Vagabond Press Interview

I never wanted to be a writer. It always looked like a sad and lonely life to me, and it still does, but as I get on through life and continue to write, I see the place coming where I’ll just give up and call myself a writer. So although I’ve been writing for nearly 25 years, I only recently began thinking that when I grow up I want to be a writer.

I was a stutterer for most of my life, and as a result I think exclusively in words. It’s an enormous head start, to be obsessed with language at such a young age, and also a strange habit. I can force an image into my mind, but it is instantly converted to words. We stutterers, or disfluents, as we are sometimes called, are also are supremely fast, on-the-fly editors, constantly rewording our thoughts to get around sounds we cannot consistently produce. Like so many others, I began writing out of despair and a sense of disconnectedness form the world, out of loneliness and fantasy; in my stories I was fluid and fluent, I could be charming or terrifying or wise. In my stories I had friends and purpose and value. I have since overcome my stutter and evolved into the speaking superhero that I had so often fantasized about, but I still write for the same basic reason. Like someone who moves into a new home and renovates to their liking, I recreate the world I inhabit through my fiction, and although my changes are often small and subtle, when I am finished and read back what I have written, that world seems like a better place than before. And I think that’s a common path that many writers take; it begins as a curiosity, then an art, then an outlet, then an addiction and finally an immersive way of life. For me, the real world is indistinguishable from fiction, and the more I write, the greater control I gain over that fictional world, which directly translates into greater power over my own life.

I thought it would make me feel smarter or wiser, but it really doesn’t. I can say that, for me, being a journalist was a horrible and demeaning experience, summarizing the waste and wreckage we create in life and I often wish I hadn’t done that; the recovery process is long and uncertain. The good part about being a writer it is that instead of explaining my obscure job to people who ask the dreaded what-do-I-do question, I just say that I’m a writer. It satisfies and shuts up nearly everyone. They ask what do I write? Stories, I answer, and that’s enough.

A combination of rhythm and emotion and conflict. Writing is like music to me, and when I read something that resonates I often find myself tapping my foot to the words. Sentence length, pauses, trigger words, breaks and pacing, these all make up the vehicle and structure of good writing in the same way they do for speaking. Strong words put together well, delivering raw emotion while reflecting the real and sad complexity of the world we live in, that’s what I’m after as both a reader and a writer. I’ve read some tremendous stories with rather flat writing where the storyline and its clear depiction carried me through, but really it is those well written, lyrical stories, where what happens is absorbed into the delivery and presentation and where the writer transfers an emotional experience directly and deeply into a reader’s undisturbed depths. The best stories I’ve read are tight and untidy, the ones that don’t paint verbose pictures that lead me towards an experience but instead shoot that experience directly into my psyche as if through a gun; a raw, unfinished experience that takes root inside and stays with me long after I have finished reading.

Literary thrillers. It’s a small, emerging market. I’ve only read three or four so far.

If I had to choose one, I’d go with the early Chuck Palahniuk. But there are so many good writers to choose from.

Fight Club, Bright Lights, Big City, The Writing Life, Zorba the Greek, The Little Prince, White Noise, and, oddly enough, Andy Rooney.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?
To me this is the same question, although I might add a few others, The Wisdom of Insecurity, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, The Giving tree, Snowboarding in Nirvana, Atlas Shrugged, 11 Minutes.

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?
I often get this trance-like loneliness when I am in crowds, like being an insider and outsider in life at the same time. It is hard to induce, but I find those times to be the most inspiring and pure. I can either observer or participate, but rarely can I do both. I admit to looking like one of those modern, overmedicated crazy people with their designer depression labels, smiling alone at nothing, but it works for me. The ocean inspires me as well, its ever-changing and uncaring power. And traveling, so long as I avoid hotels. Basically anything that shocks or shifts me.

What does your family think of your writing?
They think it’s fine as long as I don’t give up my real job. Which of course I am planning to do very soon.

What is your work schedule like when you’re writing?
The only way I can write is by constantly changing my schedule, as well as my circumstance and method. Once it becomes routine I tend to dry up. Sometimes I will write early in the morning, other times I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to pee and write for an hour. Outside, inside, cafes or bars or bookstores. There has to be a better way, I know.

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?
I have to write alone in peace, but I find that once I have some momentum I do better in loud, public places. So I often take a story that is one-third or one-half written out with me wherever I go. These are times when I am always happy, in the middle of my stories where anything can happen. So if you see me at the back of a dingy Irish pub smiling and scribbling and surrounded by scraps of paper, you’ll see me at my writing best.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
My writing is often described as very emotional, yet very cold. I am trying to warm it. Also, I tend to overwrite easily, to the point where it obscures to the initial work. And I basically find writing to be a very unpleasant task. It is frustrating, lonely, and it hurts my fingers, eyes and head.

What are your current projects?
Stories and more stories, and I am rewriting and trying to finish my first novel, set in the 90′s during the height of the Animal Rights movement.

More stories and more novels, and I’d like to teach and edit.

Do you have any advice for other writers?
I’d advise against developing a ‘thick skin’ as many others say. Rejection hurts, sure, and oftentimes your writing is your most personal and honest self, but you need to feel the world around you in all its pain and splendor, to not let life crust and scab over but to probe and explore the world around you, and inside of you, in every possible way. Spend as much of your life balanced on the very edge of sanity and normalcy, laughing and crying at the same time. That is the cost of being a writer, and it’s a lot steeper than people think it is. The very nature of a writer goes against psychiatric well-being, and the myth of the miserable and suicidal and alcoholic writer has very real roots, but it is also a way of living that you can master. Either way, being a writer is a choice. It’s a lot of work, and it hurts at times, and you don’t have to do it. There are many other pleasant and beneficial ways to spend your days and your life.

The Barcelona Review, The Battered Suitcase, Susurrus, Rose and Thorn, Newsday Magazine, Metazen, Withersin, Spectrum Magazine, Lit Up, The Oracle, The Observer, New York Press, Manhattan Perspectives, The Animal’s Agenda, Opium Magazine, and others.