Self Interview for Fiction Workshop
So for my fiction workshop this semester the final was a 12 question self interview, and the results actually turned out to be a fairly interesting read, so I thought I'd share.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Teaching...something, and writing in my spare time. I'd love to live on the west coast but I wouldn't mind somewhere in the Midwest to be close to my family. I'm starting to despise that question though, seems like everybody's always asking me what my plans are and I've always firmly believed in not having one. Here's why; if you have a plan, that's an inflexible construct in your head. You know where you're going and where you're going to be. Then, some amazing opportunity comes by, and you're forced to think twice about it because it doesn't fit into your plan- maybe you miss it. All because you have this flimsy construct of certainty in your mind. I don't want to miss any opportunities.

What kind of opportunities do you imagine when you're thinking about opportunities?

You name it- collaborative projects, getting to know people, love, places, experiences, and jobs- I love new jobs. I love and hate new jobs because they scare the shit out of me but I always like to expand what I perceive I'm capable of.

Does that effect your writing?

Everything does. I think the more I experience the more I want to write because it expands my curiosity and curiosity is a great fuel for writing. I used to think that certain experiences blocked my writing- especially the best of experiences, but now I think that's a worn out idea. You have to write past the superficial surface feelings you get from happy experiences and then it becomes worth while. There's a hidden gem in everything.

You were recently given your first publication in the Bare Root Review, how did that effect you?

The whole experience was not what I expected at all. The Bare Root Review is an internet publication, and that's tough for me, mentally. Because my writing has been on the internet for people to read for years now. That was the first place I found a voice. I think it means I'm going to be read by a different brand of person, but I don't expect to be "discovered" that way or anything.

But you're serving a different audience in a literary publication, right?

I'm not sure just yet how much it matters to me who is reading. I've always just been tickled that there are readers at all. Writing is to some extent about communicating for me and as long as I'm understood, I don't think it matters who's listening. Then again, when I'm writing what work I truly enjoy, a literary audience is more likely to "get" what's being said and what's unsaid. My dream is to find a group of those people, who really understand my words, and feed that audience.

Then you want to write for a particular audience?

No, mostly. I've seen how that turns out. If there's anything watching as much television as I have has given me, it's an instinct not to write for the gratification of the reader. Once you start pandering to the whims of a certain crowd things go down hill quickly. My hope is that if you produce enough solid work on a regular basis, your audience that loved you even before they knew about you will find you. I've had that experience as a fan, and I've always wanted to be on the other side of that exchange.

And who's work would you classify yourself a "fan" of?

Anyone who's work I have consistently sought out and loved. On that list would be, Toni Morrison, Alanis Morrisette, Joss Whedon, Sarah Mclachlan, J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, Russel T. Davies, Baz Luhrman, and that's off the top of my head, really. I have a fascination with the fan experience because I think very often it's misconstrued as crazed hero-worship. I think that is completely unfair to the fan experience and fans out there.

How would you portray it then?

It's connection. We have these ideas of other people, especially people in the entertainment industry, as these grand larger than life characters who we could never touch- or if we did, that would make us lucky, or part of that magic somehow. I think I grew up with a similar misconception, and it kept me from imagining things beyond a certain point, it put a strict limit on the breadth and quality of my dreams and aspirations. I think what new technology sometimes does for us is keep that world from filtering our perception. They can't completely control that image anymore, and suddenly all these "stars" or whatever start to look more and more like regular people. I love that in every way except that I realized that it might be the case that a handful of my favorite actors might be fantastically boring people. That was tough to come to terms with.
But anyway. Fans. What people take for granted is that it is a two-way experience. There's the person producing the art, and the person enjoying and validating the art, and that's a kind of communication in itself. It's a beautiful experience to be touched and moved by something someone had created, but it's also an equally beautiful experience to realize someone was touched and moved by what you made. This is the way it has always been. It's just that in this day and age, that sort of pure exchange of ideas gets distorted by all that pretence of grandeur. I think eventually though it might be reduced back down to size and we'll stop worshiping the television and start appreciating it for what it really is again. Which is one of the reasons why I've turned mine off.

You don't watch television?

Not anymore, no.

Why not?

For just about the exact same reason I quit caffeine. I realized I had something in my life that was in control of me and I didn't have control of it anymore. I am a big supporter of TV turn off week, which I think is a weird point of view for someone who would like so much to write for television. During the writer's strike, I stopped watching television, and it was extremely hard. I was very surprised how hard it was, and that in itself was a problem. If I couldn't just turn off the TV and be satisfied, I'd clearly become dependant on it. So I quit. Cold turkey. And when the writer's strike ended, I had absolutely no desire to start up again, so I didn't. Now if there's anything I want to watch, I look for it on a website or order it from Netflix.

But if everyone did that, wouldn't television die off?

Maybe. I personally think that'd be really cool. I think if we all unplugged for a couple years it would trim the fat off the television industry. All those reality shows and sub-par sitcoms would have absolutely no reason to continue once commercial values dropped- so what would you be left with? The people who do it for the love of it. The technology will always be there, and we can always pick it up later. I don't worry about television surviving, I worry about what becomes valuable and whether or not what is valuable is about communication or art anymore.

You're really interested in the evolution of technology, and there has been a lot of talk about what that means for the written word, can you weigh in on that?

Not in any informed way, really. I think that Newspapers and Magazines should be worried, but as for books- I don't think books have one thing to worry about any time in the future. I think there will be a great deal of movement toward integrating technology and literature, and if that means more people are reading, that's good. But there is nothing replaceable about a book. I can get the same experience from a newspaper or magazine that I do from an internet blog, but there is no replacing the experience of a printed book. There's something innately sensory about that experience and even if the human race were to discard it, I do believe they'd come back to it eventually.

How are finals going?

Poorly. I'm too excited to spend time with my sisters and it's ruining my concentration as well as my interest level. It makes me think about moving out of state and how painfully I'm going to miss my family.