#puddingheadandstuff

    What genres do you write? What do you like to write about? Recurring themes, etc.

  Fiction and narrative, mostly. I like to write what I like to read. Most times I prefer to read what I am writing, rather than something off the shelf. I don’t know if that makes any difference as to whether my stories are worthy of being published by someone other than myself. Probably not. It’s difficult to distinguish between genres because it’s all mingled together in every story. Cutting it short: I am exploring the reasons we are the way we are.

Tell us about your upcoming novel.

  (I’m in a sweat.)

It’s bigger than me, and most days even I am in shambles trying to comprehend, so it’s difficult to describe. It’s an exploration. An allegoric study in ethics, metaphysics. Survival through persistence. The unavoidable collapse of what we think of as truth. Cosmic truths/everyday truths. The characters are all hopeless monsters, who have all just undergone things tragic, to which they’ve all been given a paranormal opportunity, to grasp, to alter, the ramifications of the lives they were living, the lives their parents were living, back home.

Do you have any plans for publishing your novel?

  I do have plans to publish, providing I stop re-writing long enough.

I’d rather not self publish. It terrifies me to think of self publishing as my only option. Reason being:

a. I’m not a publisher

b. I’d do it horribly. I am the worst person to pimp my work.

c. I need someone aside from myself, preferably indie, whom I respect, to believe in what I am doing, so deeply. This is because I am a junky. My drug is validation. It’s sick. It really is.

How do you write? Do you have a routine you follow, writing habits, or certain things that give you inspiration?

  I am a loner, unsatisfied, longing, so I write everyday. Sometimes I go to bed early so I can get up around four or five am, when the house is still dead. I’ll make coffee in the ninja with almond milk and caramel drizzle while praying the kids don‘t wake-they usually don’t. I gather my sins-smokes and things, put on a sweater because even in the summer it’s cold in the morning. Socks too. Close the door. Put on the music, something chill, sometimes rain or wood chimes. Today it was, Phosphorescent. Think. Think. Scold myself for thinking too much. Open up where I left off, re-read it, all of it. Re-edit. Stare at things, for about three more hours. Make more coffee. Stomachs growling. Reluctantly stop staring and smoking to go to the kitchen to find something to shut the whine out. Sit back down. Exhale. Hit myself. Harder than that. Pussy. Re-read most of what I wrote last night, again. People are getting up. The sun is blaring. Dogs are barking. Change the music. Smoke. Stare out the window. Now everyone is awake and they all need, something-start writing.

As a writer, how do you make the best of bad situations/ your personal struggles?

  I’ll draft a character representing the problem. Dialogue and dance and strip and lament, with the character, until we trust, and understand each other. Usually the problem isn’t a problem, the struggle isn’t a struggle, once you embrace it.

  Which writers do you really admire? Whose work do you draw inspiration from?

  I crave the earnest declarations of Anais Nin-who knew. She just knew. The rawness of Ginsberg and Kerouac and Bukowski and the like. The solitude of Virginia Woolf. The truth in Dr. Seuss. There’s also Rilke. Kierkegaard. Lautremont. I found Maldoro at my library. I’ve checked it out three times, since; weighing out the moral repercussions of intentionally losing it so I can call it mine. Emerson. Golding. Kafka: Kill me now, or else you’re a murderer. I feel like I should add writers, still alive: Nick Flynn, Anne rice, Patti smith, Rebecca Solnit. There’s so many writers.

What's your view on the direction publishing is going? 

I can appreciate that power in the hands of the writer, but I do feel like I’ve missed the better boat; Stephen King says we’ll be fine. But I don’t know. It’s depressing. specifically the fall of so many book shops. As long as actual pages stick around, I think I’ll manage.

  What's one question you'd wished I'd ask that I haven't yet?

  I’d like to touch on rules in writing.

Particularly-What we’re allowed to write.

1. Fuck is a word. It cannot reach out from the page and slap your face. We’re not required to get offended when we hear it, or read it. (Same with sex) People say fuck a lot. I read something about only four 'fucks' being allowed in a novel. That’s probably false but it’s something like that. Four fucks, but Christian Grey can sputter all over the place. Four fucks goes unknown, goes indie, goes self publishing, but Christian Grey and his Story of O goes national.

2. Perception is relative. (I talk about this is my novel.)

I still think about the interview Kurt Loder from MTV, gave Jewel, after she wrote that book of poetry. He cited something she’d written and then smiled and said, that doesn’t make sense. And it mortified, Jewel. If that were me, I would have said, It doesn’t have to. Next question.