Ask the Author: Jay Richards
Answered Questions (6)
Jay Richards
I got the idea for Silhouette of Virtue: A Novel from real life events involving a series of sexual assaults tinged with a racist motivation. This was back in the 70s. I was very peripheral to a group of campus intellectuals, mainly sparing with philosophical ideas and writings, and the conflicts that developed due to the perceived need to take sides after a member of this group was accused of involvement sparked my interest. The idea for the novel was to turn up the volume on this chunk of reality. I made the protagonist a African American philosophy professor instead of centering a character based on any one of the grad students who were actually involved. I linked Watergate themes and conspiracies of various types in the plot (which were nowhere in the real situation) and I added a concern about spirituality and encounter with mystery.
Jay Richards
Writing is very much discovery in process, like a traditional road trip. I take a general direction to go in based on what I have an interest in, what seems important to me, and what has worked for me in the past. As I start down the road, I find interesting things, take detours and alternative routes, and sometimes decide to go somewhere else.
Jay Richards
I am working on a chapbook of sonnets and some blogg start-ups that need framing.
Jay Richards
This one is easy. Write. Any kind of journalism, "morning pages" scribbled lines of verse on grocery store receipts. It all counts, and it counts more if you are pause to be come an archaeologist of experience for a moment. Be aware of that specific piece of writing as an artifact of your consciousness at the moment your wrote it. Excavate it, by which I mean, dig it out of the strata of autobiographical memory and the amazingly deep and complex strata of language that it lies embedded in. Objectify it as an object that speaks to where you were. Now imagine it as living, the pterodactyl skeleton taking on flesh and flight.
Jay Richards
As a writer, I always imagine a conversation with a reader. Sometimes that reader is another writer or a thinker. I may know the person or they may have passed away decades ago. That imagined event of a conversation that is engaging to all the parties involved makes me feel that I am part of something bigger than myself, something that is expansive through time and potentially all our ways of communicating and being with each other. A writer is someone engaged in a bigger conversation that those we usually have face to face and in the moment.
Jay Richards
Have a plan and a vision. Always end a writing session with a scene in mind needs to be written, if not immediately the next scene at least one in the sequence in which the next scene will play out. I like to have multiple projects going. Its rare to be blocked on all of them at one time.
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