JUGGLING? WHILE RUNNING BACKWARDS???
Today, in my continuing quest to post properly during 2013, I am privileged to share an interview with my fellow writer, Nate Tower. Because I'm lazy & he’s better at it than I am, here’s how he describes himself on his website (http://nathanieltower.wordpress.com/about/) :
Today, in my continuing quest to post properly during 2013, I am privileged to share an interview with my fellow writer, Nate Tower. Because I'm lazy & he’s better at it than I am, here’s how he describes himself on his website (http://nathanieltower.wordpress.com/about/) :
Nathaniel
Tower is a writer, teacher, runner, coach and juggler. He is the founding
editor of the literary magazine Bartleby Snopes. His short fiction has been published in over 200
online and print journals and has been
nominated for numerous awards. In 2011, Muse ItUp
Publishing released his first novel, A Reason to Kill.
Several months later, his first novella, Hallways and Handguns, followed.
A collection of short fiction tentatively
titled Nagging Wives and Foolish Husbands is set to be
released through Martian
Lit during 2013.
In
November 2012, Nathaniel set a world record by running a mile backwards while
juggling in 8 minutes and 22
seconds. The record has been
confirmed by The Book of Alternative Records. Nathaniel
currently resides in the Midwest with his wife and daughter.
Ok, just for the record, Mr. ‘Man of
a Thousand Hats’, it is so hard to know where to start with you, there’s so many things I want to ask. You seem
to do just about EVERYTHING!
First, completely unrelated to your
writing, tell me about juggling. I spent a summer trying to learn how to but the end result was …I’m
hopeless. Really, really, window breakingly hopeless.
Joanna, thank you
for having me on your blog. I just started my own not too long ago, and I
already know the difficulty of trying to come up with new ideas. Everything's
already been done, right? Anyway, to your questions:
I picked up juggling
when I was about thirteen. My brother showed me how after he learned how to do
it in a high school theatre class. So I did it for a while, learning a few
tricks. Then, like all good things, I went quite a few years without
practicing. I'd show off every once in a while, but if you can't do many tricks,
no one cares after about thirty seconds. It's just the same thing over and
over. I've only been really serious about juggling for the last few years. I
guess it's one of those things you never forget how to do. Honestly, it's not
that hard to learn. It just takes patience and the right method. There are
quite a few different ways to learn. Youtube has a ton of great tutorials. Of
course Youtube has them. Youtube has everything. I've picked up a lot of tricks
from watching those videos. The box pattern, the shower, the penguin, Mills
mess, etc. You definitely get better with practice. I just bought five new
juggling balls. I just have to learn how to get the fifth one in there.
And that leads me to the next
fascinating thing: Juggling while running. BACKWARDS.
Well, I'm a
runner. I'm a juggler. Might as well do them at the same time. I'm sure the
first person to put peanut butter and jelly together was considered a
revolutionary. Maybe even a heretic. And if you can run forward while juggling,
might as well try it backwards. Right? Plus, the backwards records are easier
than the forward records. At least for me they are. Some people just can't run
backwards. They're afraid something is going to jump out and get them. The
first time I ran a mile backwards while juggling, I fell several times. I
tripped over a goal post that had fallen onto the track. But I got up and
finished that mile! Joggling is actually something that's been going on for
quite some time. Did you know they have an official Joggling Olympics every
year? I hope to attend one of these days.
I guess I need to get on to the main
purpose behind this interview, your writing. One thing I admire about you is
the fact that you work well in so many different formats: flash fiction, short
stories, novellas, novels and even a serialised novel that’s still in progress.
Is there one you prefer? Is your writing process different as you approach each
one? Do you have a specific ‘process’ as
such?
The
process changes daily. I write whenever I can. Sometimes I write on scraps of
paper while driving. It's quite dangerous actually. I shouldn't do it. But when
I get the idea, I want to get it down even though I know I'll still have the
idea later. When you think of writing a story about a boy whose hands are made
of oats, the idea doesn't just disappear.
I don't think I have a
particular process for any particular format. I just write, write, write. I
like to write in big chunks, to get down as much as possible at a time. I
rarely outline. Sometimes I'll put down a "here's what happens next"
note at the end of a chapter. For short stories, I prefer to write the whole
thing in one sitting, then give it a rest for a day or two, then come back and
take it apart. The serialized novel might be my favourite to write (hey, why
did my Microsoft Word just autocorrect to that crazy British spelling of
favorite? It didn't have a problem with my "serialized"). It's such a
blast to come up with these crazy cliff-hangers at the end of pretty much every
chapter. Gotta keep the readers coming back, right? It's hard to come up with
so many twists though. I like writing weird stuff. Things that I'm pretty sure
no one else could come up with. That's my favorite thing to write.
You’re much younger than me (we
won’t discuss by how much!) and you seem to have produced a vast amount of work
in that time. I can pinpoint the exact moment when I knew I wanted to become a
writer, did you have a ‘moment’ like that? When did you start writing?
I've
always been interested in writing. When I was six or seven or eight or
something like that I had a crappy poem published in one of those stupid
anthologies that accepts every poem sent in as long as you promise to buy the
book. Of course, being six or seven or eight, I didn't know that. I just
thought I was some literary god. So I went on to write a bunch of terrible
stories about warlocks and junk like that. And, just like the juggling, I
stopped writing for a while, for no reason really. Then I just started doing it
again. I guess the moment you're talking about was a discussion with a
co-worker about the greatest first lines in literature. I knew they were really
only great because of the work that followed (no one would care about
"Call me Ishmael" if it was a teen vampire romance novel). But I was
motivated to write the best first line ever. Hasn't happened yet. But I haven't
stopped trying. Actually, I do have the best opening line ever written, but
there's nothing after it right now, so it isn't an opening line. Maybe someday.
Was it a long journey to publication
for you? Tell us how that worked:
Like all newbies, I had no idea what I was
doing at first. I bought one of those big heavy books and started sending out
manuscripts (in manila envelopes!) to all these big time publishers. I was
pretty naive back then. Of course, none of them took any of my stuff, and
eventually I discovered that there were thousands of internet publications that
didn't charge fees or require manila envelopes and SASEs. So I started sending
out things through email. I was tired of spending all the money on postal costs
anyway. My first ever acceptance was a story called "Hindsight of a
Friend." It was picked up by a little blog pub called Darkest Before Dawn,
which is still going actually. He, here's
a link if you want to read what my writing was like five years ago: http://darknessbefore.blogspot.com/2008/07/hindsight-of-friend-nathaniel-tower.html. I was so proud. My wife and I went out to
a fancy dinner. I was a published author! We actually had the dinner plans
already. But now there was reason to celebrate and order that extra glass of
wine! Magically, another 200 or so acceptances followed. Very few of those were
celebrated with fancy dinners. It's a good thing. We'd be broke now. I still
get rejected a lot now, of course. Doesn't everyone? But I don't cry for hours
like I used to.
What other writers do you admire
craftwise? Who do you like to read?
I don't want to waste
time reciting the typical canon of famous authors (except Donald Barthelme—I
must mention Barthelme!). I'd rather focus on great writers I enjoy who deserve
more exposure. Andrew Stancek is great. Susan Tepper. Chris DeWildt. I wish I
could name a thousand authors. I hope none of my favourites are offended when I
leave them off. Oh, Stephen V Ramey for sure. Everything of his I've read is
dynamite. He just came out with a new collection called Glass Animals that I'm looking forward to reading. I love
reading short stories. I don't discriminate based on name or reputation. Just
give me a good short story.
Let’s talk about Bartelby Snopes,
the online Lit magazine you started in 2008. What led you to start it? What do
you look for when you choose the pieces you print?
Frustration is
what led to the birth of BS. Too many
days waiting for form rejections. I wanted personal feedback. I wanted it in
three days. That's the mission of Bartleby Snopes. As far as what we want in our stories, we have a big list of turnoffs
on our site. Besides not doing those things, we want to see stories that make
us say, "Damn. I wish I had written that."
What has surprised you most about
your life so far as a writer?
Two things come to
mind. The first is how much I've changed in such a short time. When I look back
at stories I wrote five years ago, very few of them seem like things I could
write today. Not saying they're bad stories. Just saying I don't think I would
have written them. Mostly it's a stylistic thing I guess. But it's not like
five years is a long time. It's not like my life is that dramatically different
now. I do have a kid now, but I feel like my perspective on the world and
whatnot is pretty much the same. So why is my writing so different? Can I blame
it on climate change?
The other thing that
surprises me is how awesome everyone (almost everyone) in the writing community
is. For the most part, there's just so much love and support. With so much
competition going on at each individual journal, you'd think writers would be
cutthroat, would hide their writing secrets. Nah. Everyone wants to help
everyone else. Someone should make a reality television show where a bunch of
writers are living together. I think it would be a riot. Or boring as hell.
I read in an authorised bio of
Robbie Williams that he's been known to occasionally shut off all the lights in
the recording studio and get naked in the sound booth while singing. He says it
helps him when he really wants to nail a song. How do you shake things up if
you feel stuck or that the writing has become stale?
Besides being
naked when I write? I mean, how could anyone write with clothes on? Well, I
like to make masks of what I think my characters look like. When the writing
gets stale or stuck, I put the mask on and try to act like that character.
Surprisingly, I find that most of my characters look exactly like me.
One last question for you. If you
could hang out with two famous authors, one alive, one dead, who would you
choose and why?
Easy. Dante. He'd take me around hell with
him and we'd drink port or something like that. Maybe smoke cigars. I'd teach
him how to juggle while we watched the tortured souls. Huggling. It sounds like
it's juggling while hugging, but it's actually juggling while you're in hell.
Then we'd try to visit with a few famous writers. See which ones are there.
Then I'd abandon him and write my own Inferno.
And alive, alive-o? Definitely
James Franco. We would read poetry together at a coffee house and he would be
flocked by female admirers who would walk away in disgust and disappointment
after hearing his poetry. No one would ask for his autograph. On our way out of
the coffee shop, a group of people would recognize me as the world record
holder for the backwards joggling mile. After they left, I'd tell James that
it's okay. "At least you've got that acting career," I'd say while
patting him on the back.
If I do nothing else this year, I must attempt Joggling. Over 200 publications is an amazing achievement. Well done, Nate!
ReplyDeleteJoanna, thanks for having me on the blog. I had a blast answering the questions. You are a pro at interviewing!
ReplyDelete