How did you become a writer? As soon as I could read – Calvin and Hobbes in the newspaper – I immediately began writing my own knockoff comics strips. Throughout childhood I was always more into the idea of being a writer (my parents were voracious book people), than of publishing. I illustrated and stapled together magazines about made-up celebrities. I came up with concepts for 20 bestselling novels, designed and drew their glossy covers, but never wrote a word of them. In middle school I wrote a serial romance/comedy series starring all my friends who were coupled up, and passed it around to them. I was not coupled up. It took me a long time to imagine I could put in the work to create a book for real, not just pretend.

Name your writing influences. I’m mainly inspired by musicians who have a particular, idiosyncratic cadence. Cam’ron, Joanna Newsom, Lucinda Williams. That’s what I strive for in my work: sustained voice punctuated with unexpected turns. My two writing goddesses have been with me for most of my life: Truman Capote and Suzan-Lori Parks. They have a thousand demi-goddesses sitting below them, dipping their toes in the dark pool where I’m treading water.

When and where do you write? The meat of my creation happens in bursts and fragments, in the middle of the night, at the end of a long walk. Notes typed on my phone or scribbled in journals. I record all the solid story moments and memorable lines when they come to me. Then I commit to concentrated collaging of all these elements, so I’m never starting with a blank page. Each book has been a little different, but the actual construction takes its time. In my daily writing practice I aim for a page, and sometimes I get two, or ten. It’s never worth it to beat myself up for falling short.

What are you working on now? I’m writing two different books. One for my mom, one for my dad. The mom one’s deep southern and haunted, a monologue in cassette recordings. The dad one’s a sprawling travelogue, and I’ll probably never finish it. I keep putting it aside. I wrote Sticker and Open Throat in those asides. So that’s the dad book’s function right now, to be cheated on.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? Oh, honey.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? This was actually advice I got from a writer friend about playing squash, which was “It’s slower than you think.” Don’t rush for the ball. Cultivating patience in my practice was difficult, but vital.

What’s your advice to new writers? Besides the above, I think my career trajectory has taught me to ignore every obnoxious industry/workshop pressure or adage that doesn’t serve you, that rubs you the wrong way, and follow your own heart to write the most idiosyncratic, most you thing possible. Weaponize your juvenilia. Don’t leave anything behind if you love it. And, of course, life’s too short to write long books.

Henry Hoke is an editor at The Offing and the author of five books, most recently the novel Open Throat(MCD/FSG & Picador) and the memoir Sticker (Bloomsbury).