Rob McLennan is the new writer in residence at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. A college drop-out, he is an acclaimed poet and author with quite a prolific output over the years. He has published 13 books in Canada and England including: poetry, fiction and non-fiction works. He has a blog that is currently being used as an opportunity to publish interviews with Canadian writers. Given my non-residential status, I am currently not permitted to take writing courses and this chafes a bit because the writing program at the U of A looks substantive and though I don’t really buy into the theory that writing as an art can be taught, there are arguments to be made for spending time among your peers if for no other reason than to promote focus and get feedback. There are two writer’s groups in my area. One at the county library and the other at the public library in town. I plan to attend each of them for a bit as I am missing the interaction with other writers and perhaps I can meet someone who will help me on my journey to being published.

 

I found the questions on McLennan’s site to be a bit dry and not well structured or worded, so I changed them a bit. Q and A can be a helpful means to jump starting one’s creative juices. Not that I don’t have ideas. I have too many ideas which may be the problem and until I have a bit of time to sort through them and put fingers to keyboard in exploration, I need something else to focus me on my blogging mandate of posting daily. Today it is this interview. This isn’t a game of tag, but you are welcome to “adapt” this interview as I have and give it a go yourselves if you like. Post here in the comment section if you don’t have a blog or take it with you to your own site. Don’t forget to give Mr. McLennan his due however. Writers are a touchy lot that way.

 

1 – How did writing/blogging change your life?

 

Change? Saved perhaps. My sanity that is. Through blogging I was able to work through some of the whirlwind of emotions during my first year of officially being widowed. It also brought me back to the idea of writing. Well, no, not really. The idea of writing as a career came back as I was slogging through my masters, and what blogging did was give me an outlet even though for the longest time I didn’t let many people know about my blog or that I was writing again.

 

2 – How long have you lived in (insert name of city/wherever), and does geography impact on your writing/blogging at all? Does race/gender impact your work at all?

 

I live just ten minutes or so outside the town of Fort Saskatchewan which is roughly a half an hour from the city of Edmonton. I am not sure it has made much of an impact on my fiction writing as yet, but I am affected by the geography. The sky in particular has captured my attention and I spend a good deal of time just watching the clouds here. For some reason they seem so very different from the ones I saw back in Iowa. My daughter and I took note of the colors of the clouds in the morning on our way to school and work and again on our way home in the evenings. I am not sure if I paid as much attention before she began to take notice but I have ever since. Here the clouds seem so much more immediate and substantial. I feel as though I could climb onto one and just amble aimlessly about the sky if I could only find a way up.

 

Race plays no part in my writing that I am aware of, however, being a woman colors much of what I do. How could it not? My main characters are always women. My viewpoint is female. I am not even sure I could write as a man though that might make an interesting exercise someday.

 

3 – Where does a piece/blog entry usually begin for you?

 

Blogging is ego-centric for the most part. A blog entry nearly always begins and ends with me. I wish I could be more outwardly focused but I think in order for me to produce a blog that was not personal, for lack of a better word, I would need to begin another blog all together and give it a specific focus. I have considered doing just that. I entertain fantasies of starting my own website but I can never decide its purpose. I wanted at one point to run a message board for dating and re-coupled widowed people because there seems to be no place for us on the existing sites but, ultimately, I decided against it as there seems to be too few to make a go of such a project.

 

Fiction pieces begin with real events or issues for me. Newspapers and magazines are a great source of material. Things I do or places I go or even people I meet inspire stories. For instance, my daughter’s first dance recital last May was the starting point for a short work I have. One of the older ballet students looked like a boy. So much so that I still wonder if the child might not actually be a boy. I wondered what kind of boy would want to dance and dress in a tutu and what effect this might have on his dad and their relationship. The story is just in the beginning stages, but I have hopes for it.

 

4 – Are you an author of short pieces/blog entries that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a “book” from the very beginning?

 

My blog is definitely “themed”. The entries are tied to my own personal life journey. I have vague ideas about taking them and other cyber writings, like posts on message boards and the emails I exchanged with people, my husband primarily, and turning them into a book someday. But that is for the future.

 

I have a short story, nearly finished, that might be a piece of a larger work. I am still uncertain. I have in mind something similar to the layout of Asimov’s I, Robot. I love science fiction/fantasy. I am not a hard-core gadget person though and I write with a limited understanding of the science that fascinates me. Quantum physics, for example, is terribly interesting. Things like “string theory” and micro-biology and environmental issues, half of which I only vaguely understand, provide me with endless means for  speculation. The author David Morrell was once told that a writer needs to have a specific genre in order to be successful. I suspect that is true. The more narrow the focus, the more likely you are to hone your writing to the selling point, but how dull. Tying myself to one type of story-telling would not be personally interesting and if you can’t interest yourself, how can you interest your potential readers?

 

5 – When was the last time you ate fruits or veggies, and what was it?

 

I had salad with romaine lettuce with supper last night and raisins when I got back after deep water exercise class. I have had apples, cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries and grapes since Sunday.  I also have had asparagus, bean sprouts, carrots, and peppers. It is all part of my goal to eat more fruits and veggies and try to moderate my carbs. I am a carb freak and I am aided and abetted in my addiction by my equally enthralled husband. Neither of us are big on grease in any form, but a loaf of bread doesn’t go far in our house.

 

6 – What is the best piece of advice you’ve heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

 

A New Jersey widow on the board wrote the following in response to someone’s question about how a person can know when they are ready to date. Rob pointed it out to me, as I don’t spend much time on the board since I unregistered, and I thought it was quite profound and really applies to all people who are searching for their other half.

 

In my opinion, when you are ready to give as much love as you want to receive you are ready to date and the pieces will come together for you and each one of us shares a different time line for it and a unique story to go with it.

Abbe

 

It seems to me that most people are far more interested in what another person can give to them and equally as concerned about protecting themselves. You can’t do both. Love is an “in” or “out” thing. You are either in all the way or you are completely out of it.

 

7 – How easy has it been for you to move between genres (blog to whatever), and what is most appealing about blogging?

 

I don’t have a hard time shifting from one type of writing to another. It’s just a matter of purpose and focus. Give me an example please if it is a genre I haven’t tackled yet, but words on a page is what I do best.

 

The appeal of blogging is just the open opportunity to be published even though it is in a very small way. Back in the day the only way to get my writing out to an audience was to physically put my work in their hands. Although I love my family and friends, very few of them were interested beyond politeness’ sake. Having a blog gives me a guaranteed forum. I am published and anyone can read it. You don’t get the feedback you would in a writing class or group, but it’s still satisfying to know that even a handful of people are reading what you wrote.

 

8 – What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

 

I read news sites and blogs in the morning at breakfast. My husband does the same and we will share what we find with each other. Sometimes this leads to very stimulating conversation. Other times it has led one or the other of us to a new favorite blog or writer or site. After breakfast, I try to find a topic for the day. When that happens, like today, I write until I am done, or stuck, and then I send what I have to Rob at work. Yes, at work. Let’s not pretend that those of us who are lucky enough to have Internet access on the job don’t avail ourselves of “net-breaks”. He usually edits when he has time or he gives me feedback over lunch. When I don’t have a topic, then it is a matter of just doing the routine things. Email. Commenting on blogs. Housework. Child. Heading to the fitness center for a good workout. I always pick up the newspapers when I am out and about. I love the Globe and Mail but often can’t find it. I read the Edmonton Journal, not the Sun which is nothing but advertising, classifieds and news that is on par with The National Enquirer. Rob tells me that I should be grateful that The Sun isn’t more like the British newspapers it emulates. Apparently the people of Great Britain don’t care for real newspapers at all.

 

I try to write for a couple of hours every day. I don’t consider it a lost day if I write nothing however. Writing and ideas and whatnot are circling in my mind even when nothing is physically written down at all.

 

10 – When your writing gets stalled where do you turn, or return to, for inspiration?

 

Newspapers. News sites. Magazines. My life.

 

11 – David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your blog or other writing? Nature? Music? Science or visual arts?

 

Science most definitely. Not visual arts but things I see and overhear certainly have an impact. If I know you, you are fair game. If I have been somewhere, it might become a setting. Many of my ideas come from others’ writings.

 

12 – 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 chosen the career you did?

 

Well, I am attempting to be a “real” writer, and I ended up a teacher through lack of confidence and mentors, in my opinion.

 

13 – What made you write/blog, as opposed to doing something else?

I don’t really have any other creative outlet. I can’t paint or draw. I am not musical. I don’t dance, very well. I think that most people find their niche. Rob builds things. My daughter dances and sings. We find our outlets, but sometimes we don’t chose them as much as they chose us.

 

14 – What are you currently working on?

 

This blog. A short story about bio-engineered organisms for submission to a contest.

 

15 – Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your blogging/writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

 

In theory I am concerned about the future. It’s a scary thing when thought about too deeply but things I read about pull me forward and what-if’s are easily envisioned. I don’t know that I am looking for answers, for myself or anyone else. I believe though that an unpondered future is potentially nightmarish and that if I can raise questions in other people’s minds that set them to thinking about the possibilities too, then this is a good thing.

 

Currently the questions swirl around the environment and our future as a race. I don’t have space, time or the inclination to outline every possible question, so I will leave that to you.

 

16 – What other bloggers/writers, or writings, are important for your writing or simply your life outside blogging?

 

Reading other people’s writing can be a great help or a tremendous hindrance, depending. I am inspired by others’ style and focus. Even people who I don’t consider to be  great writers in a technical sense have opened me to new ideas or new ways of thinking about or viewing things.

 

17 – What would you like to do that you haven’t yet done?

 

Go on a honeymoon. LOL. Seriously, I want to travel. There are a lot of places I haven’t seen and want to. I haven’t been to any major cities in Canada aside from Edmonton. I haven’t been to B.C. as examples. I haven’t been published officially as yet and I want to write a novel that everyone and his dog reads, just once, to see what it is like. Be an Oprah Book Club novel, maybe. Who knows? I haven’t celebrated a tenth wedding anniversary. Grown older with someone as opposed to near someone. I haven’t made any friends here in Canada yet. Live and in person anyway. I haven’t run three miles consecutively. I haven’t finished going through old papers for saving or shredding. I need to finish putting together the office in the spare bedroom so Rob and I have a place to work near each other.

 

18 – What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film you experienced?

 

The last great book I read? I haven’t been reading much other than the newspaper, magazines or news sites and blogs. Which, I know, is more reading than the vast majority of adults do but it is sad that I don’t have the time for books. Films are a bit different. I have been quasi-renewing my long dormant love of movies. Rob and I have seen on DVD or in actual theaters a good many movies this year. What makes a film great depends on why you are watching it. A good film we saw recently was Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown. It didn’t do well in the theaters and I can see why. The theme is depressing and much of the “love story” is not physical which, in my opinion, is not the way we in Western culture are taught to view relationships. Love is about passion and intimacy and not the sharing of the mind and soul. I was questioned without end as to how Rob and I could have fallen in love before we met in person. For me it was just the likeness of our thoughts that was the first attraction and the ease with which we could connect and communicate on a range of topics. How can you love someone without knowing their mind? I have been attracted in the past to men who I completely discounted once I got to know them and talk to them. Too much emphasis is put on attraction and chemistry which, while very important, are not the only pieces in the puzzle or even the biggest ones.

 

I found the movie The 300 to be visually quite stunning and fascinating in that it was all shot on sets and CGI’d. Some movies were terrible. New World with Colin Farrell was beyond dull. I have watched more entertaining pieces on The History Channel. Man of the Year with Robin Williams came highly recommended by Rob’s daughter, Jordan, but I found it long-winded and the sub-plot very disturbing personally. Movies, like books, speak on an individual level. It’s all relative.

 

Thus ends the interview though I don’t know if it is an interview if you are playing both roles.