1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Getting my first book out of me was a relief. I know a lot of talented people who could write a book and never will. On a superficial level, that first book made me a professional writer, but it was also healing: toiling with the pleasures and pains of my world and building something beautiful out of it all. It also carved out my writing process. I learned to trust my ability to use words with purpose to take things back that had once been taken from me. My writing is always going to be personal. That first book has served me well, both personally and professionally.
Where A Waking Life was taking an internal world and lifting it into a conversational narrative, The First Few Feet is about things so much larger than the self. It’s about the pluralities of truth and history that exist across Turtle Island and Inuit Nunangat. It’s about the depths of colonization and shining light on the continuity of that effort that has taken place over the last three hundred years. While it is very personal, I also felt a great responsibility to write it in a good way for many peoples—Indigenous, colonial, and those who are other. That is a weight that did not come with my first novel. I am grateful that this book is the very best I am capable of at this stage in my life.
2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
My fiction takes heavily from non-fiction. Of course there are exceptions, but, on the whole, I see fiction as having a greater ability to find the reader where they are at than non-fiction. It transcends time, space, and situation in a different way. It also allows for flexibility in the storytelling that true non-fiction doesn’t have access to. That is at least how I come to other works when I am the reader.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
My first two novels were journeys. Each one had over a dozen drafts. The stories had to find their own life through me as a conduit, I suppose. When that happened, it was as though I was starting over, but now within the immense world that the previous drafts had developed. There are notes, maps, chronologies. They were journeys in every sense.
My next project seems different. Or, maybe I’m just lucky this time that the life of the story has been awake from the beginning. It’s a refreshing experience.
4 - Where does a work of prose begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
Like my own world, it begins seemingly as though it is several fragmented pieces that need to be connected. Much like my own world, that’s not actually the case. There is a current of life connecting the tapestry that is at the heart of the story. I know it is there the whole time, I just don’t tend to see it for the first nine drafts.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
My other creative outlet is stand-up comedy, and I am a barrister by trade, so I enjoy workshopping my narratives. That said, it is not essential for me to do readings of my novels. I have a deep respect for the notion that the story received by any reader is going to be different than the story a writer s offering. I don’t know that such workshopping supports this.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
The stories I tell are rooted in concerns about the world. The First Few Feet is the story of hundreds of years of suppressed histories and what that means for the reconciliation we all face today, as selves, communities, and nations. These are urgent issues that some of us have been treading for centuries, while others are being newly shocked by in this moment. How do we move forward in a good way, now that we know the truths of the past? A Waking Life is a conversation questioning the dichotomy between ideas of life and death.
I am not trying to answer these questions. I simply raise them and try to deconstruct some of the incomplete “answers” that have been accepted without question by large swaths of our society.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
There are different types of writers, who serve separate (equally important) roles for society. Mine is as a storyteller. Whether I’m lawyering, performing comedy, or writing a novel, that’s the central current. As a storyteller, I see my role as being one that opens spaces for the conversations I explore to continue beyond my self. Facilitating a discussion that has a life of its own or offering a new way of seeing an issue. I am sure other, more technically sound, writers, would see their roles differently. I happily differ to them for the aggregate responsibilities of the profession.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult
or essential (or both)?
I think it’s both difficult and essential. The editor I worked with on The
First Few Feet was very hands-off. For some reason, that really worked for
this piece. Maybe because of the personal nature of the story. The story I’ve
written isn’t the same story that any reader finds, so anyone who is willing to
share how to best bridge that fissure is vital to a better experience for
writer and reader. I think when good writers and good editors find each other
they can lift a text to another level. As with most interpersonal dynamics, sometimes
egos get in the way of that, but the end result is usually better for the
collaboration.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given
to you directly)?
Embrace the silences. The power of the space between our words is often more
powerful than the words themselves. Silence isn’t scary. Not in the stories we
tell; nor, in the lives that shape them.
That was the advice I got before I went out on stage the first night that I performed stand-up comedy. I’ve found it equally helpful as a courtroom lawyer, a hospice social worker, a community developer, professor, and writer. There must be something to it that’s worth sharing here.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
My writing ebbs when I have space for it and flows when I don’t. If I
have a day to write, I’ll use an hour well. If I have no time, I will be
inspired. I have gotten used to waking up at 3 AM to secure my words to paper
and working until dawn. There is a serenity to working at night.
True to form, now that I am a single father, the next writing venture that is finding life in me is making itself known with increasing fervor these days.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
The stories I tell find their own way into the world. I see myself as more of an assist in the process. When the process “stalls” I trust that it will “unstall” when the story is ready. That is the luxury with not being a full-time writer. The story doesn’t have to carry that pressure the way it would if my rent depended on it.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Mold. The place I called home growing up was covered in wall mold. Home isn’t always a sanctuary. It drove me out and into the world.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
My stories come from life. They reverberate with the people, places, and animate beings I have shared space with. That’s the part I am conscious of. There is a whole world of contributors I am not conscious of as well.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
David Rakoff. Someone who was a brilliant essayist/satirist broke away from his comfort zone with his last work, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish. As an individual piece, it’s worth reading. As a contrast to his previous works, it is inspiring. It made me rethink my idea of what it means to be an accomplished writer. I’d rather write four extremely different books (in form and substance), than forty novels clearly written by the same person.
Writers whose individual works became a friend include Tomson Highway, JamesBaldwin, Mikhail Bakhtin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Yann Martel, Shirley MacLaine, Richard Bach, Paul Monette, and Vito Russo. I mean, the list goes on (and on, and on). I just need to stop somewhere.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I have had the privilege of living so many of my dreams already. I have already done all the things I once felt I “needed” to do to feel fulfilled. I have performed stand-up comedy, became a lawyer, written books I’m proud of, crafted and taught a course on restorative justice and developed a legal support program for the Inuit community in/around Ottawa. More than doing any of these things, I am proud that I did them n a way that has always been true to myself. I find that I walk in this world very differently than most of the people I occupy space with. I am proud that I found my way on this journey of life despite the obstacles.
By far, the most important thing to me is the journey I am just embarking on—fatherhood. That has always been the only thing I ever really wanted in life; from the time I was twelve years old. As a Two-Spirit person, I didn’t know that the colonial infrastructure would ever allow me to do that on my terms. I did it. I found my son. That is what I needed to do in this life.
I still have dreams and pursuits, of course, but it’s selfish to expect they will all materialize. I’ve had more than my share in this life already.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I think I am a pretty good lawyer and instructor. I enjoy those professions. They make me a better writer as well. I don’t think I’d be very interesting if all I did was write. That’s not me.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
The only stories I write are the ones I think no one else is able to tell. The ones I hoped I would find when I picked up other works and read different stories.
So long as that continues to happen, I will continue to write. I will also continue to enjoy reading the stories that compel me to write.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Book: A Confederacy of Dunces. A bit of a cheat because it’s a re-read. As I sat reading it in class (the first time), I couldn’t stop laughing uproariously to myself. It released this tension in my mind that humour and advocacy need be separate beasts. Each is far more persuasive when supported by the other.
Film: One Sings, The Other Doesn’t. A subject as polarizing today as it was upon its release. It’s handled with an equal respect for the choices made by the two protagonists. An under-appreciated gem in the Varda canon.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’ll keep that a secret. Stay tuned, though.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
No comments:
Post a Comment