Averil Dean's Blog, page 22

Monster

Have you ever become obsessed with something? Tell us about something that captivates your attention like nothing else.

I am only ever obsessed, unless I’m completely disinterested. I’m in or out. Hot or cold. Balls to the wall or yawning at the sideline. I don’t know how to pace myself or how to handle more than one obsession at a time. Someone asked me recently whether I am still a photographer. I used to be so into it, what happened? All I could think to reply was no. I’m writing now. There...

Algorithm

Have you dreamt of becoming famous? What would your claim to fame be? Comedy? Acting? Writing? Race car driving? Go!

I’ve been sitting here trying to answer this honestly, but I keep coming back to the fact that I’m not entirely sure what we mean by fame anymore. Everyone is a little bit famous, right? The kids with their likes, the unsigned stars on YouTube, all us writers with our books and blogs and essays and interviews. It isn’t hard to talk yourself into the illusion of fame. The numbers...

Boards

After a long day at work or school, what are your favorite ways to wind down and decompress?

It’s usually after 7pm by the time I get home from work, and I’ve only got a couple of good hours left in me. Just enough time for dinner, a book…and Pinterest.

Don’t laugh. It’s a silly hobby, I guess, but I have always loved photography and Pinterest is a great place to collect it. You can have a board for every mood, or for every color, or for recipes, quotes, or dreamy destinations—whatever butters...

The Man

Tell us about a time when you fought authority and took a stand against “the man.” Did you win?

“The man,” huh? I’m not sure what that means in 2014 America. The man is just us, collectively, asserting a framework of societal mores to which an individual can attach, support, or restrain herself according to her disposition. I suppose there are pockets of resistance over specific issues, but to me it seems that authority has become this amorphous mass that seeps in everywhere and can only be o...

House of Cards

Do you find it easy to make new friends? Tell us how you’ve mastered the art of befriending a new person.

Um, no. Anything that involves 3D, real-time social interaction is difficult for me. I have better luck with men than women. A guy is usually looking for an audience rather than an interaction (present company excepted, of course), so a couple of questions will get him rolling. I’ve got a little Scarlett in me that way. I let men imagine they’re teaching me or changing my mind, it’s good...

Repeat

Tell us your tried and true techniques for focusing when that deadline looms and you need to get work done. In other words, how do you avoid wasted days and wasted nights?

There is no technique. You just have to decide that the work is more important than finding the perfect picture of a clapping seal for your Pinterest board, or uncovering Ellen’s secret shame, or plucking the dog-hair tumbleweeds off the living room floor, or concocting the perfect chana masala when your tried-and-true recip...

Roll

If you’re feeling blah, what is the one thing you do that you can count on to put a smile on your face?

This prompt feels like it’s coming from that smarmy friend who asks you the same question five minutes after you’ve answered it because he wasn’t listening the first time around.

Fuck it. I’m going back to my pages and imaginary soundtrack. If Blackbird were a movie, this song would be playing during the closing credits:

Theme songs, anyone? For your book, for your life?

Warming

Theoretically, summer will return to the polar-vortex-battered Northern Hemisphere. What are you looking forward to doing this summer? If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, what are your fondest memories of Summer past?

I’ve been sitting here daydreaming about farmers markets and day trips to the beach, and lunches outdoors during lazy afternoons in Portland and Seattle. Blue skies, sandals, sundresses that tickle in a rummaging breeze. Icy drinks jeweled and dripping with condensation, those...

652 posts later…

Do you love to dance, sing, write, sculpt, paint, or debate? What’s your favorite way to express yourself, creatively?

Underwater basket-weaving.

Over to you.

Aces

We all get jealous from time to time — what wakes the green-eyed monster for you?

Big writing talent. Though it’s inspiring to read a powerful book or beautifully crafted passage, part of what’s inspired is jealousy. I sit there staring at the words lined up so sweetly, thinking “read ‘em and weep,” like we’re in a card game and the other writer has just laid down the aces. I slump over my own cards and think, I could never have laid those down, they aren’t even in my hand. Someone else was de...