Ask the Author: Pattie Baker
Answered Questions (6)
Pattie Baker
I was at a life's crossroads and chose to strap on my camera every day and head out on my bike. I started taking street photography. And then I started wondering about the people and scenes in the photos. And then I started writing.
Pattie Baker
My process includes a lot of visual and kinesthetic research (I think I'm the only writer in the world working at the intersection of street photography and fiction) so I'm not always doing "the paperwork," although the paperwork over the years has included scribbles on everything you can imagine in every situation possible so I keep pens handy. Physical exercise (gardening, bike riding) seems to help me work things out in stories so when I sit down to write, it just flows.
Pattie Baker
I like that turning issues and incidents inside out and upside down so I can see the world through multiple points of view is habit for me. I think it makes me more tolerant of differences and more open to learning.
Pattie Baker
Stories percolate and then they burn inside of me Writing them is the only way to get them out, to purge myself, to move on. I actually don't feel right each day unless I write.
Pattie Baker
I'm currently working on a final draft of a 9,000-word short story named Leaving Disturbia. Just like Stranger Things Happen (my overlapping collection of 76 flash-fiction stories), it's inspired by my original street photography, but this one is a single story line. I was going to say it's the darkest thing I've ever written, but then I remembered some of the others . . .
Pattie Baker
Honestly? Stop writing if you can. If it's not like oxygen to you. If there is anything, anything, else you can do instead. But if you can't, accept the blessing (or curse) of your calling and just tell the story. It's really as simple as that.
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