writing methods

Collectors Of

Writer: What do you think about when placing stories or flashes or essays or poems or whatnot in a collection?

Order? Disorder? Intent?

Reader: How do you ingest a collection? Start to finish, left to right, top to bottom—blar!

Reader: A while back I was reading Drift and Swerve by Samuel Ligon and found myself intrigued by Nikki, a reappearing character. So I read all the Nikki stories first, then read the others.

Writer: Is a collection an album? Greatest hits, do you hear a single, does anyone remember the term concept?

Reader: This Richard Russo collection, it had a spectacular story, one, and the others…well.

Seems like you can crag in more tone shifts, more gnashes, poet. Can the prose writer do the same, or do these texts need to have some similarity?

You say hybrid, I say what?

Let’s bale these tendrillic texts, bathtub them, and call everything a novel! So clean!

OK.

Was just wondering. Etc.

Behind the Scenes & Craft Notes / 25 Comments
January 25th, 2010 / 11:25 am

WHAT ARE YOUR WRITING HABITS/RITUALS/METHODS

"dear new yorker, enclosed is my story, HIT A HOMERUN FOR GRANDMA, LITTLE BILLY."

"dear new yorker, enclosed is my story, HIT A HOMERUN FOR GRANDMA, LITTLE BILLY."

i think everyone has or has had a method. what is your method? here’s mine for right now:

sit down on my bed (which has no box spring, sits on floor)
pinch my eyes closed to avoid crying (then use the one or two tears that fall onto my leg to twist up my leg hair into “dreads”)
inhale a beachball filled with nitrous
then just cut and paste babysitter’s club books and pantera lyrics

Behind the Scenes / 54 Comments
March 19th, 2009 / 6:41 pm