Ask the Author: Jamie Brickhouse
Answered Questions (7)
Jamie Brickhouse
Look Homeward Angel: Just visited Thomas Wolfe's childhood home in Asheville and realized I've never read him. In fact, he's not read much anymore. I want to see if all the fuss during his lifetime is worth fussing about now. Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses, and Liberation of Joan Rivers by Leslie Bennetts. The parabolic arch of my Joan Rivers fandom has been as erratic as her career, so my fascination in her life demands to be satisfied. I saw Bennetts speak on a biography panel at Woodstock BookFest. Now I have no doubt she delivers the goods. David Sedaris's diaries. Because I have to laugh.
Jamie Brickhouse
I'd been sober almost two years when I started writing Dangerous When Wet in a writing workshop. My mother, Mama Jean, had been dead almost a year. I knew I wanted to write about my alcoholism. I knew I wanted to write about her. The first piece I wrote in my writing workshop was about her and a break in our relationship. In the story stood up to her on the phone, but needed liquor courage to do it. Some time during the first semester of that workshop as I flip-flopped between writing about booze and writing about her, I started writing a book about my two most important relationships: booze and Mama Jean. The story of my addiction to booze is told through the lens of my addictive relationship with Mama Jean. One nearly killed me, the other saved me. Guess which.
Jamie Brickhouse
Reading books and watching movies. Experiencing other stories and styles of expression through books and movies can trigger ideas, and, for me, they can trigger the platinum of inspiration: memory.
Memory almost always inspires me to write. I can't control what sparks a memory, but once a memory is ignited I turn it into fire by writing a series of "I remembers" (a writing prompt taught early to me by workshop teacher Phyllis Raphael) around the subject of that memory: "I remember, as a little boy, being fascinated by the hair on my father's forearms, dark and sweaty as he held a pair of hedge clippers outside." "I remember my father always whistling 'Hello Dolly,' as he performed any chore or glided through town in his Chrysler company car." "I remember that when my father couldn't answer simple questions right before he died, when asked who I was he looked at me and said, 'That's my little boy.'" Then I take those I remembers and turn them into a story.
Memory almost always inspires me to write. I can't control what sparks a memory, but once a memory is ignited I turn it into fire by writing a series of "I remembers" (a writing prompt taught early to me by workshop teacher Phyllis Raphael) around the subject of that memory: "I remember, as a little boy, being fascinated by the hair on my father's forearms, dark and sweaty as he held a pair of hedge clippers outside." "I remember my father always whistling 'Hello Dolly,' as he performed any chore or glided through town in his Chrysler company car." "I remember that when my father couldn't answer simple questions right before he died, when asked who I was he looked at me and said, 'That's my little boy.'" Then I take those I remembers and turn them into a story.
Jamie Brickhouse
I'm writing about my relationship with my father, Daddy Earl, who died recently. He's in the shadow of Mama Jean in Dangerous When Wet. In my next book, it's his turn. After she died I told him that her death would leave more room for our relationship to deepen, and in the five years we had together after she was gone that came true. Even though I'm a mix of both my parents, I'm most like my father. In fact, I am the extreme -- or full blown -- version of him in many respects, for better and worse. In recent years, and especially since he died, I've heard folks in Beaumont, TX -- where I grew up and he lived his whole life -- say, "You favor your daddy." Maybe that's the name of the book: "I Favor My Daddy."
Jamie Brickhouse
Write. Sit your ass down in a chair and commit to writing a certain amount of time, whether that's daily or throughout the week. You don't have to write everyday to be a writer, you don't have to be published to be a writer, you don't have to make a living at writing to be a writer, but you do have to write to be a writer.
Write when you feel like it. Write when you don't feel like it. Write about whatever scares you the most. Listen to your gut.
And then rewrite. Only Joan Crawford could get it right on the first take.
Join a writers group or workshop (that's how I got started) to get perspective and criticism on your work, to think about somebody else's work instead of your own, to let competition light a fire under your cold writer's chair, and to make you show up each week with something on the page.
And read with a writer's eye.
Write when you feel like it. Write when you don't feel like it. Write about whatever scares you the most. Listen to your gut.
And then rewrite. Only Joan Crawford could get it right on the first take.
Join a writers group or workshop (that's how I got started) to get perspective and criticism on your work, to think about somebody else's work instead of your own, to let competition light a fire under your cold writer's chair, and to make you show up each week with something on the page.
And read with a writer's eye.
Jamie Brickhouse
Finally finding the voice to express myself artistically and the ability to share that voice intimately, one reader at a time. Oh, and I imagine when I see my book in a library (a store too, but I'm mad about libraries) for the first time, I just might upset Marion the Librarian and squeal like a school girl at a rock concert.
Jamie Brickhouse
I used to have a drink. Actually, years of drinking was the main cause of my writer's block. Once I stopped pouring the liquor, the words started flowing. When I hit a wall and I have word constipation -- and I accept that the words aren't going to come -- I go to the gym. It's about the same as the age-old prescription of many writers: go for a walk. While I'm at the gym (and I hate working out), I start to work out the problems I was having on the page. I rush to finish my work out and run home before my "brilliant" solutions start to evaporate.
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