Ask the Author: Bill Smoot
Answered Questions (6)
Bill Smoot
Fortunately, I've never experienced writer's block. Though many years ago, I heard the late fiction writer Leonard Michaels answered this question in a way that made a lot of sense to me. He said he would try to do something--anything--that he could be accomplished. Wash the dishes, mow the grass, bill some bills...anything. I think his idea was that if you could be unblocked in something simple, it might spill over into one's writing.
Bill Smoot
For me, it's just that I love doing it. When I was younger, I would have said writing is a mixture of pain and pleasure. But now, for reasons I don't understand, it's almost all pleasure.
Bill Smoot
Everyone's journey is different, I'm not sure I have any advice. Just be ready for hard work and perseverance.
Bill Smoot
Ten years ago I started volunteering in the college program at San Quentin. Walking in, I found myself wondering how an inmate might escape. That became the seed for my just-completed novel manuscript.
Bill Smoot
"Inspiration" may be overestimated by writers or aspiring writers. I do sometimes experience bursts of energy that may pass for "inspiration," but for the most part what I feel is not so much inspiration as motivation. For the series of short stories I've been working on, the motivation is usually a germ--an event or even an image--and from that seed I try to grow a story. In one case, it was simply a large brick house. In another it was a memory of a doctor in my home town. In another it was a story someone told me of eating fried crow. In the case of my novel, Love: A Story, it was the opening scene in which the main character sees a baby stroller rolling down the street (that actually happened to me). I feel there's a story there, and I am the farmer whose mission is to grow it.
Bill Smoot
In the past year and a half I have been writing short stories. Most of them are set in a small Kentucky town very much like the one in which I grew up. The time period is the late 50s to early 60s; either the action is happening then or the story involves looking back on that period from the present. Often the main characters are between the ages of 10 and 15. One representative story recently appeared as Narrative's "Story of the Week" winner. It is called "Romeo."
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Oct 06, 2022 06:04AM · flag