Andrew Roe

One Story always publishes an author interview to accompany its current issue. This is a nice thing to do. (SmokeLong Quarterly does it too.)

The latest issue features a story by Tamas Dobozy. I’ve never heard of Tamas Dobozy, and I haven’t read his One Story story “The Restoration of the Villa Where Tibor Kálmán Once Lived,” but I enjoyed his interview, especially his answer to the question “What was the most challenging aspect of writing this story?”:

“Probably doing the edits. I’m not someone who’s particularly interested in reworking a piece. Most of the time I just wish the editors would do it for me, take over, do what they want to the material (provided it’s not cheesy or misleading or clunky or anything), and publish it. As time goes by, my interest in writing is really confined to the initial discovery of the work, and after that I’m not really interested in it anymore. I used to be one of those writers who worried over every comma and article during the editing process, in that OCD way typical of beginning writers, thinking that it would somehow invalidate my sole authorship of the story, but I don’t really care about that anymore. Now I just think, ‘Oh, do I really need to do all this work? If you want the story a different way, why don’t you just do it?’ I really love the process of writing, and of course I like to see work published in a narcissistic way, if only to prove that the hours I spend typing do extend to someone other than myself, but more and more the only part of it that holds any meaning for me is the process of filling up the blank pages. Most editors I’ve run into are good enough at sorting out a story, though I’ve only once worked with an editor who I thought was a real genius at it.”

I can see how this evolution — from being manic about revising to not caring and essentially handing off a story — can happen, but I don’t think that’s a path in my future. I’m too OCD when it comes to writing and revising. I’m like Dobozy used to be: stressing over commas and such. This kind of tinkering, though, can really bog you down. If you get too manic and obsessive, you won’t ever let a story go and move on — and this is a concern of mine.

Dobozy’s answer to the question “What is the best advice about writing you have ever gotten?” is also worth checking out. (It has to do with rejection.)

Last month (or was it two or three months ago?) The Elegant Variation ran an interview with Victoria Patterson, author of the recently released novel Drift. (One of her professors jokingly called her “The Edith Wharton of the O.C.”)

Anyway, in the interview she talked about her time in grad school and what it’s like to be a parent and a writer.

Here’s the quote that struck me and that I’ve been meaning to post for weeks:

“The most challenging thing was balancing my home life. My eldest son (seven at the time) experienced difficulties at school, meaning he wanted to quit school entirely. I remember he said, ‘I wish you were a waitress again. I liked that better.’ And I explained that when I was a waitress, I had been away from home more hours, because of my work schedule. But I knew my son was right, that even when I was home, I wasn’t home. I was constantly writing in my head. I even dreamed sentences. I remember sitting in on my son’s first grade class, trying to assess what was going on with him in the classroom. I had a story due for workshop, so I was sitting in one of those little plastic chairs, hunched over, working on my computer, writing.”

…even when I was home, I wasn’t home. I was constantly writing in my head.

This is what really hit me. Because this is me. Because this is what I constantly worry about. The phrase I use is “perpetually distracted.” That’s how I feel sometimes — distracted and distant — and I think my wife would agree.

If I’m not writing/revising in my head or thinking about writing, I’m thinking about the fact that I’m not writing. Or I’m thinking where I should submit a story. Or which story I should work on next. But if I’m working on a story that means I’m not working on the novel. But maybe I should be working on that memoir I started. And on and on.

Writing is the last thing I think about when I go to bed. And it’s often the first thing I think about when I wake up. If I don’t write for a long period of time, I get cranky. I start to feel that I’m lost, adrift; that I won’t be able to get back to where I was.

The fear I have, then, is that I’m not fully present for my family. They’re not getting all of me. And I’m not fully allowing myself to be in the moment with them. On one level, I am always elsewhere. In writing la-la land. Perpetually distracted. Thinking of characters. Thinking of sentences. And it’s not fair to my children. And it’s not fair to my wife. I have no resolution here. I wish I did. All I know is that I need to find a better way to balance my life as a writer and as a parent/husband.

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You can read the rest of the Victoria Patterson interview here.

And a while back, Pank posted some great essays about motherhood/fatherhood and writing. The motherhood essays feature Ethel Rohan, Angi Becker Stevens and Teresa Houle. The fatherhood essays feature David Erlewine and Ryan Bradley.

This could really make your head spin (courtesy of HTML Giant).