally borrow characters or situations from real life, though less often than more, and so far I’ve gotten away with it. My work is fiction, not nonfiction, so anything “real” in my work has undergone a heavy process of fictionalization—not because I’m intent on hiding the truth, but because I’m not interested in writing nonfiction. I write to use my imagination, not to record things that have happened. If something “real” inspires my imagination, it does just that—inspires my imagination.

Ten pieces of writing and writing-life advice for aspiring writers:
1. À la Lorrie Moore: “First, try to be something, anything, else.”
2. If you come to the realization that you must write, prepare yourself for a life of continuous hard work and only sporadic payoffs.
3. Figure out how you can have people in your life but still spend a lot of time alone.
4. Learn to live frugally, even if/when you don’t have to; doing so will help you keep a clear mind.
5. Something I learned at a young age from my father: Never leave the house without something to read. You never know when you’re going to be stuck somewhere for ten minutes or three days.
6. Discover new writers (or writers who are new to you) on your own; don’t merely read the writers people tell you to read or the books everyone else is reading.
7. Write only to please yourself; do not write what you think others want to read.
8. If you get stuck on a piece of writing, walk away from it. Maybe for a short time, maybe for a long time, maybe forever. And start something else in the meantime.
9. Have a couple of hobbies—productive activities you can pursue when you need a break from writing and reading—but be careful of having too many. Writing and reading require a great deal of time.
10. Let other writers influence you, but don’t attempt to sound like them. Figure out who you are as a writer, and write to sound like yourself.

Aurelie Sheehan Sneaks up on Plot

In the 64th in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Aurelie Sheehan, author of Demigods on Speedway (University of Arizona Press), details her tangles with plot.

Plot. What a nightmare! At least that’s the way it’s felt for much of my writing life. Early attempts at “putting plot into my stories” were like stuffing a turkey into a teacup or inserting pencils and rulers into cake.

I never had anything against plot in other people’s writing. I’ve always loved stories strong in plot. A good plot keeps me turning the pages. The prose has to be clean, the characters alive—but these elements alone won’t keep me reading into the wee hours. What needs to kick in is the what-happens-next reflex.

Alas, the what-happens-next reflex wasn’t occurring at my own writing desk. There, it wasn’t a reflex at all, more like the sound of electrical wires fritzing out. I comforted myself with proclamations. Writers into plot were like mechanics ginning up outlines stuffed with spy-craft and long-lost, wealthy relatives. But I did worry: Was I the stereotype on the other side of the spectrum, a pajama-clad watcher, forever not engaged with life?

Here are ways I’ve found to sneak up on the idea of plot and make it my own:

1. I read Jane Austen and began to think plot could be fun, rather than a curse.
2. I realized how profound cause and effect can be—that events and observations did not just hang out in a nether-cloud of time, but were irrevocably shaped by the when of the story. 
3. I read Joan Silber on time in fiction (The Art of Time in Fiction). Time in fiction is different than plot in fiction, but they are related. And time felt organic to me in a way plot did not. 
4. I decided, to heck with plot anyway. To some extent I decided this.
5. I found ways around it. For instance, I wrote a book where place replaced time—where the characters live near each other and their stories form not a plot but a constellation (in this case, the portrait of a city). 
6. I felt the tawdriness of shaping stories, the artifice that had felt artificial, melt away to reveal a kind of beauty.
7. I realized my limitations as a plot person and became a person who plots in her own way. In other words, I redefined plot so I could write one, too. It was a way of finding plot in my own stories.

These things helped, and I feel better about plot now, mellower. If the story of me and Plot were to be written, it would be a very gentle narrative, where the girl begins hating Plot, she has a fight or two with Plot and she breaks Plot’s elbow, and Plot breaks her chin, and then eventually they just stop fighting and go into a kind of Tai Chi tea party that lasts until the end of time.

Ready, Plot? Come on, now. Ready?

David Gordon Talks to Himself

In the 63rd in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, David Gordon, author of White Tiger on Snow Mountain (Little A/New Harvest), discusses a seemingly bad idea that ended up working out well.

If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?

That is a terrifying question, the sort that makes me wake up in a cold sweat. In fact, I have never, even as a small child wanted to be anything else, except an astronaut or a spy/criminal—so perhaps I’d be on of those, most likely a secret undercover agent aboard the space station. Still, I’m afraid I’d be what I was for the long years before I found publishers for my work: Someone who worked at a random, low-paying job all day and wrote at night.

Describe an unusual writing habit of yours.

I probably have lots of odd habits, but the one I was reminded of recently was being repeatedly busted walking around and talking to myself. I’ve walked into streetlamps and been caught by an acquaintance standing on the corner and laughing for no reason. I suggested I was on the phone but she said, “No you had your hands in your pockets and you were just laughing.” When I lived on the ground floor in Soho, on a block full of shops, the workers told me they all wondered, “Who is that guy who paces up and down mumbling to himself all day?” 

Do you ever borrow characters or situations from real life, and has anyone ever confronted you about it, been angry or pleased? 

This is the question I’m “skipping,” only because I already published an essay about this topic and don’t want to repeat myself. The short answer is, no and yes: I was not, in my mind, describing real life, but real live people were both angry and pleased about it anyway.

What's the worst idea for a story you've every had?

The worst idea I ever had actually resulted in “White Tiger on Snow Mountain,” the title story of my collection. Luckily it was also one of the best title ideas I ever had, so that helped. But when I first thought—“I know, I’ll write about a guy who thinks he’s impotent and goes for acupuncture while also chatting anonymously with depraved and desperate women online,” I immediately decided: “Do not write that. Worst idea ever.” Then I thought, “Well, I will just make a few notes.” Then, “Just a first draft. No one ever needs to see it.” That first draft was like 70 pages, which I shaved down to about 45. Then: “Just show your best writer friend and if she says you’re disgusting just destroy it.” As it happens, she thought it was my best story. 

What's the best story idea you've had that you've never been able to write to your satisfaction

Unsolved mystery: What's this cat thinking about?

Undercover agent aboard a space station is sounding pretty good at the moment, actually.

But the story I’ve thought of writing but never have is from the point of view of a cat. But not like a cartoonish, anthropomorphic cat or a children’s storybook cat or a fantasy cat—a real cat. Probably it comes from too much time sitting around, trying to write and looking at cats and wondering what they’re thinking. I look at dogs a lot too, but it is much easier to guess what they’re thinking. 

What one story that someone else has written do you wish you had written?

The answer to this is like a math puzzle: Either there are hundreds or none. Part of the oddness of being a writer is knowing that I can never be even a fraction as good as any of the greats who came before me yet still wake up each day in the belief that attacking that story about the cat who is really a secret agent aboard the space shuttle is the most important and urgent task in the world.

Where do you do most of your work?

At my desk in my warm home in my underwear surrounded by my books and looking at the view. I am a lucky man.

What do you do when you're stuck or have "writer's block"?

Get up from that desk and walk around or lie down and stretch on the floor. In fact, (knock on wood), I have never had “writer’s block” in the strict sense of having no idea what to write about. I have had a project going, a story or poem or script or novel I was working on, every day since early childhood and always took it very seriously as a job. But if I am never “blocked” I am constantly “stuck.” That also seems to be an almost daily occurrence, and all I’ve learned over the years is to just keep showing up, as one does for one’s job, and eventually working it out. And that staring into space, reading, pacing, complaining, doodling and despairing are actually part of the process, count as “work” and seem to lead to the next day or week or month when it all unsticks and starts moving again.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

The clever move here would be to say “Quit writing and go to law school or join the Peace Corps or something,” knowing full well that real, natural-born writers are immune to advice and will ignore me anyway. But instead I will say all I really can: Read incessantly, learn grammar at least and, (unless you have financial support from family or something) learn some marketable skill. That was my big mistake. I couldn’t even bartend. I knew nothing but how to read and write, so I was doomed.

What else (beyond books and writing) informs or inspires your work?

Assuming you mean culturally, I will say that music and film are absolutely as important to my life and nearly as influential to my work as books and there have been times in my life when I studied them just as obsessively, haunting record shops and jazz clubs or hanging around re-run cinemas and renting two videos a night. I am also fascinated with the visual arts, particularly painting, and find myself reading biographies and watching documentaries about painters more than writers these days. I think there is something about their process that I imagine is rather close to my own, though I was always jealous of my art and music friends for being able to make so much noise and mess.

But taking the question more broadly, anything might help, you can’t tell, so you have to be alert: Taking a walk, shopping, watching kids play, or dogs, or birds. Hearing your neighbors fight. Watching bits of bad TV when you can’t sleep. Nightmares. I love listening to people talk and have always hung out with non-writers who are great tale-tellers: old people, travelers, drinkers, cranks, criminals, liars. Even awful things that seem like a waste of time end up being topics you write about: getting stuck in an airport, working a dead-end job. Even grief teaches us if we are willing to learn. Like Henry James said, “Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost.” Not even loss, if you can help it.

Eliza Robertson Rocks

In the 62nd in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Eliza Robertson, author of Wallflowers (Bloomsbury), considers alternative careers.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing?

I have three answers for this question, or rather, I will interpret this question in three different ways. 

Interpretation #1: If I died tomorrow and could be reincarnated as another human being, what would I be? Answer: a dancer. I have danced recreationally for twelve years, but it’s not the same. I missed the back-bending, foot-breaking golden years, and I am not sure I have a natural talent for it anyway. I was born pigeon-toed, which is the opposite of what you want. 

Interpretation #2: If at 20 I did not join the University of Victoria’s creative writing program, what would I be? Answer: A lawyer. I studied political science for the first three years of my undergraduate with the hopes of writing the LSAT and going to law school. 

Interpretation #3: If right now I did not write what would I be doing? This might be the nearest to the original question. Answer: I would work in a fun open-plan office with bowls of candy and bean bag chairs and walls you could write ideas on. I don’t know what the company would be, but it would involve an OK salary, witty coworkers and benefits, I hope. (Really — I would like this anyway, even as a full-time-ish writer.) OR I would work in film production. I don’t know what I would do in film production, but I feel at home on set, and I think I would like to speak into a headset or walkie talkie.

Describe an unusual writing habit of yours.

It has come to my attention that I rock from side to side. The first time I noticed, I was working at the beautiful Bibliothèque d’Etude et du Patrimoine in Toulouse, where I lived at the time. I suppose we are hyperaware of our behaviour in public spaces, because only then did I realize that I was shifting back and forth on the chair. I stopped. I didn’t want the French to think I was a psycho. The next day I caught myself rocking at home and did not stop. I figure it helps maintain a prose rhythm.

Do you ever borrow characters or situations from real life, and has anyone ever confronted you about it, been angry or pleased?

Normally I do not borrow characters from real life, except once I wrote about a hostile housemate. The story itself is not autobiographical, but certainly I recycled some of her mannerisms. She has not confronted me about it. It wouldn’t be the worst thing. I portrayed her sympathetically in the end, I think.

What's the best story idea you've had that you've never been able to write to your satisfaction?

When I was in a second year workshop at UVic, I submitted a story about a sword swallower, which was written in the form of a how-to guide. (The title was “How to Swallow a Sword,” I think.) It was basically a dramatized eHow set at a circus with a snake charmer and lobster boy who made puns about sea life. Oh, and the narrator was incestuous and “sword swallowing” became a metaphor for seducing his niece. I tried to take on too much, I think. 

Sean Ennis Puts in the Time

In the 61st in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Sean Ennis, author of Chase Us (Little A/New Harvest), talks about borrowing from real life and setting himself up to be lucky.

If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?
I was a Philosophy major in college so I didn’t have a clear career path.

The last job I left before pursuing writing seriously was with the City of Philadelphia. I was a “management trainee,” which meant I did a lot of high level photocopying, and took minutes at meetings I didn’t understand. The pay was really good, and would increase, regularly, so long as I didn’t, like, carve a swastika into my desk, or pull my pants down in front of the mayor’s wife when she occasionally visited. Men in crumpled khakis would often corner me in the elevator and say, “You could be me in twenty years.” This was terrifying. But my father, a city employee himself, told me that if I didn’t find anything else to do, he would make me quit that job within a year—a bit of advice I’ve always been grateful for. Still, every once in a while, I do imagine what would have happened if I stayed on board. I mean, I had a Palm Pilot (remember those?).

I recently tore my Achilles tendon and have started physical therapy. My PT is the happiest person I’ve met in years. He bobs among us injured with exercise demands and hums along to the Top Forty radio blaring in the training room. Someone asks him about Twitter and he says he only follows other PTs and pastors. From overheard chatter, it sounds like he and his wife just adopted a very sick little girl from Africa. He heals people. I’d like to do that. Like lots of writers, I teach writing, and it’s often hard to know whether there’s progress with my students. But my foot is less purple, and I’m getting closer and closer to picking up a marble with my toes. What a cool job.

Do you ever borrow characters or situations from real life, and has anyone ever confronted you about it, been angry or pleased?
All the time. It’s unclear to me how else I would generate story. But there’s rarely a one-to-one connection though—events get exaggerated and compressed, characters are often mash-ups of a few people I’ve met, and personality traits are blown up or deflated as seems appropriate.

I’ve never really had a negative experience with this. It took my mother a little bit of time to distance herself from anytime I wrote about a mother. But that makes sense. I think my friends get a kick out of seeing themselves occasionally in my fiction. And I have sympathy—it’s not easy to be in a relationship with a writer who might be mining you for material. But I think a responsible fiction writer doesn’t just copy and paste people or events onto the page. Still, the real world is usually more interesting than pure imagination.

For me, this is one of the less reported on benefits of being a writer: the opportunity to transform crappy real life events into art. When something catastrophic, or tragic, or even just downright irritating is happening, I pretty quickly start taking notes. This might be an unhealthy response to real life events, but it does provide new fodder for story-telling.

What's the worst idea for a story you've ever had?

I love this question, and I wish I had a great example, but I don’t. It’s certainly not because I haven’t had terrible ideas, but they’re bad because they’re boring (and so probably not worth reporting on here). Most of my stories worth abandoning have to do with people who are trapped, or even just extremely bored. These are really difficult plots to move forward, even if the first few pages might be interesting. My worst ideas have no legitimate engine to push them forward.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
For writing in general, I’d just assert that the work gets better when you put the time in. Forget mystical issues of “talent” or “inspiration.” Writing effective fiction is much more like hitting a 90 mph fastball or cooking the perfect omelet, than convening with some muse—practice, practice, practice. Your worst idea is instructive, and your best ideas usually come while you are already writing. As far as I can tell, there is no third party, no spirit guide, no secret knowledge that some writers have access to while others don’t.

For publishing, I think the real virtues are patience and persistence. This isn’t sexy advice, but most publishing successes I’ve had have come from the piece finding itself in the right place at the right time in a way I never could have predicted. So, submit the work you’re done with, go to the literary events that you can drive to and/or afford, and accept that luck, as in most people’s careers, has something to do with your success. But of course, there are ways to set yourself up to be lucky.