Ask the Author: Gregory Adams
Answered Questions (5)
Gregory Adams
Typically I'll be reading the news or social media and some item or other will give me a sudden flash and I'll be off. I chase many rabbits down What if? rabbitholes and not all of them pan out and become finished work, but it's entertaining for me to explore various alternate realities.
Gregory Adams
I publish short story collections so the ideas are varied, but the most consistent motivator is to look at a situation or condition and imagine the most extreme or absurd outcome and then attempt to relate that story as realistically as possible. Undecided in The River Above, for example, imagines if the worst of our two political parties was true. Martyrs in One Day in Hell considers suicide bombing as a more common means of social critique. What I try to do is find the truth in such an absurd circumstance and keep it grounded as possible.
Gregory Adams
As I recently published a collection, I'm hard at work writing and editing a new batch of short stories and sending them out to various markets. I have half a dozen in the hands of editors currently. I have a few more I'm getting ready for submission upcoming deadlines. When I'm working, I work fast and I usually have a few things progressing at once so I can put my energy into whatever story is most inspiring at that moment.
Gregory Adams
The rush of a first draft, when everything is effortless and the story leads you along. Sadly most of what I produce in those first rushes is of little use and must be rewritten again and again. Still, it's wonderful when the characters are answering questions and making decision seemingly without my input. Selling a completes story or a book isn't bad either.
Gregory Adams
I've found that reading is the most reliable way to catch some inspiration, especially something by an author who takes chances. I'll sometimes go back and reread the first few pages of Don Delio's Underworld for the jolt it provides. Or Stephen King's The Mist, which is one of the most intense pressure-cookers I've ever read. For the most part, I get blocked when I'm trying to bulldoze through a particular story or passage and often all it takes is switching to another section or even another story altogether to get the gear turning. I call this Barton Fink-ing as the Coen brothers wrote and directed that film while hung up on Miller's Crossing. So great things can come from frustration as long as you keep working.
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