Cities and suburbs, real and imaginary.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Interviewed at Gotham Writer's Workshop

Thanks to Jenn Brissett for this interview over at the Gotham Writer's Workshop Website!

There's just a few questions, but they are good ones, and a highlight of one of my answers lies herein:

If you treat writing like a job, and think of it like one, this will also help tremendously. If you told your boss, at work, that you were feeling blocked and could not complete your tasks, they would not take you very seriously. When viewed as a profession, and a job, feeling blocked is resolved by allowing oneself to do a less-than-stellar job today, and to give oneself permission to suck, sometimes. Everyone has bad days at work, right?

One of the things I like to say is that some days writing comes so easily, like drinking cool water for hours -- like being a gargoyle in a rainstorm and the water just seems to pour out of your mouth. Other days, it is like having a tooth wedged in your head of what you know is supposed to be on the page, and writing is a pair of pliers that pulls and pulls at that stuck tooth. Everyone has good days and bad days at work. Some days are water. Some days are teeth. That's okay. That's supposed to happen.

What is never supposed to happen is giving up on your job.
What question was that for? What are the other questions and answers? What is the Gotham Writer's Workshop? All these and more can be found at:

http://www.writingclasses.com/WritersResources/AuthorAdviceDetail.php/author_id/192627

I think it is very, very important to point out the wealth of good interviews they have on that site, including Jeffrey Ford, Jeff VanderMeer, R.L. Stine, Jodi Picoult, Aimee Bender, and more. A real diverse line of writers answering useful questions for writers. What a great resource!

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