an interview: amelia
gray
audrey granger
In previous interviews you’ve mentioned that when you get an idea for a story it digs at your brain until you get it out on paper. Is this indicative of your writing process? It’s more indicative of my thinking process really, which seems pretty standard to how everyone thinks. There are some ideas rattling around in there, mixing with what I’ve already considered or written along with pieces of my day to day life, my freelance work, conversations I’ve had with friends, things I’ve seen on the internet, previous failed projects, what I had for breakfast, overheard conversations and similar. Eventually the idea either dies back there or becomes linked to something else, or it comes out as its own piece. I just turned in a novel that got a lot of those smaller ideas attached to it, because I was going into a few different characters which each became their own collectors. I lost a lot of stories to the novel, I’m sure. Once you “get it out,” is the story fairly complete, born whole from your head like Athena, or At what point do you consider a story done, ready for publication? Very mythical! I like it more as ripped from my thigh. And really that is only true sometimes, mostly for the shorter stuff. Longer work like House Heart takes months, big changes, shifts in direction. I rarely feel like work is completely done. Usually it’s more of a sense that the changes are getting smaller and smaller and I need to walk away. It’s an unsettling feeling, like I’m leaving part of the body buried.
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RE: AL