Ask the Author: Michael McGrinder
Answered Questions (9)
Michael McGrinder
The same books that have made my to-be-read list long-insurmountable, save for a few I've gotten through, and add a whole bunch more.
Michael McGrinder
The circumstances of my father's death two weeks before my sixth birthday. Every explanation I ever heard contradicted the others.
Michael McGrinder
Writing comes easy to me. Making it look easy requires a great deal of work. One of my Profile photos is of the original envelope on which I wrote Poem on an Envelope. It shows some of the work that went into getting it into its final shape. I rhymed many of my early poems, then moved away from that, not because of any difficulty; I just followed my natural inclinations. I still write the occasional rhyming poem. You can make lists of rhymes or use a rhyming handbook. When it comes to choice of words, select the one that occurs to you at that moment. Don't lose the idea for the sake of the perfect word. You can revise later. And later again. And so on. Get the thoughts down, no matter how crude. Words can be replaced. Thoughts cannot. Good luck, Adam. and thanks for saying hello.
Michael McGrinder
There was a discussion on GR about fears in writing. If you're terrified to write something, write it.
Michael McGrinder
I believe I answered that in the question: "What are you currently working on?" At least, I think I did.
Michael McGrinder
Someone who doesn't yet exist kisses me on the neck. I'm easily seduced, and I think the word gets around "over there." I get kissed a lot.
Michael McGrinder
I had the great good fortune to be part of the early Off-Off-Broadway movement (as it was called in the sixties), and I am now writing about my involvement in that time. I have a one-act play I want to finish and another to revise. I have no idea where I might get either done, but that has never stopped me before. I can, of course, easily publish them. I consider the self-publishing revolution similar to the Off-Off theatrical revolution. Sartre said, "It isn't freedom from. It's freedom to." Both movements align with that. I have a long story to finish so that I can publish it with a collection I want to bring out, and I sometimes dip into a novel I may or may not finish. I started it because some characters insisted they had something to say. Twenty thousand words later, I began to believe them. It still isn't a priority. I also wrote a crime-fiction novel that has dated a bit. If I can update it easily, I'll do that. And I write the occasional poem
Michael McGrinder
Knowing that there is nothing else I would rather be. I've often thought if I hadn't been a writer I would have been a sculptor. That three-dimensional sensibility may have been instrumental in leading me write plays.
Michael McGrinder
As I understand it, writer's block is the inability to write - hopefully a temporary state of affairs, though I once heard someone claim he was trying to break a 20-years writing block. That may have had something to do with his living on the street - or maybe he was a writer in thought and/or name only. I don't think I've ever had genuine writer's block. I definitely have had bouts of laziness, at other times of having way too much fun. Either is sufficient for getting no work done.
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