One of the things I most enjoy about the Craft of Writing series is the insight it offers into how other writers work—approaches that are as individual as the writers themselves. It’s easy to get hung up on rigid notions of what constitutes being a writer, which at best is a nonproductive line of thought at best and at worst is a way to avoid writing. What constitutes being a writer? You write. And whatever approach you take that enables you to write is the right way. You make the commitment, and you write.
Scott Archer Jones made a conscious decision to commit to his writing. Scott, who’s at work on his sixth novel, lives in Northern New Mexico, after stints in the Netherlands, Scotland, and Norway plus less exotic locations. He’s worked for a power company, grocers, a lumberyard, an energy company (for a very long time), and a winery. Now he’s on the masthead of the Prague Revue. He launched a novel last year with Southern Yellow Pine Publishing, Jupiter and Gilgamesh: A Novel of Sumeria and Texas. The same publisher will release his new novel, The Big Wheel, this month.
He’s been a finalist a few writing contests but not yet a winner. He’s published here and there, but as he says, he’s received enough rejection to achieve humility.
Scott cuts all his own firewood, lives a mile from his nearest neighbor, and writes grant applications for the community. He is the treasurer of Shuter Library of Angel Fire, a private 501(c)(3), which desperately needs your money to keep the doors open. Click these links to learn more about Scott (after, of course, you read this Q&A, in which you’ll learn some things about him, too):
https://www.facebook.com/ScottArcherJones
Q: Because everyone always wants to know this: Describe your writing environment and your work habits.
A: I write at the breakfast bar or in a wingback chair in front of the woodstove. I can write anywhere—airports, libraries, coffee shops—anywhere except a room where my wife is being angry about the satellite internet service.
Q: What are must-haves and must-not-haves in your writing space?
A: A laptop. A notebook and a pen. Internet, and the usual references like the Chicago Manual of Style. My list of 32 insipid words to never use.
Q: What compels you to write?
A: I’m a pretty dull person, but some of the voices in my head are compelling, strange—nearly like hearing a car crash. I write to see what they’re going to do.
Q: Describe your evolution as a writer. What was a turning point for you?
A: The real breakthrough? Deciding to write, to sit down nearly every day and work. I did it for three years on my own, and I think I needed that time to prove something, God knows what.
But then the sun came out—I give significant credit to Antonya Nelson’s workshop at the Taos Writers Conference. Before that I was just faking it through on language, without much sense of structure or action.
Until I took John Dufresne’s master class, I didn’t really understand the basics behind novels, in spite of having lived a surrogate life or two in them. Also, watching the amount of work John does on each student’s novel taught me a lot about what needs to be done as a writer.
Q: Writing is an exchange. What do you want your readers to bring to your work, and what do you want to bring to them?
A: I want to bring a sense of the Other to them, characters totally outside their realm but somehow linked by fellow humanity. I want readers who will scan through fast and have a good time, readers who will pore over the book slowly and enjoy the language, readers who will dive so deep they see my little tricks.
Q: What feeds your writing?
A: If you mean what pushes me, for my nonfiction pieces in the Prague Revue, I am driven by panic and deadline, and by the desire to say something unique and primary. Or funny.
For fiction, I’m driven by the characters themselves. The new novel The Moth came from a minor character who appeared in a book that's coming out in March, The Big Wheel. He was so delicious from a writer’s perspective that I couldn’t leave him alone.
I actually wrote a Prague piece on Why We Write; it’s only 1400 words.
Q: What is the most valuable advice you ever received as a writer? What other advice would you offer emerging writers?
A: Work at it. It’s a job, not a lifestyle. My advice to others? Ask yourself at the end of the first draft—what is missing, what magic and surprise does this need?
Q: What are you currently reading, and what do you think of it?
A: A short by Dufresne, called Iffy. It’s about a character, Elvis Engdahl, setting himself free of all rules. I’m also reading the winner of the Starcherone Prize, Cartilage and Skin, by James Rizza. It’s really weird: getting into the mind of this guy is creepy. I wish I had written it.
The truth is, I don’t read a lot of books all at the same time. They sit on my bedside table after the first chapter and wait. They’re compassionate that way.
Q: What makes something a good read for you?
A: Language. Broken people. Ambiguity.
Q: Do you have creative doubts or fears? What are they, and how do you overcome them?
A: I’m a mid-rank writer as far as skill. I want to be blindingly good, like Delillo or McCarthy or Melville or Woolf, and I worry I’ll get stalled. The answer is to take on some impossibility for the next book, like writing it from a woman’s perspective or making an amoral politico compelling.
Q: We don’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. What do you do when you’re not feeling the mojo?
A: Revise. Writing is 90% revising, and unless a book is frozen by publication, you have to rewrite. I’m being pushed upstream by three right now. There’s also research for the next one, but that is often an excuse to dally.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A novel-in-short-stories about an East L.A. pawnbroker nicknamed the Moth, and his neighborhood. The “now” of the story is 2010, but the timeline breaks all the way back to his childhood. He’s sometimes the protagonist and sometimes the witness.
Q: What’s the secret to writing unforgettable characters?
A: This is a trick question, right? Writers are surrounded by unforgettable characters. Just mash two or three of them up, change the name, and put her or him in harm’s way. Then work on unique voice.
Q: What didn’t I ask that I should have—and what’s the answer?
A: How did you choose your genre?I didn’t choose a genre, I chose literature. I think that you can write literature in any genre.
Genre is pretty much a form of cultural laziness, isn’t it? For the publisher, it means he doesn’t have to work hard being a generalist (unlike my indie publisher). For an editor, it means you can get into a groove based upon a market and a class of writers and readers. For an agent (not that I have one), it means that you know exactly who to call when your author’s new book hits your desk. For the readers, it means they know right where to go in the store or library to have an entertaining time without too many surprises or upsets. For the writer, it means that he or she gets bound by the expectations of his readers, his agent, his editor, and his publisher.
