Ask the Author: Michael Amos Cody
Answered Questions (8)
Michael Amos Cody
Last evening, just after supper, when we had moved out to the veranda to worship the last light, the unspeakable sounded its claim on our fifty acres of forested mountain side and stony creek bed. What we heard began as a forlorn howl, such as some creature might make if it returned to its den to find the place and its little ones destroyed, a howl that escalated into a scream of rage, the echoes of which seemed to spread invisible fire through the woods and sent us scrambling for . . .
Michael Amos Cody
I don't know about a plot, but here's a possible inciting incident. One Sunday morning, I stepped out my front door in the woods south of Asheville. I intended to fetch the newspaper, but I was stopped when I looked down and saw a woman's dew-wet footprint on the concrete stoop. Just a single footprint, angled in such a way that I could tell somebody had stepped up cautiously (only one step--so, ready to run if caught) to look through the window into my home office, with a view of my bathroom sink and mirror. I looked up from the footprint and looked around, but all was quiet in the woods.
Michael Amos Cody
My past. My experience gave it its bones, its skeletal frame, and fiction became its flesh and blood.
Michael Amos Cody
By wanting to be a writer and by writing. It's difficult to face, and sadly, some days I'm just not up to it or just not available for it. As d'Israeli wrote in the late 18th century, "We kindle as we roll."
Michael Amos Cody
Most faithfully, a collection of short stories, in which each story takes place in a single month of a particular year. The first story is set in January, the last in December.
Michael Amos Cody
I'm still mostly aspiring myself, so I just do what I do. I write as well as I can and don't worry too much about aspirations -- other than aspiring to write as well as I can.
Michael Amos Cody
That it is both work and play, mostly at the same time but not always.
Michael Amos Cody
With a combination of patience and staying busy. Sometimes I have to let the reservoir fill up again when it seems to have gone dry. I find that staying busy doing other productive things keeps my mind off of the idea of writer's block, the emptied space, but even as I'm otherwise productively occupied, the reservoir is filling.
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