Fictionaut Blog

I’m a maniacal reviser. The characters grow a little each draft until they are full-blown.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Mona Simpson
   Monday Chat with Bill Lantry
   Checking In With TrainWrite

Be patient with yourself and your progress. Don’t compare it to other peoples’ work or rewards. The only chance you have to make a difference is to cultivate your own way. There’s no use in looking over your shoulder or wishing you were a different kind of writer, another kind of thinker.

Recently:
   Monday Chat with Bill Lantry
   Checking In With TrainWrite

The story only exists because of a prompt, which I saw as a chance to be absolutely honest about both desire and writing. Every word is true, I try to never make stuff up, we only call it “fiction” because the language fails us.

Recently:
   Checking In With TrainWrite
   Fictionaut Five: Beverly Akerman

TrainWrite started about a year ago, after I completed my M.F.A. and found myself a drifter. At the time, I was subletting a room in an artist’s loft in Bushwick, Brooklyn, so most of my inspiration came from riding the L into the city for a fruitless job hunt.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Beverly Akerman

Learn to squelch the inner critic. Very hard, but start by giving yourself short holidays from it. Tell yourself you’re going to impersonate a very confident person for a while (I tend to ask myself “what would an American do?”)

Recently:
   Checking In With Burnt Bridge
   Fictionaut Five: James Lloyd Davis
   Monday Chat with Michelle Elvy

Our biggest focus right now is bringing back the long story. We think that with our print issue, and the growing ebook market, that the market for the novella, the novelette, the long-form story is going to make a comeback. We’ve grown tired of the pretty, peppy little web-flash things, whatever you want to call them. We like stuff that reads like a meal.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: James Lloyd Davis
   Monday Chat with Michelle Elvy

The greatest influence for me as a writer, the book that most challenged my view of the art was Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, which is, or was, a revolution in perspective. It taught me that there are no limits, no rules, no boundaries, that you can write about anything, absolutely anything.

Recently:
   Monday Chat with Michelle Elvy
   Checking in with Kaffe in Katmandu

This story is about the meeting, the coming together. It’s not about him or her, really, but about this particular moment. A cheap hotel room would not be his style, nor hers. This is all about spontaneity, not one agenda winning over another. In the end, the very idea of spontaneity wins.

Recently:
   Checking in with Kaffe in Katmandu
   Fictionaut Five: Susan Henderson

I resent cliques and closed spaces and once I realised how much energy and creativity resides on tumblr, where people are continuously blogging and reblogging, attaching and sharing, I figured that it would be great to bring some of that talent together on an attractive site. This gamble is beginning to pay off - the ’scene’ is shaken and stirred a little.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Susan Henderson
   Fictionaut Five: Dorianne Laux
   Fictionaut Five: Ramon Collins
   Monday Chat with Doug Bond

The most important thing is to be a reader first. You’re training your ear for rhythm and pacing. You’re learning how to hold someone’s attention. You’re learning how to pull multiple threads through a story. You’re learning how much you can say in a small space, and all the ways you can explore a topic or a relationship on the page.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Dorianne Laux
   Fictionaut Five: Ramon Collins
   Monday Chat with Doug Bond