Why did you pursue writing?
I didn’t pursue it, it pursued me. And honestly, I never actually had a choice in the
matter. I had this full-blown
artistic crisis when I was 23 years old and “saw” this novel I was supposed to
write. Was pretty bizarre—almost
like something out of my own book!
I sobbed my brains out because it seemed like I was setting a course for
an extremely difficult life. It
felt like a curse. I did make a
half-hearted attempt to start writing it, but it was way beyond me. I at least had the sense to realize I
was way too young and dumb to pull it off. I decided to just become a painter for a while. It seemed easier. Plus, I like writers who started as
painters. I had to live through a
lot of difficult and strange things before writing could finally start coming
to my rescue. And come to my
rescue it has!
I finally started writing this book when I was 35. Took ten years. (The subsequent ones were a lot
faster.) Virginia Woolf said that
writing is the cure for the reading sickness. I’m not sure if that’s true because I still have a pretty
bad case of Reading Too Much. But
it did cure me of a much worse problem: self-loathing. Writing, I guess, was an irresistible
force in my life that led me back to who I really am—a sane person.
What inspired your book?
Many things, actually.
But the over-arching inspiration was that I always felt stifled,
disregarded and invisible.
Hindsight being 20/20, it’s clear to me now that by writing a book about
a young woman who finds her voice, I was navigating my own way out of
voice-less-ness. At the time, I
could not see that, of course. And
it’s a good thing! It simply
struck me as an exciting thing to do for some reason that I could not
explain. If I had realized then,
what a huge psychological mountain I was setting myself up to climb, I would’ve
run screaming. Anybody would. It’s pretty terrifying.
But it’s good.
It turns out all the dangerous and difficult situations I put myself in
over the years, actually had a reason.
I’m not sure if I believe in reincarnation or not, but for lack of a
better way of saying it, I feel writing this body of work was the reason I came
into this life—to bring it all together.
Resolution. Because if I
never found the courage to trust myself enough to jump in and do it, to grope
about in the dark, trying to figure out what it was I was trying to say, then
my checkered past would be nothing but a checkered past and my present would be
nothing but misery, addiction and wallowing, full time, in despair.
Silence, it seems, really does equal Death.
How long have you been publishing your work?
Not that long.
I got the eBooks up this spring.
They are my Phase One, where I collect nice blurbs for the back covers
of the coming print editions.
(Personally, I can’t stand reading from a computer screen. I like books.) Back when I still wanted an established
publisher to publish my work, I read constantly about what a long, slow, drawn
out process it was. I always
wondered why. I mean, they’re all
set up for it…
Now I know — there’s just too much to do!
What’s your writing environment like?
It’s both as low tech and as magnificent as you can get.
I live off the grid in a converted school bus with my son
and a pack of dogs. By most
people’s standards, we’re camping.
Chop wood, carry water, solar electricity. It’s incredibly crowded and my work surface is tiny. There are way too many books and notes
to even begin to fit and I am constantly moving things around. All my writing is done on my lap. I write my books with a pen, not a
computer (that comes later, for editing, etc) and have a big 3-ring binder that
I prop up between my crossed leg and the edge of the table. Sometimes I use a clipboard. It’s pretty uncomfortable, but I’m
really determined.
But! We’re
parked on 120 acres in the middle of the ranch district in the Rocky
Mountains. There are no neighbors,
sirens, boom boxes or traffic noise—just the songs of the coyotes, ravens and
hawks. We have a 360 degree view
into eternity that includes mountains, sunrises, sunsets, miles and miles of
desert uninterrupted by other peoples’ houses and the Milky Way gleaming in the
black velvet midnight sky. My
imagination has a lot of elbow room!
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m working on a new long poem called Dreaming In Dead
Languages as well as the third novel in the Calliope Braintree Series, Weird
Sistahs! Threnody of Heaven. This used to be finished but, alas, it
isn’t anymore. It’s undergoing a
massive re-visioning. (Which I’m
actually quite excited about!) I’m
also working on a huge marketing thing that is taking forever. But it’ll be fabulous when it’s
done. Along with that, I’m leaping
through a series of flaming hoops to get a loan to buy this property. (A lovely cluster of small, hand
sculpted houses are in our future!)
The biggest thing I’m working on, however, is trying to
figure out how to juggle all of this.
I need to clone myself!
Social Media Links:
Author Blog: Anne of Blue Bus Books
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1qrqkRr
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