Writer's Block

The Writing God

On Tuesday I had the chance once again to act like I know what I'm doing sit on a panel of writers speaking to Maui writer Paul Wood's creative writing class at MCC. As always, I had a great time. In addition to being a great writer, Paul is also apparently a great teacher, because his students are so interested and engaged.

Paul asked all his students to think of some questions for us ahead of time, and he sent me a list to ponder a few days before the class.

They ranged from the expected: How old were you when you first realized you wanted to be a writer?  Did you always want to write? (Yes.)

To the stinging: Why is there no real investigative journalism on Maui? (Sheesh!)

To the non-sequitor: Do you play Halo? (Huh?)

Here are some other goodies:

-Where is your favorite place to write? (Anywhere relatively quiet with a big desk.)
-Do you ever want to throw away all your grammatical structure when you write? (No, it keeps me sane and coherent.)
-How long does it take you to think of an idea and then write about it?  (I always have ideas ready.) Do you struggle with an idea when the idea is given to you? (Only if there's something else I want to do more.)
-What do you do when you know you don't want to write but you have to get something on paper?  (Suck it up and keep it simple.)
-What happens when you get "writer's block?" (I try listening to music or cleaning my desk.)
-What is your muse? Do you have a "Fred," or a subconscious well you can dip into for ideas? (I ask myself what readers would be interested in.)
-Do any of you find that taking drugs or any intoxicants helps your writing? (No.)
-How do you deal with it when an editor cuts out the part you like most? (Make my case for keeping it, but accept his final decision.)
-Do you know ahead of time if your piece is going to be good? (Yes.)

And my favorite:
-Do you by chance happen to have a religious faith that is based around some writing god or anything of that sort? (I'm polytheistic -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, Studs Terkel, John Steinbeck, Vladimir Nabokov, Haruki Murakami, George Orwell, Truman Capote, Alexander McCall Smith, and Dr. Seuss. He's the man.)