Susan Marsh

How did you become a writer?

From an early age, I was interested in words and how they sounded together, especially rhymes and rhythm. I think this is true for most kids but we abandon childish things as we grow, and a simple love of the way language sounds is often one of them. I started writing poetry in the 6th grade, and when I had a few poems published at age 20 or so, I thought maybe this is something I can do. I worked for decades to understand how to write well, and am still learning. I think of myself as a perpetual apprentice.

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

I guess I’d have to include my 6th grade teacher on this list, since she was the first to praise something I wrote and it surprised me. It encouraged me in a way that is memorable.

I am less drawn to individual writers than to specific parts of their body of work. For example, Edward Abbey has a wonderful essay on Glen Canyon (since drowned by Lake Powell) in Desert Solitaire. Ivan Doig is a perennial favorite of mine, and I especially love This House of Sky. Mary Oliver is a poet but I love her books of prose most of all. Blue Pastures is a favorite, and her books about prosody have taught me much about writing both poetry and prose. Also along those lines, Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town is an excellent resource for poets and prose writers alike.

When and where do you write?

I have a small office area in my home where the computer is, and I like to write there in early morning. Ideally, and when I am working hard on a particular project, I will works from around 7 am to 10 or 11. Getting a bit done before I start the rest of my day lets me feel a sense of accomplishment, so I attend to what is most important to me first. I also carry notebooks everywhere. Coffee shops, the library, and a log in the woods are all good places to write for me. Sometimes I jot ideas and observations, other times I spend an hour writing a scene of dialogue.

What are you working on now?

I am co-author of a forthcoming non-fiction book, Too Special to Drill, which is a case study about how a group of citizens achieved an environmental victory in Wyoming’s Hoback River basin. We are working on the final revision, having gotten feedback from our publisher and readers, so that will be my emphasis for the coming months. I have two novels in the works, one nearly done and the other just beginning. I recently gave myself the assignment to write a poem a day for a month, which I did in February. This gave me a lot of material to work on later, and some of these poems have evolved into what I might call finished.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I don’t call it that. When I have periods of not writing it’s because I need to take in, not keep putting out material. I think this phase, while frustrating at times, is necessary. That’s one reason I carry a notebook, I never know when an idea will come up on that novel I set aside weeks ago. Or an unforeseen solution to a niggling problem. I do think it helps me to have multiple projects going. Novels and other long stories seem to require periods of rest, so I can go back and look at them anew. I think as long as I am writing something, whether in a journal or notebook, an article for a non-profit’s newsletter, or editing someone else’s draft work, I am not experiencing writer’s block.

What’s your advice to new writers?

I can only say from my own experience that it helps to keep a beginner’s mind about it, and practice a form of rigorous relaxation. By that I mean, don’t take your novice writing too seriously. I used to take myself and my work so seriously that I couldn’t handle criticism and thought that any flaw in a truly bad poem was a reflection on me. It was hard to get over the sting of some poorly delivered critiques in order to see the truth in them.

Don’t be hard on yourself, but keep working, learning and having fun with it. Commit to a certain time each day, your date with yourself to play with language. It can be a half hour – you can get a lot done in that amount of time, if you can focus. Surprise yourself, discover a meaning in your work that you didn’t expect. Those little moments of insight when things suddenly come together are what make writing a joy. And don’t apologize for making time for this work. It is not an idle hobby. Be serious about your craft and commitment to it, but not so serious about your ego.

Susan Marsh is an award-winning writer living in Jackson, Wyoming. She worked for the U.S. Forest Service for over thirty years. With degrees in geology and landscape architecture and a lifelong interest in creative writing, she has combined her interests into a body of work that explores the relationship of humans to wild country. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Orion, North American Review, and Fourth Genre, and anthologies such as Solo (Seal Press, 2005), and A Mile in Her Boots (Solas House, 2006). Her books include Stories of the Wild (The Murie Center, 2001), The Wild Wyoming Range (Laguna Wilderness Press, 2013), War Creek (MP Publishing, 2014) and A Hunger for High Country (Oregon State University Press, 2014). www.slmarsh.com

John Byrne Cooke

How did you become a writer?

Through genes and osmosis. My father, Alistair Cooke, was a writer -- a journalist who filed a daily piece for decades for the Guardian (the Manchester Guardian, when he began), as well as a writer of books. But I wasn't set on following in his footsteps while I was growing up. I learned to type at an early age and my first stories were often taken from movies I'd seen, written out in my own prose. While I was in college at Harvard I joined the Cambridge, Mass., based old-time and bluegrass band, the Charles River Valley Boys, and was very happy to be a musician in the height of the folk music boom. I got involved in filmmaking when I worked with D.A. Pennebaker as a member of his crew, filming the Monterey Pop Festival.

Writing came back into the picture through filmmaking. A friend had an idea for an off-the-wall independent film to be shot in 16mm. He needed a script to help find funding. I got my hands on a genuine feature-film screenplay and with that guide to the formatting and style of screenwriting, I came up with a rough script, really an extended outline. I wrote three original screenplays in the '70s and moved to L.A. to try my hand at the movie business. I got an agent and some writing jobs -- some rewrites and adaptations -- but I kept missing the brass ring of having something I wrote go into production. One day I was having lunch with my lawyer and he said "Have you thought of writing 'The Snowblind Moon' [one of my original screenplays] as a novel?" I had thought of it, but the fact that he supported the idea was catalytic. "The Snowblind Moon" became my first novel. Two more historical novels of the West followed, in which I put fictional characters in the midst of real historical events and true historical characters. I guess the pull of the real history was strong. I published my first book of nonfiction in 2007, "Reporting the War: Freedom of the Press from the American Revolution to the War on Terrorism." My latest, also nonficton, also historical, is in a very different vein. "On the Road with Janis Joplin" is my memoir of being Janis's road manager for the last three years of her life.

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

Good writing and good stories. For "The Snowblind Moon," James Clavell was an influence and an inspiration, because he is a master of shifting point of view, especially among characters who are from radically different cultures and world views. It's a good thing no one ever told me you shouldn't write a first novel with shifting points of view. I planned "The Snowblind Moon" that way from the start, I studied the best, and only one editor to whom we submitted very early on suggested I redraft the story from a single point of view. My agent wisely said "This is one man's opinion." We submitted elsewhere and no one else raised the same objection again.

Above all, good storytelling and good writing inspire me and bad writing puts me off.

When and where do you write?

In the morning. Every day. Seven days a week. After breakfast I take a walk to get some oxygen into my brain. I come home, sit down, and write. Once I had a publishing deal for "The Snowblind Moon" (based on 250 pages and an outline of the rest), I was on a deadline to submit a complete draft. I wrote ten pages each day before I allowed myself to quit for lunch. Sometimes lunch was late. The novel came in over 300,000 words. (You could publish epic novels in the '80s!) I've never since equaled that pace. I think Anne Lamott's advice that you give yourself "small assignments" is good. She recommends 300 words a day. If you ask of yourself 300 words a day and you write 900, you've had a great day. If you ask 1000 and you write 900, you've had a bad day. But you got the same amount of work done! This is why Lamott's advice is good: succeed at meeting the small assignments, have a lot of good days, and it keeps you going.

What are you working on now?

Another nonfiction book about another strong, independent woman. A lot like Janis Joplin in some ways. I can't say more because she is a historical figure, public domain, so I'll keep her name to myself until the book is done and under contract.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I've run into any number of problems in writing my novels and nonfiction works, but the way to get past them is to keep on writing. A screenwriter friend in L.A. put this sign on the wall over her desk: "Write the first draft for yourself." I modified that to "A rough draft is better than no draft." All this advice is intended to keep you from thinking that every new page has to be perfect. Just write. In "Living the Writer's Life," Natalie Goldberg recommends you keep your fingers moving on the keyboard, even if you write gibberish. One of my best tricks, for fiction, when I'm feeling stuck, is to jump ahead to the next scene with dialogue and write it very fast, letting the dialogue between (or among) the characters just flow. The characters say things you never planned and reveal things about themselves and the story that help it move forward.

Let me put it this way: I don't believe in writer's block, and I suggest you don't either.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Pay attention to the language! Re-read books you love and admire and _study_ the writing. How does the writer involve you in the narrative? How does the novelist make you care about the characters? How does she make you want to know What Happens Next? Above all, learn to write simple, straightforward, declarative prose. You can't do anything fancier until you can do that. Don't start a sentence with a dependent clause. Avoid clichés, avoid Latinisms ("prior to" instead of "before"), avoid pretentious words and phrases. They won't impress anyone worth impressing. Careless, sloppy, second and third-rate prose that falls into all the bad habits of the present moment isn't worth anyone's time. The ability to write well may be in part an inherent talent, but writing can be studied! And much can be learned.

The film director-writer Richard Brooks advised, "Humor. Character. Conflict. So get on with it!" (Note that he put humor first! Without it, life isn't worth a hill of beans.)

ON THE ROAD WITH JANIS JOPLIN by John Byrne Cooke

www.johnbyrnecooke.com/ftb.html

Brandon R. Brown

How did you become a writer?

I've always been interested in writing, starting in elementary school. While pursuing scientific training, I maintained this interest by taking extra workshop-style courses, even in graduate school. 

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

In terms of being a reader, I may have learned the most the work of Grace Paley, in terms of how she listens to her characters and tells a story. I've had a great run of luck with instructors, but in chronological order I would list Max Apple, Glenn Blake, Tracy Daugherty, Ehud Havazelet, and Marjorie Sandor as having the greatest impact on my writing as an adult. I'd also like to credit John McNicholas for really helping me understand how to properly use quotations in non-fiction. He emphasized using quotation where the speaker said it best (or most distinctively) and not using quotation where you, the writer, can say it better. So now I'll often just mix in a quoted phrase or half a sentence instead of a full, long quote. 

When and where do you write?

I love to work early in the day. My ideal day of work would have editing from 5-6 a.m. and writing / re-writing from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's very rare to create the ideal day, given that I'm a science prof by day, so I wedge writing time into the early mornings and weekend mornings. 

I work as far from our two cats as I can get, usually in a little unwarranted space next to our garage, where I'm sealed off from the little beasts.

What are you working on now?

I'm very interesting in the topic of "time," but this project is in its infancy.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I don't think so. Perhaps project block. I'm not a fiction writer, so I don't push myself in that imaginative way. I more often have to search around for a non-fiction project that will pull me into obsessive mode, where I need to be. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

A. Find a regular way to disconnect from the internet, and make yourself write every day. My little writing space is actually out of range of our wireless router, which is perfect.

B. Take editing more seriously than writing. Return again and again to your drafts. I think the editing side of a writer's personality must be equal parts merciless on detail and forgiving on risk.

Brandon R. Brown is a Professor of Physics at the University of San Francisco. His biophysics work on the electric sense of sharks, as covered by NPR and the BBC, has appeared in Nature, The Physical Review, and other research journals. His writing for general audiences has appeared in New Scientist, SEED, the Huffington Post, and other outlets. His first book is a biography, Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War (Oxford, 2015).