My next interrogation is with Kate Baggott, author of short stories.
How do you strike the
balance between writing something you want to write and writing something that
people want to read, in terms of the compromises you make, if any?
When
it comes to writing, I don’t compromise. There is enough compromise in my daily
life and writing is the one area where I have complete control. I do value and
take editorial advice if someone takes the time to give it to me. I work with
the same fiction web sites and literary journals again and again so I build
relationships with their editorial staff that are really satisfying.
What excites, attracts or
appeals to you about the genre(s) you write in?
I
write short stories, but I write in series or collections so I can stay with
certain character and their life events for a long time. My goal is to make
each piece stand alone while creating an entire society the action revolves
around. It is something I studied in school and between Munroe, Atwood, Mowatt
and other Canadian writers I have a whole cultural tradition to learn from.
Short
stories are also about time management. I have to earn a living too. Between
teaching, journalism and ghost-writing, the time I have to write fiction is
short and precious, but also carefully controlled. I can write a perfect moment
in the time I have. To write a perfect novel, I would need more time…and
perhaps a better capacity for giving up control.
Do you have a box,
drawer, folder etc where you keep thoughts and ideas for future stories? Such
as names you have come across, bits of dialogue, ideas, characters - even if
you have no idea when you might use them?
I’m
not very organised in terms of keeping track of ideas. I have lots of them all
the time. When I have an idea, I play with it and imagine it and dream it. By
the time I sit down, I can usually spill it all out. That doesn’t mean the work
is good. I usually get it all out and then go back to it later to see what is
there. Some pieces have not been published until 10 years after I wrote them.
Some of that is about content and style fashions, but some of it is about not
being able to edit and form properly until the story has lived alone for a
while.
How do you manage plot
bunnies (ideas that invade your mind that aren’t usually helpful to the story
you’re writing but breed like...er...bunnies)?
Sometimes,
plot points develop on a subconscious level and will be picked up at an
essential moment as the writing progresses. You don’t know what you might need
until you know exactly what you are doing. My approach is to write out
everything all at once and slice and dice later.
How much of you is in
your characters? Which of your characters is the you that you’d most like to
be? Or be with?
One
of my friends claims that all of my characters are me all the time, but I
generally don’t re-write my autobiography as fiction.
One
of my characters, Finnegan, is a teenage boy and I created him out of regret.
When I was a teenager, I would have grown up more easily if I had had a
boyfriend like Finnegan. Stories about Finnegan have won awards and readers
seem to like him. And yet, I’ve been working on stories about him for years,
but I can’t finish the collection because teenagers are kind of tough to live
with.
In
Love from Planet Wine Cooler, which
is available as a collection, things were very much about closing doors on the
past. I was Marina,
but she is also all the female friends I have been close to since I learned how
to make friends. I wanted to write a kind of Generation X for women who grew up
like I did in the 90s. We’re not a big group, we’ve been dwarfed
demographically by Boomer Women and Millennial Babies, so there is little about
the peculiar time and place we came of age in.
Do you become so wrapped
up in your writing that your spouse wonders if they're married to you or one of
your characters?
To
be completely honest, my marriage is a mess and I would be lying if I said my
writing was not part of how we got into relationship disaster. But, in dealing
with heart-break and stress and constant worry, writing has been my greatest source
of comfort. There is no emotional chaos when I sit down and work out the
moments that I think create meaning. When I won the America’s Next Author Contest, one
of the judges said it was a “quiet, well-crafted” story. Critics said that
nothing special happened in Finnegan
& Grandfather Cheng. Both, I think, were correct. In my work, I am not
looking for or at explosions or murders. Instead, I’m looking for lights coming
on and hearts being moved.
What type of book do you
like reading? Is it the same genre as you write?
Right
now, I’m reading nothing but Alexander McCall Smith. I’ve got an episode from Scotland Street, an
instalment of Isabel Dalhousie and a Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency on the
go. I think AMS strikes a great balance between literary integrity and popular
appeal. I learn a lot about structure and character development from him. On
other reading binges, I’ve read everything by John Updike and John Irving. I
consider the three of them to be as influential to how I approach writing and
the world as every great teacher I’ve had.
What lengths do you go to
to convince us readers that your book has the X factor?
Journals
and fiction sites that are run by great editors give me the chance to sing for
their metaphoric bar or pub patrons before I have to fill a stadium with book
readers. In between those events, I keep humming so my voice stays warm while I
wait for an open ear. When I find that, I start at a whisper in the reader’s
ear and slowly increase the volume until they are listening to my song and
harmonising during their own chorus.
I’m
as annoyed by all the indie author marketing noise as everyone else, so I don’t
automate “buy my book” tweets or spam people. I just try to be where interested
people are. There is also an element of need. An acquaintance recently told me
that she read Love From Planet Wine
Cooler as her own marriage was ending and that it brought her comfort
because it gave her permission to re-think her own history and her own future.
Those issues of timing are hugely important. If my work is there when a reader
needs me, even if it is only one reader ever, then I have done what an author
should do.
How do you feel when a
reader points out the spelling mistake(s) you have made?
I
express my thanks for their effort and my deep embarrassment. Sometimes,
though, spelling mistakes are an issue of using Canadian spelling rather than UK or US
standards. We use colour and flavour instead of color and flavor, and I would
never use the words nite or lite over night and light, but we use realize and
organize over realise and organise. Since I’ve lived in Europe
and worked for US publications, I get as confused over which standard to use
when, but my heart is in my Canadian dialect.
What do you like most
about visiting KUF/GR/forums?
I
mostly lurk to observe how readers approach and choose books to read. Deciding
to share the experience of reading the same book is an amazing event. Talking
about a movie or a TV program is becoming less commonplace the more fragmented
and solitary our viewing habits become. I’m going to be watching very carefully
to see how books fill the void.
What is on your near
horizon?
In
September have a short story coming out in an anthology called Friend. Follow. Text. It’s a collection
of stories by various authors inspired by how we use social media. I think it
will teach us a lot about what is inspiring writers right now. I’m also working
on a series of stories called Dry
Stories and pieces from it are just starting to appear online and in journals.
I hope to have the series finished by year-end and all the pieces published by
the end of 2014. Then, I’ll have them available as a collection in 2015.
Where can we find you for
more information?
Goodreads,
Twitter, and Facebook. I love social media. I collect all of my interactive
activities together on my web site http://www.katebaggott.com
