Ask the Author: Jack Dempsey
Answered Questions (6)
Jack Dempsey
Please see "what are you currently working on"---Besides new short pieces that I publish at jackdempseywriter.wordpress.com. Latest there: "People of the Sea: Life Beyond The Catastrophe Cycle."
Jack Dempsey
For me inspiration comes from going wherever the writing subject is, answering the inner drive to write with enriching research and off-trail experience: the energy gained overflows at the work-desk and so helps to prove you can do this. Not a few work-days begin without great inspiration but it can also be won by pushing forward. Then there's sheer gratitude for how much we owe the world of particulars and people that make our lives....
Also important: I'm a poet in the morning, a scholar in the day, and a critic at night---so because I let each function in turn, they don't interfere with each other, and each brings something crucial to the whole manuscript. Find your best work-times in each mode and watch them enrich each other's contributions.
Also important: I'm a poet in the morning, a scholar in the day, and a critic at night---so because I let each function in turn, they don't interfere with each other, and each brings something crucial to the whole manuscript. Find your best work-times in each mode and watch them enrich each other's contributions.
Jack Dempsey
Way back in 1980 NYC, I started a bildungsroman set in hometown Massachusetts. Then I realized what needed doing first was an historian's work. So, 8 books later (4 on ancient Minoan Crete and 4 on Native & Early New England), I'm amazed to be back on the coming-of-age contemporary novel that interlinks all of them, kind of a capstone to contributions hopefully made.
Jack Dempsey
Depends on the writer's aspiration. Is it "serious"? I.e., does she/he live to get a grip on language and tradition so as to contribute to both? Is she/he aware that on this planet as-is, a serious writer is on a life-long kamikaze mission and they go for it anyway? Since the rewards---intense living, and a body of solid work behind you---seem to be enough, is the writer prepared to steal every scrap of lost workaday time to earn them? Work your ass off, lay each accomplishment on the altar of fortune, and go on to the next.
Jack Dempsey
Having known myself a writer since earliest memory it was always about the joy of living in whatever outer way that would nourish what's coming next from inside. Big words I guess, but your life and work and soul are a single adventure.
Jack Dempsey
I've learned one kind of writing liberation the hard way, and one easily. It's easy to go with young Hemingway who always stopped a good day's hard work when he knew the next big movement to come---so he had a clear confident start-point next time. (Works consistently for me.) What took a longer/harder time was stepping past ego to get it done daily. Ego worries, ego hacks at the poet, ego wants fast results and sure success, ego despairs and kills the day. I've learned that with ego, no matter how good the writing conditions, there's only one response that works: let it go, do not listen, for ego always has a (fake) reason you can't get it done. Physically put pen to paper/fingers to the board and step around it. This does get easier and more productive.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more