Jonathan Ball’s Clockfire sounds intriguing to say the least. And I don’t mean “intriguing” in a wine taste description sort of way, I’m being truthful. The premise is a suit of poems that are outlines for dramatic plays that would be impossible to put on the stage. Plays of the impossible so to speak. Just imagine the possibilities. From the dirtsheet:

plays in which, for example, the director burns out the sun, actors murder their audience or the laws of physics are defiled. The poems in a sense replace the need for drama, and are predicated on the idea that modern theatre lacks both ‘clocks’ and ‘fire’ and thus fails to offer its audiences immediate, violent engagement.

I’m especially excited about Hajnoczky’s book Poets and Killers and the Wershler/Kennedy “joint” Update.

Blogging has become popular amongst the masses – not only amongst writers. Today, there are blogs about families, vacations, projects, relationships, and anything under the sun. Some of these blogs are written very well while others have much to be desired. Other blogs just become electronic wining. So how does one present and maintain an interesting blog amongst the chaos of electronic chatting? Moreover, how does one make a blog stand on its own? The answer to that question is by minding content.

Many blogs out there are just rambles of anything – without offering interesting and valuable content to the reader. Offering quality and appropriate content appealing to creative writers is key to maintaining a successful blog for creative writers. Presenting variety is also key to a blog’s success. Tips for creative writing, great reads lists, interviews with authors, latest best sellers reviews, information on tools for creative writers – these are all things that a blogger can do to make readers come back and want more.

Making the blog alive for the reader is another way to accomplish this purpose. Making an interactive blog where readers can share pieces of their work, offering free critique and advice, or making creative writing contests is a way of making a blog come to life.

There are plenty of blogs that offer purely theoretical or plain information on creative writing, as well as plenty of websites. A blogger must become creative to be able to attract more readers and maintain a blog that caters to the spirit of creative writers. Sometimes, images can tell a story too. Using pictures and images in a blog will stimulate the minds of readers and give them something to ponder about, stimulating the creative juices and the flow of inspiration.

James Mowery is a computer geek that writes about technology and related topics. To read more blog posts by him, go to led tv.

1. What do you want to talk about—which question do you wish interviewers would ask, and what is your answer?

What was your best day this past week and why? Yesterday: I spent 2 hours in The Bookshop in Penticton with my bestfriend, then saw a double feature at the Starlight Drive-in in Enderby with my lady love. Btw, don’t ever watch The Expendables.

2. What advice do you wish you’d received, but didn’t, when you first started to take your writing seriously?

Persevere, and you don’t always have to be (or pretend to be) serious-like in the face and fingers and brain.

3. What is wrong with the publishing industry, and what are they getting right?

Not enough sex, but far too much procreation.

4. How will technology change writing?

The exact way that writing has changed technology.

5. What is your process for a typical piece of writing, from idea to publication? (Give a specific example.)

I think of some words or an image; I write it down on a scrap of paper; I lose the paper; I try to remember it into a Word document; I misplace the file because I’ve named it something inappropriate… in the end, I usually just steal some words from someone else, rearrange them, and send it all to magazines and publishers, less than half of which prove half-interested.

6. What are your daily habits as a writer, and as a reader?

Sucky. Inconsistent. Nonchalant. Unappreciative.

7. What is your ambition as a writer—what do you want to accomplish, personally and professionally?

I want to connect with human beings by sharing the experience of exploring, enjoying and being surprised by language.

8. Why don’t you quit?

Why don’t YOU quit? I might quit one day. Right now, I don’t quit because I’m stubborn.

But I had an epiphany today: It will always suck.

That may not seem like much of an epiphany. But what I realized is this: No matter what, the draft will always suck, because it’s a draft. And drafts suck. Until it’s in final draft, and completed, I’m going to think it sucks. Even if the only thing wrong with it is that a single comma is misplaced, I’m going to think it sucks until the comma is in its rightful place.

So I can’t get hung up on how it sucks. Because it’s meaningless. If it sucks when it’s finished, then that’s one thing. But sucking when it’s not finished? Well, that’s just the natural state of an unfinished book. So it shouldn’t be a concern. The important thing is to not get anxious, and to do the work.

99% of the time, when you write “99% of the time,” you aren’t referring to an actual study, but are being cliched and hyperbolic, and should therefore write “most of the time,” or something that is not cliched and hyperbolic.

1.  What do you want to talk about—which question do you wish interviewers would ask, and what is your answer?

I like it when interviewers 1) ask a specific question about a passage or element to one of my books just b/c it means they read the darn thing or 2) like it when they ask me what I am working on now b/c frankly once a book is out it is old and I have a hard time getting in that mindspace again. What I am working on now is far more ‘on my mind’ obviously. So, glad you asked! I am working on a book about a plant called (variously) Devil’s Club, Hoolhghulh, or Oplopanax Horridus. I don’t know if you know Laurie Ricou’s recent work but I am guessing what I am doing is along those lines: a study that includes science, visuals, poetry, personal essay, etc. Hoolhghulh is a distinctly west-coast plant (though apparently there are some patches in Michigan) that shocked me when I came from Winnipeg. It was definitely NOT a prairie plant. It’s big and fierce and hurt me the first time I met one. There was something about the plant that caught me (other than the thorns) and I have been studying it now for a good two years. I took a Carrier (Nak’azdli First Nation) language course to learn its local name. It has extensive uses in First Nations’ medicine/spirituality across the province. The book so far is called Panax. Also working on a science fiction novel called The Overcode. The best way to describe it (even though it seems a contradiction in terms) is a utopian cyberpunk novel. And just finished (I think) a book of poems called Poem’s Poems which is a series of poems about a character called Poem.

2. What advice do you wish you’d received, but didn’t, when you first started to take your writing seriously?

Well, this was advice I think I received but didn’t listen to: take care of your body. My mentor now is Ken Belford and he has taught me a lot about health and how a poet should think like an athlete and how a fit body thinks better. It sounds simple but the brain is, after all, part of our body. When I was a new writer I thought writers had to drink themselves into a stupor.

3. What is wrong with the publishing industry, and what are they getting right?

I don’t know if there is anything ‘wrong’ with publishing in Canada—it’s just a tough go because of shifts in culture and a lack of government support. I think it will swing back and times will get better. I think Canadian small presses are brilliantly diverse and making fabulous books that are admired world-wide. I especially like all the under-the-radar chapbook presses and stuff like that. That’s where the real work is getting done.

4. How will technology change writing?

Not as much as we think. I think there is great energy and potential in online writing (i.e. writing form-fitted to html and animation etc) but it will be one kind of writing, not a replacement. I can’t read very much/long online and, even though I think screens will get more eye-friendly, we will still read in a variety of forms.

5. What is your process for a typical piece of writing, from idea to publication? (Give a specific example.)

The last book, declining america (BookThug) began as a title: “my american movie.” I was reading Baudrillard’s America and jotting down notes, his ideas, lines of poetry off his ideas, etc. It turned into a long poem by that name that became a wink chapbook (my chapbook press). I had envisioned the series as a string of shouted rants but when I read them to an audience they didn’t work that way and I had to revisit them. I was travelling quite a bit in the states at this time a couple more longer poems started that focused on various aspects of “america”: a poem about airports and security (“Cramped O’Hare Writing”), a poem about illnesses and broken bodies (“Software Tracks”) . . . The last two poems that came out of this time of thinking were about economics (“Indices”) and torture (“KUBARK”) and they solidified the sense of the collection as a book—they provided enough unity that I began to save the separate pieces in a folder (that I titled for a long while as “my american movie”—I don’t know maybe that should have been the title of the book after all!). I had been in conversation with Jay MillAr at BookThug for various reasons (including a couple readings he did in Prince George). I told him I had this odd manuscript and, well, you know how he likes odd manuscripts! He had Stephen Cain edit it and that really helped catch some of the sloppy or lazy bits. I came up with the cover and then it was a book. We launched it here in PG and in Toronto via video feed.

6. What are your daily habits as a writer, and as a reader?

I’ve been asked this before and don’t have a really interesting answer. I am all over the place and have no routine. I find routines can stultify my writing. I like trying to write in new places and new times. The only place a write reliably is airports and airplanes. I have four kids and it is really hard to just block off a regular time to write. I just squeeze it in here and there and that seems to work for me. I remember watching Dennis Cooley writing a poem at a university meeting of some sort and I think I just adopted that flexibility he has. I read haphazardly too—picking up what happens to fall in front of me or randomly from the library. I understand it might not work for others though so don’t recommend it necessarily.

7. What is your ambition as a writer—what do you want to accomplish, personally and professionally?

I want to write until I am 110 years old. I hope I can keep sharp and keep moving (physically and mentally) when I am older. He is still a spry crow, but I love the way Kroetsch has stayed open-minded and fluid in his thinking. I admire that. I also don’t want to write the same book twice—I want each book to almost be by another author.

8. Why don’t you quit?

I couldn’t quit writing. I would die. Sounds melodramatic but it’s true. I could stop publishing and I think I would be fine with that. As long as I could send poems to Belford and a few others friends, I’d be happy. Writing is part of how I think now. You can’t just stop thinking can you?

(And please ignore the “related posts” — I don’t think you’re “crazy idiots”! This is just popping up because of a “related posts” plugin on my blog that thinks these two posts are related due to the coincidental frequency of certain shared words.)