With this post, we inaugurate our new series, the Writer’s Questionnaire!  We culled questions from a wide variety of sources, including our own heads.  First up (full disclosure):  one of our very own, Ms. Lizzie K. Foley, who (sadly) no longer lives close enough to commune with us on Fridays, but who shall always be a member of the group in our hearts.

Lizzie  has just had her successful debut in publishing with her children’s book, Remarkable.   Remarkable tells the story of Jane (Doe, of course), who believes herself to be the sparrow among swans in the town of Remarkable where everyone is a prodigy of something.  Pirates and natural-born but gifted (of course) evil twins create havoc, which only plain, ordinary Jane can resolve.  One of the things I love about the book is how Lizzie juggles crazy plot lines and yet it all makes sense — or maybe it’s just such great, funny writing that I would go along with anything she wrote.  Read it, if you haven’t yet!

On to the questions:

I think Oliver Stone is grossly oversimplifying here.  I’m not saying it’s not important to sit down and write – because it is, obviously, and books can’t get finished without a lot of butt-meets-chair.  But that’s not all there is to it.

First of all, no matter how determined I am to write, sometimes sitting down to work isn’t in the cards.  Like a lot of writers, I have a family.  I have responsibilities and obligations that are sometimes more pressing than writing.  And on those days—when I have to run around doing errands and chores that keeps life functioning—I’ve had to learn to keep the story in my head.  Even if you aren’t sitting, you can be mulling.

And we all know that the most brilliant ideas for a story almost invariably happen when we don’t have anything to write with, like when we are in the shower, or when we are half-asleep, or when we are driving.  I think sometimes our minds need time away from the pressure of actually putting words down on a page. So, not sitting can be as important as sitting.

Then there is the fact that some days sitting at the desk trying to write is about as productive and enjoyable as hitting myself with a hammer.  And when I am having one of these days, it’s important to know when to put the hammer down, get up out of the chair and go do something else.  Otherwise, writing turns into something that I hate.  And it is hard to write well when I am hating writing.

Not so much food as drink.  I love black tea – very strong black tea – with milk.  And coca-cola.  I love having coke when I write.  I probably love this too much (I drink a lot of coke).

And give your characters the chance to surprise you.  Don’t get so hung up on your early vision of what they are like and what they have to accomplish in the story that you can’t allow them to be more interesting if you’re hit with inspiration

 My favorite thrill is….

I love watching someone get really good news.  It chokes me up every time.

My shower songs are usually a compilation of whatever song is on the radio too much and is stuck in my head.  But I can never remember the actual lyrics, and so I mostly make up my own the lyrics.  And my lyrics are always deeply stupid and enjoyable only to me (or at least that’s what people who hear me sing tell me).

Text.  Seriously.  How great would it be to be able to jot down notes for a story on my phone.  Or, I don’t know, successfully send a text message.  But I am the s.l.o.w.e.s.t texter in the world.  I could mail a message via the post office to someone faster than I can send a text.  It’s pitiful.

But the one thing I’ve been feeling deeply puzzled about lately is the relationship between reading and writing.  I love to read—absolutely love it, but I’ve noticed that I have a very difficult time reading fiction when I’m deep into writing one of my own stories.  I have a complete inability to stay focused no matter how interested I am in the book.  I would love to hear an explanation of why this happens…or better yet, I’d love a cure.

Thanks, Lizzie, for the perfect inauguration of our writer’s questionnaire!  Can’t wait for your next book…

Next up:  Jill Koenigsberg.  If you want to suggest a writer for us to torture with the questionnaire, please do so via the comments or you can email us.

The Table Post-Prompt

I was at an estate sale this morning. I go to these from time to time, always on the lookout for that odd thing, that strange piece no one wants except me and the person who has now passed on to a realm where they can’t take it with them. I particularly like things with a flavor of a bygone era (“vintage” being so overused and misapplied these days – or maybe I just don’t want to admit that items familiar to me in childhood are now considered vintage).

Here we all were, pawing through the detritus of someone’s life, looking for bargains all the while commenting on their taste as if we were rude guests at a dinner party where the hosts are in the kitchen. Sometimes, I just walk out, but sometimes I find a few things, usually small and odd things, that I feel compelled to have, even if their functional value is nil. I can’t help but think of all the stuff I have collected over the years, including my treasured finds from these estate sales, which will one day recycle into yet another estate sale, mine. I will be glad if someone finds a small box of small things and thinks, “This is coming home to live with me.”

That also got me thinking of Walter Mosley’s commentary about pocket art. He said we should each carry a piece of art with us, pocket-sized, to both fight against the malaise of everyday life but also to be both our own curator and critic, thus taking control of one part of the creative for ourselves and away from Critics and Curators who tell us what to think of art. He also talked about how your pocket museum might be a collection of strange little things that get you thinking: a seashell that evokes images of strange creatures, a leaf in red glory, anything. (My studio is chockful of these.) Then, he exhorted us then to pull out that piece of artwork and start a dialogue with someone, even strangers.

So, on to the prompt(s):

1) If your character had a pocket museum, what would be in it?

2) Children always have stuff in their pockets, sometimes apparently meaningless, but what would the things they carry around tell about them? Say a bloodied old bandage? A perfectly round quartz pebble? A charm from a favorite aunt? An ant?

3) What if your character was in an awkward situation, grasping for something to say or give someone and

The contents of one pocket museum

they put their hand in their pocket? What would they pull out? How would they present it?

4) I’ve made up some pocket museums in envelopes as visual prompts. (See picture.)

5) For the truly adventurous, consider this: Mr. Mosley’s words inspired Robert Harrington to create the Museum of Pocket Art: www.mopaonline.com. One exhibit is called All Business All the Time: all the art is on business cards. I am bringing some business cards today, and challenge you to write a short story or essay on them that we will staple together to make your own pocket book.

Side note: Also, you artists and writers, please consider this: http://www.artomat.org

These are folks who recycle cigarette vending machines for a much more beautiful purpose: vending art at $5 a pop. Check out the gallery. Think about it joining in, either by submitting something (and I did see a handcrafted book amongst the offerings) or by going to the machine nearest you. Sadly, the one nearest me is about 600 miles away, but it sure got me thinking…

 Postscript: I’ve included some photos below of outcomes from the prompt, each using the business cards:

I too ended up with a short story – on 20 business cards front and back.  You can download it if you wish and make your own tiny book here:   I warn you, it’s setup to be printed on the front and back of a ten-card tear away set of business cards.  There are guidelines if you want to print this out yourself and cut along the lines.  There are 4 sheets, paired as follows:  bus card short story   Page 1 & 3 (1 is the front, 3 is the back), and  2 & 4 (2 is the front, 4 is the back).  Your printer will have its own logic in terms of printing front and back, but you’re only dealing with 2 sheets.  Each business card-sized page is numbered, so you can read it — but it’s a little wacky to follow if you don’t cut it out.  It’s a new voice for me, a departure from the usual.  Enjoy!