Back

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 2: Are you inspired by nature? Please explain.

Yes, absolutely. I live in a very green city, so the green is always present: the soil, the colours, the glorious rain.

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 3: Are you more productive during long stretches of free time, or when you have to squeeze creativity into your busy life?

Definitely long stretches. Right now, I need to *produce* words, and I'm having trouble making the time, and I'm having trouble getting into a groove. It's been hard.

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 4: My Creative Work is an essential part of who I am -- true or false?

Oh yeah! I'm a writing/literature prof. Creative work is shot through almost everything I do.

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 5: If you have family living with you, what do they think about your creative work?

My wife reads my stuff sometimes. She's really happy I have a creative outlet. I'm a more pleasant person to be around when I'm writing. My kids are not ready for what I write!

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 6: Tell us about a book you go back and read over and over.

I reread books that I teach, so:
- Neuromancer
- Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
- End of East

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 7: Many authors write the book they couldn't find. What does your work offer that you couldn't find elsewhere?

At the time I wrote it, there wasn't a really considered critique of STAR WARS in the form of a narrative, but then THE ACOLYTE both premiered and then was cancelled, so my book is still viable, but there's definitely some shared territory.

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 8: What is the nicest thing anyone has said about your work?

I showed all my work--all of it!--to my writing buddy, and at the next meeting, she said, "I've just been reading Orion's stuff all week..." I don't think it gets better than that.

Close second: my dissertation supervisor once said, "Orion's not capable of a misreading." He was talking to someone else in front of me, and I was like: What really!?

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 9: What would your best creative life look like, keeping it realistic?

I transition to a creative writing instructor--because I love teaching, and I don't want to stop--which gives me enough money and free time to write my work but also get it published, which generates enough income that I can go part-time on the teaching, and then I'm a writer who teaches.

#ScribesAndMakers Day 10: What's your preferred format for reading (hardcopy, e-book, audio)? Is it the same for publishing?

Ebook, definitely. Carrying around chunks of dead tree isn't appealing, although I do think books are superior technology (never runs out of batteries, the only compatibility issues are whether you read that language, highly portable). For publishing, whatever people want, man.

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 11: Is travelling/vacation good for your creativity?

Sure. It's good for all kinds of thing. Specifically? Not especially.

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 12: Do you play games? If so, do they influence your creativity?

I'm a lifetime D&D player, and I find I have to push away a lot of those ingrained rhythms in order to write stories. If I'm not careful, I start arranging my narratives around "encounters" and using D&D's schools of magic and stuff like that. It's a problem.

#ScribesAndMakers Mar 14: Dialogue, everything from hello to goodbye or stick to essentials?

It depends on the scene, the characters, the "vibe," etc. Generally, though, I do like to include all the awkwardness and pauses and staring out the window. I like to hear the sound of cutlery clinking on plates, wind whipping rain against the window, people clearing their throats. That's all part of the scene.

@orionkidder That’s similar to how I see it. Life isn’t all fast-paced acts that move us on to the next thing quickly. Reality is a series of meanders with an occasional weir. Dialogue can bring that to the page by having the mundanities included.

@johnyNocash Okay, this is really interesting. I was thinking yesterday about how *trained* we all are to film/television-style storytelling where seconds = hundreds of thousands of dollars, where time is limited, etc.

Novels don't have to work that way. There's a negligible added cost to a couple of hundred words. We don't, in fact, have to "open on action," etc. Those are all rhythms born of the needs of a literal different *medium* of storytelling. They're optional in novels.

@orionkidder Yes, definitely. The story I’ve most recently finished I wrote to be as deliberately slow-paced as I could. The plot of the story is that nothing happens, but in that nothingness so much happens. Whether I’ve been successful remains to be seen…