Q: One does not become a novelist overnight, regardless of gift or desire. Can you tell us about your first writing experiences?
A: The beginning statement is worded oddly.
I do believe, as always, that a gifted writer is born. I can remember, early-on, seeing creatures, human beings, Beings, and being able to interpret their feelings. I did not know I was a writer. I knew that I was born with something that was puzzling to me, the ability to see people and images against various shades, landscapes; and, it was in my head that I was able to pen them down. A man holding a guitar, his actions, movements, the sound of the strings being plucked, was all forming, in my mind, as words.
It is comparable to a moving camera, an image that is full and round, in the beginning, and then becomes pixelated in my mind. I can see the fibers, the dots, the little atoms sprouting at the tiniest thread of the anatomy. The same is true with sounds. They, too, in my mind, are sharp and piercing; and, then, I am able to envision these sounds as images. It is, perhaps, why I cannot write without music.
The earliest writing experience was from the time I learned to hold a pen/cil. I remember later writing in a diary, as a young girl of nine perhaps, about a dead bird I had found in a fishing boat in Mt. Hermon, Louisiana, the town where I was reared. I wrapped the dead bird in paper and folded it in my shirt, later trailing the blood of the corpse through the front door of our house to an open space in my room. Little did I know that my mother had followed me and found the dead bird—she had traced the blood—and demanded I throw it out.
I did.
I took it and dropped it over a barbed wire fence in the backyard. I remember seeing this experience and wanting to, early-on, save the dead. My early writing experiences were captured in my head. I could never write them all out. They were there and they were many. I was but one pixel along a full and round universe; and, I was aware of that.
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Does your studying toward a criminal justice degree at all influence your fiction or your outlook on life?
No.
I studied criminal justice; because, I wanted to save the world.
As the dead bird, it seemed, to me, a means of getting closer to that peace I sought after in the world. I cannot imagine now having followed that route.
There is too much in my head, my heart; and, I doubt any of it could be relieved by anything other than writing about it. I have more space there.
It does not influence my fiction.
It is only part of the landscape, the journey.
It is only a reminder that I once thought, to some degree, that finding that peace was possible. I have since discovered that the pen is mightier.
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Three very different novels published in as many years are the mark of a prolific mind. Do plot lines and words flow easily from your pen, or are they a hard struggle?
I have written many novels.
These are simply three that are part of the world.
Yes, yes, words flow easily. They do for the gifted writer. They should always.
An image appears first; and, from that image, the words are bursting, bursting ahead and I cannot stop the well from flowing. I cannot describe it to anyone.
And I wish I could describe it to you now.
But I cannot.
There is one person in the world who has witnessed it; and, it was painful to watch, as I have written novels before in such an awkward position that it appears I am dangling from a pulley, that I am simply a doll filled with cotton or paper, leaning over the keys.
I have suffered greatly because of it.
I cannot help it.
My posture is poor, I have arthritis, severe insomnia, as my mind will not sleep, will it ever ever sleep when there is so much pain in the world? Such a well of it to draw and interpret?
I remember coming out of the rain.
I had come through the door, driven through a storm, and wept, as I had abandoned my lover, again, and thought I would die in the process. My vehicle, at the time, needed new tires; the experience frightened me; but, I remember, I remember lying on the bed weeping and an image appeared and the energy attached to it was the energy of Anne Frank.
My computer was attached to its adapter by a tiny wire; only this wire kept its battery charged. I called a friend of mine. He came over immediately. I wept in his lap, he held me in my weeping, and I told him what I saw, the energy I felt, and he said, Then write, Olympia. Then write.
I did, for the next twenty-six hours and five minutes.
It was finished; and, I slept.
It was sent to my agent, next to my publisher; but, while my publisher was considering it, I wrote A Killing in This Town, at the beginning of September, finishing it late November or so.
It was chosen for publication.
But the novel I wrote in twenty-six hours and five minutes is so precious to me that I doubt I want anyone to ever see it.
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Do you prefer to plan developments from the start, or had you rather allow the novel to construct itself? Do you work on a schedule, or when the urge to write takes hold of you?
I do not believe in outlines.
An outline says to the character(s) that you don’t believe them.
A character will never appear before a writer who does not trust her.
Period.
I only write when the characters show me the image, the moving image. It appears like a red balloon sailing across a nerve in your mind, before you pinch the tail end of it and find yourself in the Force of wind and rain, in the gritty, unyielding Force of the Universe.
Who our characters are is none of our business.
It is simply our duty, as gifted artists, to follow the red balloon, to respect its presence and ask not where it is going or if the helium will run out. The rush is that you are aware that it will, at some point, or that you can, suddenly, lose it.
This can happen, if the nerve does not grab hold, if it becomes apparent to the Universe that you are not serious about its natural progression or decline. Either way, it is making it clear to the nerve that it must follow, keep up, never lose sight of the journey.
And what a feeling when that nerve responds.
I have never given birth to a creature; but, it must be close.
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Do you like to listen to music as you write? If you do, does it have an impact?
I must listen to music when I write.
I cannot write without it.
Music better allows me to see the floating image, the red balloon, to narrow it down.
Because of this, my characters expose me to a wide range of artists. Those artists can range from….the Lady Sings the Blues soundtrack (on vinyl, my characters love the sound of it), Franz Schubert, Mahalia Jackson, Josephine Baker, Dave Matthews Band, Elis Regina, Nico, Willie Nelson, Bach, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Georges DeLerue, Strunz & Farah, Janelle Monae, Beirut, Devotchka, The Weepies, and so many more. Too many to mention.
Nothing is comparable to the sound of a violin in my head when I am writing.
It is an instrument my characters love dearly, and one that moves me to tears.
It is profound when a woman is brushing her hair in the mirror, and suddenly turns to her husband, who is lying with a page across his lap, and the violin is playing—only in my mind is it playing—-and its Voice has brought forth to my eye the moving image of the two lovers, her breasts in the mirror where the gown has fallen below her waist.
I want to cry now, thinking of this, as I want to return home, to Louisiana, where this note is, where Love is. You have caught me here this early morn, at this point in my life and I cannot lie about it. I want to be there lying against the pillows, the sound of the violin bellowing out.
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Your works are anything but banal. Are real life people and situations at all an inspiration? Can you pin point, looking back, where a novel emerged from, or is inspiration a mystery?
I never know from whence a character will emerge.
I have seen a child before in the dotted water stain of an apron. I have seen many, many people arrive, invisibly, before me, whether dreaming or awake. They appear and are with me and are most with me when I am exhausted or just waking. I am exhausted tonight; so, they are with me. They are shy tonight; because, they are aware that We are not alone.
I cannot consider myself a fiction writer while stealing from the lives of others.
I do not believe in writers who do this, who steal from the lives of Others in order to build an empire. A novel is the introduction of characters otherwise unknown to you or anyone else in the world. They do not exist, before the image appears. They simply exist, because they have deemed the writer worthy of developing the image, the story.
When a story is true, when it has really happened, a writer cannot pretend that s/he is shocked by the details of the future. S/he cannot brace himself, honestly, for the accident that is about to occur. S/he simply cannot lie; so when this happens, the accident is less believable. The blood is placed versus splattered. Those who die are dead because their deaths were….creating the illusion that one is unaware when one really is is dangerous.
I find it a great disrespect for the characters and their Voices.
Now, one can write about a feeling. This is different.
A feeling is different. One can meet a woman who is heart-broken and understand her heartbreak, as well as respect her profound need for privacy. It is not the story of the woman and her heartbreak one takes from it, but the pain this heartbreak has caused.
Pain does not discriminate.
Love does not.
Feelings do not.
Each belongs to Us and we must respect the grand capsule of their existence.
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Would you say that, once created, characters impose their lives on you?
I would never use the word ‘impose’ when it comes to my children.
Children do not impose their lives upon us. They simply come through the birth canal and We, if We listen to their Voices, those Voices that convey so well their intentions, We cannot deny that they are Ours.
Oh, what births they are.
With each birth, I remember. I can remember well their flesh and weight and how very quickly each emerged and that feeling—anyone who has loved another Being, sincerely, has felt it—-the moment s/he appears and You are aware, as both writer and flesh, that a Great Event has taken form, shaped your bones to fit.
I am only here, because of Them.
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Both Logic and Eden posit the need for women to speak out. What does Logic add that Eden fails to point out? A Killing in this Town gives more room to white women who do not seem ready to resist. Is this assessment correct?
I cannot answer this question.
I leave interpretations to the reader.
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Language, words, syntax, images… I must admit your prose is hard on this reader. However, one must also admit that it does sometimes open doors while standard writing simply seals meaning. Does this writing practice come to you naturally, or do you seek creative distortions?
Mothers name the experience, not the child.
I cannot focus on the birth of a child, the vagina expanding, the blood, the head, the feet, the sound of the wailing child birthed into this world, if I am focusing on the ticking clock over her head. I will miss the experience entirely.
She trusts that I am in the room; and, I am in the room, because I can capture, with great feeling, the manner in which her hair is flattened or wet. I can describe, in full detail, the placement of birth and blood sprouting. I have an angle of expansion, of great degree, that is not accessible to her; and, she should only focus on the birth itself.
Nothing more.
Nothing else counts.
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How do you account for the disease and death metaphors at work, though in different contexts, in all of your published works?
I cannot answer this either.
I respect the Image entirely.
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Critics and readers at once pinned on your fiction labels that, to me, do not fit your work exactly, such as “southern mystique” or “magic realism”. Others named literary “ancestors” or “influences”. Would you deny the notion that art begins with imitation?
YES.
I appreciate your asking this question.
It seems that in order for an extraordinary Voice to exist then it must have, along the way, encountered a thread, pearled by others. These ‘labels’ have suffocated me.
The thread has been so tightly wound around my throat that I stand in my kitchen for hours near a dripping faucet, wondering however could anyone pin any of my children to another Womb, when it is apparent that each possesses her own Voice entirely.
I am not the least bit concerned with what other writers have done. I did not set out to ‘be’ a writer. This gift has more to do with God than any other Energy in the world; and, it is a grand disappointment that my children, although extraordinary and bearing their own helium, are very often weighed down by that which neither depicts them fairly or has chosen to toss them over the barbed wire fence, if they do not bear a resemblance to what births were conducted before them.
It is an insult to compare them to any character who existed before their own (existence).
I hope not to die early and have them orphaned off to a world that will dress them equally in some flat attire, worn and left over, the clothing strewn from a mildewed closet that they are uncomfortable in or are not used to.
They are my children.
And they deserve to stand alone.
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Have you been reading contemporary novelists (like Percival Everett, Colson Whitehead, Mat Johnson, Alice Randall) whose fictions are so very different from yours? Do you deliberately seek to be original?
Originality is never deliberate.
It is of no concern to me how any other writer is performing.
I was born into this world to hold and measure my own pen and camera.
Anything else is remote and their remoteness is not damaging to me.
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The jacket for A Killing in this Town represents a harrowing scene: little girls brought along to view Stacy Rubin’s lynched body in 1935. I have a theory that James Byrd’s recent lynching must have been in the back of your mind, denounced through the horse dragging ritual Adam refuses. Like the past invading days that are supposed to be more enlightened. If you tell me my theory is incorrect, I’ll be left with the personal need, in my essay, to understand why and how this particular horror impacts my reading so strongly.
James Byrd was not on my mind when I wrote A Killing in This Town.
It bothers me when my work is left to the mind of someone other than the characters
who were gracious enough to share this part of their lives with me.
A Killing in This Town arrived from exhaustion. I could not sleep, as the sun had risen behind the clouds and there was a quiet in my house that I could not untangle.
I was lying against the pillows and saw the image of a naked man. He came through a wooded forest and was naked. I was not asleep.
I met him in the center of the woods and he did not speak to me with his tongue, but with his mind. I asked him to tell me what happened to him; and, he showed me the moving image of his death. And it was quick, the image was quick.
He asked me, then, to write the story not as it was shown to me, but as others can understand it. He turned and disappeared; and, I was frozen for what, perhaps, was a solid hour, before my limbs moved again and there I was, at the keys, with my hand over the screen….and I asked him, whoever he was, to help me.
I began that afternoon.
I would write after class, at night, with my window overlooking a little garden that had gone uncultivated, until the novel was finished.
I suffered grave nightmares after its completion.
I was unsure if I could handle being in the world again, as it was not the same in my eye as I had left it. And it wasn’t until A Killing in This Town that I learned what racism was.
The racists and those fighting against it showed me life inside of Its well, with all of Its frayed edges, Its false depictions of Love.
And if you are to write about this, write it as I saw it.
Nothing else will do.
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Disease and disharmony reign among the racist and loveless whites in A Killing in this Town. Only Gill and Adam are redeemed. Marcel Proust argues in Contre Sainte Beuve that readers like to imagine an afterlife for the characters one has just been with while reading. Can one imagine Sonny Willow and the Thomases will have better lives in this beyond, Memphis, at the end of the railroad line?
I do not answer for characters.
They share their lives with me and are gone.
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Do your still unpublished novels follow the same line as the ones you have released for the public to read?
No.
No two novels are the same.
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You are also a teacher. What do you tell your students who look up to your expertise about the art of writing? Do you assign books on writing and fiction for them to read, such as (French theoreticians come to mind it is a strong suit here) Deleuze and Guattari on “minoration”, or Ricoeur, Foucault, Schaeffer, Genette, Greimas, etc.?
Many students have been lied to.
They have not received honest critiques of their work; and, when this happens, they are very often combative (when honesty does appear).
I am returning to my children soon, and will leave this profession to those more willing to hide behind a veil, in order to spare the feelings of the young writer, when the young writer, himself, will discover, in time, his own fate.
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I am exhausted now, Claude, and will return to bed.
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