Grant Jarrett
Free range author, avid cyclist and reasonably competent flosser
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Writing Process Blog Tour
Posted August 24, 2014 in blog, Creativity, Discipline, Fiction, Novels, Uncategorized, Writing
After conspiring with author Gay Degani, the talented and generous Susan Tepper invited me to join April Bradley's literary blog tour about the writing process. Here is my contribution:
1). What are you working on?
This summer has been virtually consumed by marketing my novel and getting my baseball-addicted son to and from 47,323 little league games. But in the rare logistical interstices between those undertakings I've been attempting to gain traction on the two aspiring novels I started months ago, or, when I tire of the smell of burning rubber, furrowing my brow at the 60,000-word oddity I thought I'd finished four years ago. I'm still not sure all those damned words (about two old homeless men who are unaware that they share a scarring history) constitute a complete, compelling, cogent work of fiction, so I read and revise and wonder and grunt and twitch like a jellyfish in a blender. It feels as though I'm doing too much and too little at the same time, but in my hopeful (by which I mean deluded) moments I'm convinced something will fall together before I fall apart. What I really need is to land on one thing, wrestle it to the ground, and then teach it to fly. I've promised myself a productive autumn, but I'm not sure I trust me.
2). How does your work differ from the work of others in the same area/genre? (April Bradley added this observation to the question: Genre is such a confining word, isn't it?)
Like most of my work, Ways of Leaving doesn't fit easily into any category I know of, which is fine with me, if not with the publishing world. I would simply describe it as dark, humorous, and (gulp) literary, with a focus on character. Of course if I did that, nobody would even look at the cover. Oops.
Thomas McGuane and George Saunders are two enormously talented authors whose fiction could be described as I've described my own. What immediately differentiates my work from theirs (and McGuane's from Saunders') is voice, that intangible element that distinguishes an author's work, regardless of "genre," and makes it unique. And there are other significant differences. Saunders addresses social issues in a fairly direct (though always creative) way, whereas I never have a message in mind when I write fiction, which is not to say that large issues aren't addressed in the course of the narrative or that readers don't come away affected emotionally or intellectually. McGuane's work is generally a bit more subdued than my own, and is often rooted in the American West. Although we employ some of the same tools and techniques, our visions differ and the results are distinctly our own.
3.) Why do you write what you do?
I suppose I write what I write because it is tugging and twisting inside me and wants, or perhaps needs, to come out; because I feel it intensely; and because I perceive in the characters and situations I've vaguely imagined something of value, some overarching truth that illuminates some aspect of what it means to be human. At its best, my fiction is an honest, unaffected expression of something I feel or think or need to get rid of so someone else can feel it and I can go have some potato chips.
4). How does your writing process work?
Very poorly, or at least very imprecisely. I have no rituals, unless you include procrastinating, binge-snacking, and napping. For me writing is often hard work, but it is an integral part of me. The most difficult part is getting started, but things usually begin to flow more smoothly when I've gotten far enough to know, or at least believe, that what I'm working on will eventually have the capacity to breathe on its own. Once I feel that the work is alive I rarely get stuck, and I've learned that when I do it's because I'm trying to force something that isn't right, to assert my wayward will on something that has developed a path of its own. The greatest reward is completing something I'm proud of, something touches others the way the affecting, challenging, stimulating, illuminating books I've read and cherished have touched me, something that will induce laughter, tears, introspection, multiple orgasms. The downside of completing something is that I then need to start something new. Boulder, hill, boulder, hill, repeat.
Coming soon, Roxana Robinson and Jim Ruland discuss their own writing processes, hopefully making more sense than I did.
Roxana Robinson is the author of nine books: five novels, three story collections and the biography of Georgia O'Keeffe. Her books have been named Notable Books of the Year, by The New York Times, she has twice won the Maine Fiction Award, as well as an NEA Grant and Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently President of the Authors Guild.
A veteran of the Navy, Jim Ruland is the author of the novel Forest of Fortune, the short story collection Big Lonesome, and co-author with Scott Campbell, Jr. of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch of Giving the Finger. He is the books columnist for San Diego CityBeat and a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and Razorcake, America's only non-profit independent music zine. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Believer, Esquire, Granta, Hobart and Oxford American Magazine. He runs the Southern California-based reading series Vermin on the Mount, now in its tenth year.
Tags: writing process
Ways of Leaving
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Chase Stoller is a beautifully mangled all-American mess. Jarrett's ability to paint a picture of the tedium of small town America, and then to drop a character into this (Hannah) that's right out of a Wyeth painting, well that sealed the deal for me. With pitch perfect dialogue and writing that felt like a perfect Indian summer day, "Ways Of Leaving" was that rare book that when I read the last word on the last page…I went back to page 1 and read it all over again.
Paul Hoppe, author of "The Curse of Van Gogh"
It's official: Grant Jarrett has created the most entertaining, existential anti-hero since Tony Soprano. Whether you're laughing out loud or wincing in recognition, "Ways of Leaving" will impress you with its raw honesty, keen writing, and ultimately, its big heart.
Jess Riley, author of
"Mandatory Release and Driving Sideways", a Target bestseller
Grant Jarrett's vividly-drawn characters, dark humor and empathetic voice build bridges that transport the reader through this inter-generational story of parents and siblings in which the desire for salvation is challenged by the equally powerful impulse for destruction. "Ways of Leaving" depicts a seemingly familiar world that becomes freshly discovered and understood in Jarrett's intricate telling.
Jon Reiner, author of "The Man Who Couldn't Eat"
Jarrett's "Ways.." reminds me of Joseph Heller's work; dark, humorously demented, truthful; with unavoidable wit and insight.
Brett Cartwright
[Ways of Leaving] is a tour de force by a highly skilled author who has had the integrity and skill to examine the human condition for what it is and yet still rejoice about it.
Seannachie
A first-rate, deeply insightful, moving and painfully honest examination of human life which is also excruciatingly funny...
It is the final scene that will literally take your breath away.
... an outstanding and devastating new novel ...
Independent Publisher
... as heartbreaking as anything you will read in a novel this year.
... a master class of fiction writing ...
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About Grant
The fourth of five sons, I was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania to two emotionally scarred, terminally incompatible parents. From the moment we could say ouch...
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