Sean Adams

How did you become a writer?

I always liked writing when I was in high school and college and beyond. I wrote some humor pieces for sites like McSweeney's, tried (and failed) to launch a few blogs, and then eventually started focusing more of my time on writing and submitting short stories to magazines.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

George Saunders was a writer I read and thought: wow! Fiction is allowed to be like this? Reading Kelly Link had a similar effect on me. More recently, I've been inspired by the work of writers Magnus Mills and Patrick deWitt. Their work pushes boundaries of genre and absurdity, but always remains playful.
Beyond that, I had a great writing professor in undergrad named Chris Miller who really pushed me not just to keep writing, but to keep writing funny. 

When and where do you write?

It would probably do well for me to actually set a writing schedule. I work from home as a copywriter, with deadlines but no set hours, which leaves things pretty open. When I'm more disciplined, I'll get up and write first thing in the morning. When I'm not so disciplined, I put writing off into the afternoon, at which point there's a greater chance I'll skip it altogether. Mostly, I write in my small home office. When I do want to get out of the house, I'll go to a coffee shop or sometimes a bar. If I'm being totally honest, writing at a bar in the early afternoon is often much more amenable than writing in a coffee shop. At least in my experience. 

What are you working on now?

Before writing my novel I worked on mostly on short stories. I always assumed when I finished it, I would be eager to get back to working with shorter forms. But honestly, I've really enjoyed the process of entrenching myself in one sprawling world. Which is all to say, I'm working on another novel-length project. It'll likely be a bit shorter than my first, but similar: satire, some genre-elements, a bit of a thriller at times but not entirely.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I don't really suffer from intense writer's block. I always have a few ideas clunking around in my head, and while sometimes it can be more difficult to get them out than others, I'm usually able to work through it. After finishing a big project, I'll usually deal with a bit of a creative hangover, wherein starting something brand new will seem wildly daunting. More often, though, I suffer from editor's block. As in, I'll be going along with my edits, and I'll hit a particularly rough patch, and I'll get impatient and want to walk away from the project, as if smoothing out those rough patches isn't the point of the editing process. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

When I took one of my first writing workshops as an undergrad, I met with my advisor--Chris Miller, mentioned above--and talked about the process of sharing my work. He asked me how it was going, and when I expressed some dismay about a certain piece of feedback, he told me: treat every workshop like a focus group rather than a panel of experts. And I think about that a lot. It's great to show others your writing, but you have to be careful not let someone's opinion override your instincts.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Learn to love revision. I enjoy generating new material. It's exciting because, even if you have a meticulous plan, you still stumble upon unexpected things. Revision is not as "magical" but it can be extremely rewarding if you let it be. I mentioned suffering from "editor's block" earlier, but the truth is, the harder you need to work to revise a passage, the more satisfying it will be when you conquer it. If you can find that satisfaction, your writing will greatly improve. 

Sean Adams is a graduate of Bennington College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His fiction has appeared in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Normal School, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Arkansas International, and elsewhere. He lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his wife, Emma, and their various pets.