Written Author Interview
- Tell me about yourself. What do you like to do outside of writing. What is a day in the life like for you?
A typical day includes work, which is a lot of sitting at a computer. I try to exercise each day, and then afterward, I try to write. And watch stuff. I try every day to create something, to keep exercising that part of my brain. I always have a notebook or a spreadsheet handy because stuff comes to me and I want to make sure I capture it. Many people have a To Be Read pile. I have one of those, too. But I also have a To Be Written pile. - What inspired your first novel? What was the thing that got you into writing in the first place?
My first novel, The Blood-Red Night of Hatchet Valley, was my attempt to cut loose in a way that’s difficult with screenwriting. I wanted to wrangle a lot of characters, a lot of creatures, a lot of mayhem, and so forth. I didn’t specifically want anyone to say “Man, this is impossible to film,” but I would much rather have someone say “Well, this is gonna
be a ton of fun to film!” I was coming from a film making place, too, so even though I was trying to pull out all the stops, I was always noodling in the back of my mind how to film this scene or that scene.
As far as how I started writing, that’s ancient stuff. I remember writing ever since I could write. At a certain point, I realized that I could submit stories to magazines, and once that started, it was all over but the shouting. There’s still a lot of shouting. - How do you come up with characters? Are they spontaneous or meticulously planned?
They often start a little amorphous. I’m writing and part of that writing is typically a need for characters, as most stories are about people. Before I even really start writing, I’m working through a little on the characters and why this is happening to them, and what kind of person they are and how they might respond. Once I begin writing properly, I
usually have a rough idea how they are, and then I begin. During the writing, they very often unfold in mannerisms and realities that I didn’t anticipate, though they are rarely far from the initial conception. Most often, I learn only seconds ahead of the reader, why characters are the way they are, because by the time I’m writing, I feel more like I’m observing and noting, instead of creating. - What are some of your favorite genres to read? Are there any books you’d recommend to first time readers or people looking for something new?
Lately, I’ve been crawling through some non-fiction, science articles, stuff like that. Things written by devastatingly smart people are always interesting to read because this isn’t just some goofball internet opinion. I’ve been working my way through Bostrum’s book “Superintelligence” which is one of the more dense books on my active TBR list. I also sometimes just grab some fiction on impulse. - What’s the most difficult thing about being a writer?
I think the most difficult thing about being a writer now is the persistent sense of devaluation. People claim that they want to read, that they like to read. Our media is literally filled with writers off all sorts and stripes. Writers write basically everything that we desperately consume for entertainment. And yet writers are often treated like embarrassing garbage. That joke has existed since forever. An example of it that I always remember is: “Oh, you’re a writer,” she said, discreetly checking her purse under the table to be sure she could pay for her share of dinner. It’s become even more difficult over the past couple of decades. While being able to publish a book has become easier – especially for under-represented voices (which is great) – society’s disdain for authors has skyrocketed. Trying to break out of that perception is so difficult, and authors have increasingly been held responsible for fulfilling tasks that previously have been associated with publishers. The writers I know are spending time thinking about ad strategies, and publication cycles, and campaigns. This can be fascinating, please don’t get me wrong, but it takes time away from what a writer needs to be doing, which is more writing. We’ve modified the world of the writer from being gate-kept by publishers to being gate-kept by ability-to-market, and I’m not convinced this is necessarily a good thing. - What is your process to completing a novel from outline to final product?
I rarely have an outline. I start by tossing around some idea in my head, like “What would it be like if tornadoes got sucked up by sharks (not my idea, I’m just using it as an example)?” Then I think
more about it. I explore what I like to call the “big roads” through the stories, the main plotlines, I guess. The characters start forming around then. Eventually, I grab a stack of index cards and I start scratching out scenes or highlights as fast as I can. The goal is to squeeze everything I can out of my brain and onto a card.
After I feel the cards are somewhat complete, I lay them all out on the floor or a table and start shuffling them to put them in order. I pay attention to which characters are where and when, so that I can (I hope) avoid obvious errors. With the cards all laid out, I speak through the story, card-by-card, over and over, filling in gaps or glitches with more cards, removing cards that feel redundant, tweaking what’s
written on the cards as need be, etc. When I am super happy with my cards, I number them and stack them.
Then I write the entire book from the cards, picking off each scene or part as I write it, based on the cards. When I get to the bottom of the card stack, the novel is done. Or script. Then I read the whole thing aloud to catch dumb words or phrases, or words that I use too often.
After that, it’s absolutely perfect until I learn it isn’t. I don’t spend a ton of time rewriting over and over. Usually, I’ll do a couple deep edits,
and then my brain has to let the project go, unless there’s some other motivation.
- What’s the most unhinged thing you’ve written in your novel? Don’t worry, we don’t judge here.
In The Blood-Red Night of Hatchet Valley, I think it was a scene where no one knew that a baby had become infected. The baby eventually starts attacking and they have to chase it around the room trying to shoot it. It’s weird and comical and I always laugh reading it.
In The Violet Furnace (my most recently published novel), there’s a scene where the main characters find a couple of survivors, but it turns out they didn’t, in fact, survive. They are just fungal recreations who have an echo of living still in the mess of what used to be human brain. And at the slightest provocation, all they know how to do is scream. - What’s one thing about being a writer that absolutely drives you up the wall?
Never having enough time to write all the things I want to write. - What does being a successful writer look like for you? What type of life do you want to live as a writer?
Enough of an income that we are comfortable, and I spend a lot of time writing, and a fair amount of time making movies. - Describe your writing journey. If you had to write a story centered around it, do you think you could pull it off?
I think you mean my journey of learning to write; of going from not-a-writer to who I am at the moment? I think there’s a lot of luck in it. And writing per se is not an exciting thing to watch. It’s just me writing a lot of things and getting a lot of things rejected, and getting
frustrated and grumpy and then trying again. But it also includes getting better, and I like that. Practice makes perfect.
I made some choices about projects that seemed – at the time – to be ridiculous choices, but I learned a ton working through them and doing them.
If there was an exciting part to share with someone as a story, it would be a story of always trying to one-up yourself. If you think a project will be crazy and impossible, then throw yourself at it like a hunk of meat against a cliff face, and just do the work.
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