My Writing Process: Blog Tour

My Writing Process Blog Tour

I was tagged by Gay Degani to post briefly on my writing process. This is a sort of floating interview. 

Gay is the author of  What Came Before and Pomegranate Stories. Gay's award-winning writing has appeared in numerous online and print journals. Not only is Gay's writing amazing, but so is her contribution to the literary landscape; she is the founder of EDF's Flash Fiction Chronicles, and she works as an editor at Smokelong Quarterly. Thanks for the tag, Gay. Read her responses here. 


The Q&A

What am I working on? 

I'm polishing my first novel and beginning a new one that stars a recurring character in my short stories, Rattle. This work has been slow-going, but I'm very excited about it. I was writing very short stories for a long time (such as those that appear in Don't Tease the Elephants), but lately I've found myself writing longer stories. We'll see what happens there.

How does my work differ from other work of its genre? 

My writing doesn't sparkle. I write about Ohio. I write about fictional people who would never write about themselves because they don't think anyone would care (characters I like to prove wrong). 

Why do I write what I do? 

My goal is to write simple, clear fiction that appeals to readers in a way that stays with them. I'm not sure I always achieve this, but the WHY of my writing is to satisfy a younger me and those like the younger me. I write for those unsure that anyone could ever relate for a variety of reasons, and I write what I write because I believe it matters. 

How does my writing process work?

I write when I can. Accordingly, I write on weekends and in between classes, and I write a little at a time. When the writing gods are smiling on me, I write full drafts of short stories in a single sitting, but this is rare. Usually, I tinker away at something until it makes sense, and this tends to take a long time.

So that's how I work. Now, to tag others... I choose JP Reese and Gessy Alvarez.


JP Reese is the author of two poetry collections: Final Notes and Dead Letters. Her poetry and fiction has been widely anthologized. A senior poetry editor for Connotation Press—An Online Artifact and a fiction guest editor for Scissors and Spackle, Reese has been nominated for Best of the Net, and she won the first Patricia McFarland Memorial Prize for her flash fiction. Reese lives and works in Texas.

Gessy Alvarez earned her MFA from Columbia University and taught fiction in the New York City public school system and at Columbia University Medical Center. She is an alum of the Voices at VONA Workshop and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. She interviews and posts about her new publications at Digging Through the Fat.