Ask the Author: Kim Trevathan
Answered Questions (3)
Kim Trevathan
I'm reading "Rounding the Horn: Being a Story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Natives--a Deck's-Eye View of Cape Horn," by Dallas Murphy.
Up next: "Straight Man" by Richard Russo and then Charles Frazier's new novel.
Up next: "Straight Man" by Richard Russo and then Charles Frazier's new novel.
Kim Trevathan
Everybody works differently when it comes to writing routines and getting "inspired." When it comes to creative writing and freelancing, writers have to motivate themselves. Generally, I feel compelled to write on a regular basis, whether it's journal entries, creative nonfiction, fiction, or notes on projects. I don't operate on a daily schedule as some writers do who are more disciplined than me. but I don't wait around for something inspiring to happen, either. I tend to write about the things I love to do: playing tennis, kayaking, canoeing, hiking, traveling. So if I keep doing things I love, I'll have fuel for writing. And ideally it works in a healthy way: activities fuel writing and writing fuels activities. This dynamic became a sort of routine when I wrote outdoor columns for different Knoxville newspapers. Every two weeks, I knew I had a column due, so I knew I had to do something interesting outdoors for material to write about. In addition, sometimes conflict or something that bothers me will fuel writing, and this can result in nonfiction or fiction. Channeling anger into creative work has worked well for me at times. Editing is important here, of course.
Kim Trevathan
I got the idea for "Against the Current: Paddling Upstream on the Tennessee River" as a kind of sequel to my first book, which was about paddling the length of the river going downstream, in 1998. I decided to paddle the Tennessee again, twenty years later, to see how the river had changed and how I had changed. I would turn 60 on this trip. I really wasn't sure I could paddle the river going upstream--from Paducah to Knoxville; locking through the dams would be more of a challenge, as would approaching dams discharging water for power generation and flood control. I grew up on the lower end of the river, near Kentucky Lake, and I now live near the headwaters, near Knoxville, so the Tennessee is part of me and my history.
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