HLR: What are you reading right now? Is there are particular author who you have turned to for comfort during this uneasy time?
HLR: You are a multitalented writer who works in many genres. What draws you to write in new forms? Did anything about writing a novel surprise you? NJC: Well, I guess I write in forms that I like to read. And, honestly, when I started writing fiction I believed I was done with poetry, and I really didn’t write any poetry for nearly ten years. I’d lost my connection with it. So I started writing short fiction and then a novel. To be honest, I think I started the novel because that’s what I thought I should do after I wrote a short story. Everything about writing a novel surprised me. Good Lord, it takes so long! I was so sick of myself and I hated the book and I had no idea what I was doing. At the end of the five-year project when I was working with my editor, Paul Vermeersch, I began to feel a bit better about it, although on my bad days I thought, what is wrong with Paul that he likes this book?! And then the beautiful cover came in and then we started to promote the book and I came around to believing in the project again. It was very uncomfortable to not know what I was doing for much of the novel. I know there are lots of people who
HLR: How do you stay motivated/interested in a story over such a long-term process? How long did it take you, from conception to completion, to write The Western Alienation Merit Badge? NJC: The Western Alienation Merit Badge took about six years from beginning to publication date. I don’t know that I can articulately say how to stay motivated/interested. It’s more about sitting down and doing the work and sticking to it. It’s also accepting that you’re going to have to redo that work and probably redo it again. As vague as it sounds, I think finishing a project comes down to making the decision to finish a project. It’s not always going to feel good but that’s what you have to do. I’ve recently finished a poetry manuscript and I was surprised by all the bad feelings I had at the end of the manuscript. That’s only because I’d romanticized writing poetry after the slog of a novel. Finishing a book is always (for me) a battle against my own self (dis)belief.
…after a visit to the Girl Guides archives, I realized that the badges had great potential to structure sections around.
HLR: What led you to the decision to structure the themes of the chapters around merit badges? NJC: I began writing the novel with the final section of the book and Girl Guides were a big part of that. (An initial working title was Semaphore Alphabet but the semaphore quickly got nixed from the novel.) After I finished that first (ultimately last) section I wanted the book to have structure to hold it to the girls, and after a visit to the Girl Guides archives, I realized that the badges had great potential to structure sections around.
NANCY JO CULLEN // 51
NJC: Right this moment I’m reading Grown-Up Pose by Sonya Lalli and Amber Dawn’s new collection, My Art is Killing Me. And I’m listening to A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott. I really love hearing this book read to me by the author herself. In terms of comfort reads, I find all three of these books soothing in one way or another. I’m very much enjoying breezy novels at the moment. I find it hard to concentrate on TV so a novel that is entertaining and has a happy ending is really hitting the spot for me. Amber Dawn’s book is serious but funny, so also soothing, and Alicia Elliott’s book offers a deeply personal perspective on the issues and history that settlers need to come to terms with if we want a better country, and I’m grateful for the author’s willingness to share that with readers/listeners. I’m having a really hard time watching TV these days so, for the most part, it’s all books for me right now.
work from outlines but I resisted it, perhaps in part because I didn’t know what I was doing until the first draft was completed. (And then there was still so much more to do!)
