Episode 004: “Why can’t I write,” I write OR Inventing Trans Fat

(WARNING: We like tangents. Be weary)

Episode Panelists:

• Caleb/thirstygerbil (Moderator)
• Mark/PocketFives
• Rob/MuttersomeTaxicab

Episode Topic: Why aren’t you writing?!

• Is getting a book on a shelf still a reasonable goal?
• Writing allows us to deal with people. William S. Burroughs could only truly communicate through writing.
• Writing keeps us from doing worse things to ourselves
• Writing/reading offers a window to other people dealing with situations that may be similar to our own
• In the same way folktales engage us, modern fiction, especially crime writing, engages us by passing on morality lessons

• Knowing other people do it (and knowing about people like Stephen Graham Jones who writes a novel in 3 days AND has the time to keep a journal about the experience)
• University writing workshops (with credit given to Tamas Dobozy and his story “The Encirclement” and Padgett Powell of The University of Florida)
• Constant rejection

• Session-based word count goals
• Truly writing for yourself (not for academics or any other specific audience). Academics are still skittish about an author like Paul Auster, and he’s relatively not threatening.
• Rob wants to gain eligibility to apply for a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts

• Max Berry’s 500 word maximum
• Shotgun writing – just sit down and go; turn off the internal editor
• Binge writing – hole up in a motel for a few weeks, just you and the laptop. Create your own prison.
• Blogging as a character
• Gilbert Sorrentino and art as the shattered mirror

• Pat Walsh’s 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why it Just Might
• Read interviews with authors

Other Voices, Other Rooms

• Tracks by Louise Erdrich
• The Comintern: A History of the Third International by Duncan Hallas
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• My White Planet by Mark Anthony Jarman
• 2666 by Roberto Bolano
• “The Encirclement” (short story) by Tamas Dobozy
• Queer by William S. Burroughs
• The Broken World by Tim Etchells
• Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk

What are you currently jamming to?

• Deftones, Diamond Eyes
• The Dead Weather, Sea of Cowards
• Burning Love
• Broken Social Scene, Forgiveness Rock Record
• Dillinger Escape Plan, Option Paralysis
• Murder By Death, Good Morning, Magpie
• Ha Ha Tonka
• Elliot Smith
• Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska

The Lastlies:

• Buy Caleb J Ross’s Charactered Pieces: stories
• Rob is awaiting a response from subTerrain Magazine. Good luck!