Ask the Author: Robert Brighton
Answered Questions (6)
Robert Brighton
Two things. One — I never sit down to write (on my laptop) if I don’t already know what I’m going to write. The blank screen can be intimidating — and a constraint on creativity. My process is always to work through the various scenes and events with a pencil and steno pad. I can sit and let myself dream, take notes, cross things out — all in a less structured way (and less pressure) than the computer demands. It’s like making a sketch before attempting a painting, no more, no less.
Two — I let the story come to me. Someone told me once that there is a Zen saying that ‘you never catch anything you chase’. I’ve certainly found that to be true with writing. I have to let my characters tell me the story, and patiently follow along as the story unfolds. So I never force it, and never try to get my characters into or out of a jam … I just try to let my mind go blank and watch, listen — and then write it down.
Two — I let the story come to me. Someone told me once that there is a Zen saying that ‘you never catch anything you chase’. I’ve certainly found that to be true with writing. I have to let my characters tell me the story, and patiently follow along as the story unfolds. So I never force it, and never try to get my characters into or out of a jam … I just try to let my mind go blank and watch, listen — and then write it down.
Robert Brighton
My wife and I have been enduring some renovations at our home (try writing with constant hammering — that’s a good training exercise!), and there has been a big pile of wood sitting in our garage for months. So I got to thinking about wood, and lumber, and where it comes from, and then (because I’m obsessed with the Gilded Age) about the countless millions of acres of old-growth timber that were clear-cut from the late 19th century until the 1920s — trees the like of which we will never see again in many lifetimes. And that started a kind of waking dream in which I was drawn back into the past … and in writing, all I have to do once I get there is to report what I see.
Robert Brighton
Writing is at least as much craft as it is inspiration, so sometimes inspiration can be a very simple thing — smell, or a snippet of speech, or the sound of wind or water. For me, when something strikes me hard, I think I’m being given a message that it’s somehow important. That’s enough for me to start writing about it, and see where it leads. And I like to sit with a steno pad and just let ideas come to me. There are no shortage of fresh ideas in this world, and all I need to do is to capture a few as they drift past my mind’s eye. I will say, though, that inspiration is a fickle thing … it comes and it goes, so when it does come, I have to drop whatever I’m doing and write.
Robert Brighton
I’m currently about halfway through the fifth installment in the Avenging Angel Detective Agency Mysteries, which promises to be the most interesting one yet. (Then again, I always think that.). It’s a very challenging set of stories, with lots of twists and turns and, I think, some very human drama throughout.
Robert Brighton
Get writing! Find stories that you want to tell, and tell them. Don’t make excuses or tell yourself you don’t know enough to write a book. At the same time, accept that your first half-million words probably won’t be what they can be, and will be, when you mature as a writer. That can be discouraging, but you have cheer yourself on and remember — how many hours of practice are required to do anything well? Writing is as much a craft as an inspiration, like architecture or woodworking. You have to learn how to work, make mistakes, and keep going. And you don’t need to make things up … there are countless wonders swirling around us all day long. You have only to be quiet and listen — and then write about them.
Robert Brighton
Spoiler alert: It isn’t the money! The satisfaction in being a writer is much like that of being a composer … there are only seven notes in music, but Mozart made them into something immortal. And since there are a lot more words than notes, I think it makes it all the more joyous when one succeeds in capturing on paper some tiny sliver of the universal, of what makes us human. It’s a connection that transcends time, culture, and even language.
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