thoughts on writing

 Some answers to a questionnaire for a Spanish project, Jorge Mangas Peña’s “Album of Alchemies” (Álbum de alquimias) – in this form, call it “random responses about writing” . . . .

I started writing poetry “seriously” when I was nine or ten. Didn’t really start writing fiction, though, until my last semester in college. I wrote two short stories for a writing class. I graduated, was drafted, and sold one of those stories just before I got out of the army.

[My usual routine is to ] bicycle a few miles to a coffee house (there are nine or ten I choose among) and write in longhand, with a fountain pen, into a bound blank book. Every few days I type the text into the computer, rewriting slightly. I write slowly and don’t have to change much.

[About a story’s structure . . . ] Every story finds its own way. Sometimes I outline or draw a physical diagram (which I may follow or ignore) – and sometimes I just start writing, to see what will happen . . . Sometimes an idea will appear out of thin air, but usually I’ve doodled around with a story’s ideas for awhile before I start the text.

. . . . Sometimes you want to shut down the internal censor and just write whatever comes into your head – I think most writers have this as part of the creative process in some stage. My process may be more formal than most. Drawing diagrams of the story’s actions, themes – even pictures of the characters, as below --


. . . . Of course a prudent writer censors out libelous material, unless he wants to experiment with writing behind bars. On a few occasions I’ve decided to leave out of my stories detailed descriptions of techniques I learned as a combat demolition engineer – I don’t want to make a story cool by, for instance, detailing ways to make huge bombs out of everyday materials. (People of normal intelligence can find this stuff out by themselves; I’d hate to be the one who gave an idiot specific directions for mayhem.)

. . . . I suppose my ideal reader would be a person pretty much like myself, who doesn’t need a lot of stuff explained. I do have faith in my reader’s intelligence and don’t “dumb things down” for the sake of clarity. That becomes boring.

. . . . I [am] a science fiction writer who occasionally writes other things. I sometimes take on long projects, like trilogies, because readers and publishers seem to like them. If I didn’t have to make a living at it, I’d write a lot more short stories and poetry, and my novels would usually be stand-alone works.

. . .. I don’t really have [“writers’ block” as such]. I always work on my novels at various levels, and if the text is “resisting” me, I can go to writing notes about the plot or background or characters. Stepping outside of the story that way will usually get me back into it within a day or so.

. . . . With only a few exceptions, it’s really important to work every day. The usual advice is to always work at the same time, same place – that’s advice I’ll give even though I don’t follow it any longer. (For my first fifteen or so books, I always got up before dawn and, sitting always in the same place, wrote for several hours, finishing in the early morning. I chose houses where I could be isolated and work that way.)

Nowadays I like to bicycle to a café a few miles away. The exercise clears my mind and being away from home (where the computer is always begging for attention) helps me stay focused on the work.

I do have a love/hate relationship with the computer. If it was there when I was trying to write, it would offer all manner of easier and more fun things to do.

Joe