Jincy Willett - Critically Acclaimed (seriously fantastic!) Writer & Novelist - Manage the Moment: Conversations in Performance Psychology

Episode Transcript
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Dr. Shepp (00:08):
Thanks for tuning in to manage the moment
conversations in performancepsychology.
I'm Dr.
Sari Shepphird.

Jincy Willett (00:15):
All readers bring to the text that you've written
everything they know about lifeand um, so everybody, there is
many different versions of astory or a novel as there are
writers.
It's just is, and that onceyou've got it down, you're an
authority on what you meant,what you think you meant, you're
an authority on what's actuallyon the page in terms of text,

(00:37):
but you're not an authority onwhat what it means except what
it means to you.
The boss is a story is whoever'sreading it.

Dr. Shepp (00:46):
She's been called the high priestess of dark comedy, a
writer whose humor, it's beensaid, displays and unfailing
perfect sense of timing.
Her writing, according tocomedian and author David
Sedaris, is the kind that leadspeople to late night phone calls
just to share passages of herbooks with people they know.
Jincy Willett is an Americanauthor whose works include the

(01:06):
novels;" Winner of the NationalBook Award","The Writing Class",
and most recently,"Amy FallsDown", as well as,"Jenny and the
Jaws of Life", a collection ofshort stories that prompted to
Sedaris to conclude he you wouldbe willing to wear a sandwich
board with Jincy's name on it,if it would help draw people to
her work.
Jincy Willett's work may makeyou laugh, yes, but it will also

(01:27):
surprise you, catch you offguard, make you think.
Just check out her blog on herwebsite, JincyWillett.com and
you'll see what I mean, as youlearn more about this brilliant
writer- who has described bothone of her main characters as
well as herself as,"an agingbitter unpleasant woman living
in Escondido, California, whospends her days parsing the
sentences of total strangers andher nights teaching and writing.

(01:49):
Sometimes late at night in thedark, She laughs
inappropriately." Far fromunpleasant, Jincy invests in her
readers, delights them, and shewas kind enough to invest some
of her time with me recently aswe discussed her creative
process and approach to herwork.
I hope you'll truly enjoy thisconversation with the uniquely
talented author, Jincy Willett.

(02:13):
Hi Jincy.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to join me today.

Hello.

Dr. Shepp (02:17):
I'm really looking forward to speaking with you
very much.
It's a pleasure for me when Ifind some things to read that
are, that are thought provoking.
Um, some of your work is alittle unnerving, but in a good
way.
And um, and also makes me laughout loud, which I thoroughly
enjoy in life.

(02:38):
Um, and I, and I find myself aswell nodding to some of the
things that you write, noddingin agreement as though you
understand something I'veexperienced and I didn't think
anyone else had.
So it's a, it's a wonderfulcombination, um, that I find in
your writing.
I also think as well that someof the comments that you've made
about your are things thatperformers from a variety of

(02:59):
genres would be able to relateto.
So I have a lot that I'd like tospeak with you about today.
Okay.
So you are a communicator.

Right?

Dr. Shepp (02:59):
What do you like best about the art of communicating?

Well.
When you, I like it best when itactually works.

(03:20):
I don't, um, I can I put this,I, it's not writing is a
inactive communication.
When I used to teach it, I saidthat over and over again.
It's um, it's, it's importantand you reach out.
And the, the wonderful thingabout writing as opposed to
other forms of communication isif you get yourself published

(03:41):
after you're gone, it's stillpossible to reach out and
communicate with some totalstranger in another land in
another century even.
I mean it may not be likely, butit can happen and that's very
satisfying.
I think a lot of performersmight say that there is a part
of, of what they do that is anattempt to connect to other

(04:01):
people.

Dr. Shepp (04:02):
Are you attempting to connect to other people or just,
(no) hoping that it will.

No, but if you're writing well you are going to
connect to other people.
But no, the thing is it isn'tactive communication.
Unlike my son is a jazz musicianand as I've been thinking about
this lately, other arts likemusic, um, although you're
communicating your joy and themusic that you're playing with
an audience are not dependent onan audience.

(04:29):
I've watched enough musiciansnow to know that the joy that
they're taking in the momentthat they make their music is
the key.
The music is a much more pureart.
That way they don't have tohave, I mean you have to have an
audience in order to eat, butyou know, you don't, you don't
have to have an audience inorder to make the music, if you
see what I mean.

(04:49):
Whereas with writing, there hasto be a reader.
Even if it's just your idealreader, your fantasy reader or
you know, some hypotheticalreader.
It's an active communication andit's very different from, um,
from at least the musical art orfor that matter, visual arts,
like, like painting andsculpture were where the artist

(05:10):
is focused solely on, at least Ihope on the thing that he or she
is making, creating see thedifference.
Yes.
That makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
So are you holding a reader inyour mind as you write?
I think you write for your, youwrite for your self.
You're right.
For somebody like you.
I used to tell my students, um,these are just extension

(05:33):
students.
I never had any other kind ofteaching job, but I used to say,
and this is true, that, um, theonly thing your reader knows
that you don't have, the onlything you know that your reader
does not know is the storyyou're about to tell.
You assume that your reader is,at least I always do, knows as
much about right and wrong as Ido, uh, knows as much about the

(05:56):
world as I, I do.
Uh, and what I'm imparting isthe story itself.
I'm not delivering a message.
I'm not teaching anybody.
I'm not showing them anythingexcept a story.
And in that way, uh, I reallyappreciate reading and writing
fiction.
I was going to say, that soundsvery different to writing
nonfiction.

(06:16):
Yeah, very.
Yeah, very.
I mean, I had students, I canremember once I had a student
who wrote a story about let'ssay rape, I can't remember.
And I said, okay.
And he said, well, I wanted to,to show in this story that rape
is a violent and terribleaction.
And I had I, what I explainedwas who are you writing for?
If you're writing for rapistsand then that's, that's an

(06:38):
important thing to do, but whynot assume that your reader
already knows this?
And because your reader alreadyknows this, you can take that
into account as you write aboutit.
You know, you're going to try totell the truth about the thing.
But that's different fromdelivering a message because
when you're delivering amessage, you're thinking
yourself as somehow above yourreader.

(06:59):
You know, like you're on a Mountor something and you're giving a
sermon.
There are, there are venues fordoing that and that's a
perfectly honorable thing to do.
But I don't think that fictionis the right venue.
It makes a lot of sense.
And now writing is somethingthat you know a lot about.
You've spent your life doing,doing that with a great deal of
your time.

(07:19):
Although I know it's notnecessarily how you spend most
of your time.
Um, but, but you S you say thatyou stumbled into writing, most
people might not realize thatyou, you didn't start writing
until your thirties.
Yeah, yeah.
I started actually when I wasabout 28, and I, I only did it
because, um, I'd gone back toschool.
I had dropped out of school andI worked for 10 years and then I

(07:40):
went back to school.
I was lucky enough to get ascholarship at Brown and I was
majoring in philosophy, which isa great, great major for
writers, by the way, or foranybody.
I mean, you can't make moneywith it, but you know, you learn
how to respect language andargumentation.
And, um, a friend of mine wantedto take a creative writing
course and she talked me intotaking it with her so she

(08:02):
wouldn't be alone.
And you know, that's how itstarted.
I just wrote, I was working on aFORO and, um, I wrote to get an
a and then the, uh, professorwho, Berlin castle is a
wonderful writer and a greatteacher.
He afterwards, he said, okay,you're going to send this to the
Yorker and they're gonna,they're gonna send it back.
Nobody's gonna want it.

(08:22):
You're gonna try the Parisreview and you're going to blah,
blah, blah.
And I said, watch.
And um, and of course I nevergot it published anywhere.
It wasn't good enough.
But the point is, I was sodepressed after he told me that
because, and this is the truth,you know, I'd always wanted to
be a writer, but I also alwaysassumed that I couldn't be.

(08:43):
And when somebody tells you thatyou can actually be the thing
you want to be, then uh, theonus is on you.
I mean, all of a sudden that youhave this horrible
responsibility, you know?
I don't know.
I found it kind of scary.
Anyway, that's how it started.
Well, I think a lot ofperformers could relate to that
because pressure changes thingswell, yeah.

(09:05):
And also the fact that it's apossibility rather than a pipe
dream.
I mean, we all have pipe dreamsand we were, if we're saying we
recognize that most of them werepiped, I'm never going to be a
ballet dancer.
I would have loved to have been,but I didn't have that talent.
But I didn't realize that I hadthe talent to write until
somebody told me.
And then it was up to mewhether, you know, put your

(09:26):
money where your mouth is kindof thing.
So it means I've got to try it.
So it felt like aresponsibility.
Yeah, it's a responsibility tomyself, not to the world.
I mean the world didn't need tohear from me, but given that I
loved reading so much, I spentmy whole life reading.
I, I didn't really have achildhood.
I had my head in a book.
A lot of kids are like this.
It wasn't just me.

(09:48):
But given that, that wasobviously what I loved, then I
had to go out and at least try.
I didn't have the choice not toanymore.
Okay.
I imagine that was a devastatingrealization.
And then it was fun.
I mean once I got over it, itwas, it was fun cause I realized
I had some talent and that wasnice.

(10:10):
I'm not knocking it.
I'm just saying the moment withnot a moment of joy.
It was a moment of, Oh my God,you know, that's frightening.
Did you feel like you had to begood at it?
Well, yeah.
You always feel like you have tobe good at what you do.
I mean, you don't want to makean idiot out of yourself and you
don't want to let down your own.
Um, you don't want to, I mean,the reason I didn't think I

(10:31):
could write was because when Iwas very young, when I was a
kid, I thought I'm going towrite something and I wrote a
sentence and I, it was awful.
And I've always learned way tooquickly, if you know what I
mean.
Sometimes people learn it'spossible to learn something too
quickly.
And from that one experience, Ilearned that I wasn't a writer,

(10:52):
so I stopped thinking about itall.
I was actually was justimmature.
I was just a child.
I mean, I don't know what Iexpected, but you know, I read
that I, I read that you composethis sentence and that you found
it so terrible that you stoppedforever.
I wondered what that sentencewas.
Do you remember?
Okay.
I think it was, no, I wish I hadwritten it down.

(11:14):
I mean, I wish I had saved it,but I'm sure I burned the thing.
But it was, it was the firstsentence of something that was
going to be scary, you know,probably involved.
I don't know what it involved,but it was, it was supposed to
be suspenseful and frightening.
And in fact, it was clichewritten and I could see that
even if I didn't know the wordcliche at that time, but I could
recognize bologna.

(11:34):
I mean, you can, you know, sothat's what happened.
So instead you studiedphilosophy philosophy's great.
How did philosophy teach youabout writing fiction?
Um, well, it teaches you respectfor language and, um, it doesn't
teach you how to write fiction,but teaches you a respect for

(11:54):
language and, and you have torespect language if you're any
kind of a writer, including awriter of fiction.
The other thing it has in commonwith writing fiction is that,
uh, you don't have to do anyresearch.
I just, to me it was greatbecause I didn't want to, but
it's a different, I think it's adifferent side of the brain.
Uh, I, you know, people talkabout left brain, right brain, I

(12:16):
assume there's some truth inthat and if you're using a
different part of your brain, Iknow when you're, when you're
thinking about philosophy, whenyou're trying to philosophy's
hard, even, uh, even, you know,undergraduate philosophies, you
really sort of break your brainthinking about things.
Um, anyways, it's different.
But respectful language is whatthey have in common.

(12:39):
Doctor language and no research.
I'm not sure if you,

Dr. Shepp (12:46):
I would say that you have fun writing if you enjoy
the process, if it's a, if it'sa labor of love, but, but how
would you describe yourrelationship to the process of
crafting a story?

Uh, no, it's not fun.
It's horrible.
But the fun part is when you'vewritten something that you like,
so you can get high on that.
I mean, once you, if you'reworking on a us story or even a
paragraph or a chapter ofsomething and you, you, you get
an idea and you get it down, uh,you can tell if it, if it's

(13:21):
something you think is goodbecause you started to take
pleasure in it.
And you start to read it overand over again and you start to
like going, going back andlooking at it.
It's very narcissistic.
I mean, you just, you just revelin, you know, how wonderful you
are.
But the actual getting of thething down and thinking of it is
, it's really a pain.
I, I don't know if that's truefor everybody.

(13:42):
I mean, I think a writer likeStephen King and I admire the
man greatly and I'd like to readhis stuff.
I think he must enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
[inaudible]

because he does so much of it.
I mean, he spends hours andhours and hours every day.
Most writers don't do that.

Dr. Shepp (13:58):
And do you write in waves?
So is it my, my, might it bethat you get an inspiration and
then you spend several days andthen you take days off?
Or is it, is it not evensomething that you can describe?
So exactly in terms of the timethat you see,

I can't, I mean, the closer I get to finishing
something, the more, more, uh,the more I spend writing it.
But, um, I can go for days orweeks or months without writing
anything.
It just, it's, I have a friendwho's also a writer and we, um,
she's gotten me writing againcause I'm very deadline.

(14:31):
If we say we're going to sharestuff on such and such a date,
then I'll, then I'll do it.
Uh, because not to do that wouldnot be adult and that helps
deadlines or the or the writer'sbest friend.

Dr. Shepp (14:42):
I was just going to ask you.
Yeah.
Do you write differently under adeadline?

Oh, absolutely.
I'll, I'll actually write undera deadline if there's no
deadline.
It's, it's hard me to do it, youknow, I have to either have
something that I'm excited aboutand trying to finish or I have
to have a deadline.

Dr. Shepp (14:58):
Does that, did that help your students in, in the
workshops that you would teachto, to write under deadline?

Yeah.
Oh yeah.
I think Kenny, I think any, anygood workshop because I would
always say at the outset yousign up to bring something in at
a certain date and then you'regoing to bring it in on that
date.
And if you don't, you're goingto be in serious trouble, which
obviously for teachingextension, nobody's in serious
trouble.
But I would, I would reallybring home to them the fact that
you are supplying the text forthat class.

(15:27):
So if you don't hold up yourend, we're all going to be
sitting around looking at eachother and it'll be a waste of
time.
And it works.
I mean a well run a workshop isreally, uh, all that a writer
needs.
I think either w whether it's anactual workshop or whether it's
something you cobbled togetherwith other writer friends, um,

(15:49):
give yourself a deadline.

Dr. Shepp (15:50):
It sounds like giving yourself feedback isn't, is
another important aspect.

Well, yeah, feedback back.
But I think, but I think thedeadline is, uh, it is
important.
It's nice to get feedback andit's important when you're
giving feedback that you behonest about it.
You can be kind without beingpatronizing.
You know, it, it's, um, it'simportant anyway.
It's a good thing.
But the best thing, the bestaspect of it is actually the

(16:16):
deadline.
Getting you to write.
I mean, I think there must bewriters who really do enjoy and
are very good about setting, youknow, so many hours aside and
actually sitting there and doingit and good for them.
But I've never been like that.
I don't know if it's laziness orfear or what, but I just, I
don't,

Dr. Shepp (16:34):
well, I was going to ask a few if, if you ever went
through a time where you B ratedyourself for that, did you, was
that something you, you didn'tlike about your writing or about
yourself that you would, youwould take that much time or is
it permission that you've alwaysgiven yourself to just write
when, when it comes to you andthen otherwise not, not worry so
much about it?

Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't.
Yes, that's basically it.
I think you're dealing with theraw material of your own
personality.
And this is apparently mine.
I, I, this is the way I work andit's not like I'm curing cancer
or anything.
I'm not doing something that hasto be done, although it gives me
great pleasure to do it.
Well.
So, if this is the way I work,then, um, that's the way I work.

(17:16):
And I'm sure I'm not the onlywriter who works this

Dr. Shepp (17:18):
well, nor the only other kind of performer who
works that way.
But I think it's importantbecause I think there, there can
be a tendency to, to try to rushsomething in order to complete
something rather than allowingthe process to[inaudible]

bold.
Um, well, yeah, and I do reallybelieve very strongly in this
subconscious, um, in what I callthe little man.
I don't know what's, why it's aman, but the little man in the
projection booth, I really trustmy subconscious that way too.
I'm sort of let me know if, uh,if something needs to be written
down, you know, I, I don't, youdon't want to be, I tend to be a

(17:55):
controlling person aboutsomething, not about other
people, but about my own self,but not about this.
I trust the little man in theprojection booth.
Did that trust develop overtime?
Yeah, it developed over time,uh, with, um, my personal life
was some significant dreams Ihave.
I'm one of these people thathardly ever, I'm sure I dream,

(18:16):
but I never remember them.
If I remember a dream, I take itvery seriously because I think I
shield myself from the memory ofdreams for the most part.
And so I just, I really sort oftrusted as a kind of wisdom in
the part of your brain that, um,is monitoring stuff.
I don't know how it works.
I don't know anything about thebrain, but clearly there's a

(18:39):
part of you that knows more thanthe conscious knows, you know,
about what's important, what'ssignificant, what you have to
worry about, what you don't haveto worry about, that sort of
thing.
Does that make sense?

Dr. Shepp (18:50):
It does.
And I'm, I'm just as though Iwas reading it in a, in a, in a
book that you wrote, I, I'm, I'mkind of meditating on that for a
second.
Yeah.
Because I, I agree with that.
I think that is very true.
It can be a skill though thatdevelops over time.
Um, you know, figuring out whento listen, um, how to listen to,

(19:12):
to be able to develop that.
And I imagine that that somepeople, performers or not may
have had some overpoweringvoices in their lives that
drowns out their own, their ownvoice.

Yeah.
And then there are, there arewriters who claim that they're,
and I believe them.
I'm not making fun of them.
They're their characters come tothem.
I mean, I remember Alice Walkertalking about her characters
coming and talking to her andeverything.
I'd love that.
But that just never happened tome and it never will.
I would just be too wonderful.

Dr. Shepp (19:45):
Well, everyone's process is different, right?
That's right.
You have to own your ownprocess.
One thing you said was, ifyou're lucky enough to be able
to write down what's really inyour head, not what you think
should be there, but what'sactually there, the essence of
your own experience.
And if you actually get itpublished so that someone
somewhere at some time can readit, you're very, very lucky.

(20:06):
But you, you own that processfor yourself.
That's what I think is such animportant key.

[inaudible] yeah, that's right.

Dr. Shepp (20:15):
So I w I wanted to shift a little bit and talk to
you about, uh, your, yourthoughts on the power of words
because obviously a writer wouldfind words to be powerful.
I would imagine every writerwould say that, but, but each
writer might think differentlyabout the power of words.
Um, one of the things about yourwriting that I noticed is that

(20:37):
you, you don't shy away fromincluding words that might have
to be looked up even fromsomeone who maybe has in school
for awhile.

Um, and might have to take a dictionary
occasionally and, and look up aword.
And, and that's actuallydifferent, I think, than most of
what happens on to the, intoday's market because we're, we
hear so much about writing forthe common denominator, uh, not
writing above other people.
And I certainly don't want thelisteners to get the impression

(21:08):
that your books are hard to readbecause they're not at all, but,
but, um, they're so enjoyable.
But occasionally I'll comeacross a word and just think
that is a brilliant use of thisword.
And I would have never thoughtto put that word there.
So I wanted to ask you aboutthis, your thoughts on, on the
power of words or, or how youreflect on words or how you go
about choosing words.

(21:29):
You try to choose words.
Mostly.
Mostly what Roland Kasey used tocall the emojis with the
friendship, the exact right wordfor your meaning.
So if the exact right word foryour meeting happens to be a
great big word that isn't used alot, then that's the word you
should use.
Um, but if not, then it's not.
So I, but also there's aseparate issue of the sounds and

(21:51):
looks of words and some words,and I can't think of an example
off hand, but some words arejust funny whether they're, you
know, you have to look them upor not.
Um, it's like poetry.
I mean, you, you, so there's thefact that the word itself is an
object in addition to, uh, uh,uh, quite a thing of meaning.
I mean, obviously words havemeanings, but word on the page

(22:14):
is also a physical object.
Um, you know what I mean?
I do know I do.
And, and, and I can visualizesome pages from your books where
certain words stand out theredifferently.
The types that is differently isdifferent.
Excuse me.
Um, and it emphasizes that, but,but occasionally you do make up
words or you emphasize words inyour writing and it, and it

(22:35):
makes them much more funny toread.
But again, the assets,communication.
I can remember when William F.
Buckley who's passed on, I thinkhas any used to enter.
He was of course a brilliant guyand he was very good at what he
did and all, but he was oftenreferred to as the great, as a
wonderful, uh, user of language.

(22:56):
And it would annoy me becausethat was a man who, at least
when he was talking, like if hewas debating or if he was on
television, would I could seehim do this, deliberately choose
the most obscure words hepossibly could.
I mean, it was not, he was nottrying to municating he was
showing off his, he, you knowwhat I mean?
He wasn't, he wasn't, I mean,you don't have to agree with me

(23:17):
politically, but I'm saying thiswas not the kind of
communication that you want toachieve when you're a fiction
writer.
Um, I mean, if it were a choicebetween to shun something or to
obfuscate, you know, he wouldchoose obfuscate.
I mean, there are times when youshould say up skate, but not all
the time.
So, so you don't ever want tostart using a 10 letter words

(23:40):
just for the sake of doing it.
It just has to be the rightword.
Something else I wanted to askyou about words is,

Dr. Shepp (23:46):
and I don't know how to phrase this exactly, but, but
how they might have served youover the years and I'm reading
into a little bit of some ofwhat your characters have
communicated and then wonderinghow you feel about it, if, if
the same at all.
But, so I'm thinking about yourcharacter, Dorcas in the book
winner of the winner of thenational book award.

(24:06):
Um, and she had a need for wordsand, um, and then in the writing
class, um, I believe it was AmyGallup who said nothing was
truly unbearable if you hadsomething to read.
And so I'm just wondering if ifwords have served you in life in
such a way that, um, that youeither relate to what your

(24:29):
characters have said or if thatwas the inspiration for what
your characters said.

Well, it was certainly true of me, my
formative years when I was a kidand when I was young, uh, yeah,
something to read was, wasessential.
It's, that was a long time ago.
I don't read that much anymore.
I don't know whether it'sbecause I work online and my
eyes give out or what.
But um, yeah, for sure to beable to, I had a English teacher

(24:57):
in high school who's once saidthe most wonderful thing to me.
We were talking about somethingin class and some kids said, I
know what I mean, but I, I can'tput it into words.
And mr bliss said, if you can'tput it into words, you don't
know what you mean now you can.
When I took philosophy, I foundout that that's not always true.
There's such a thing as theineffable, but for the most part
it really does hold true.

(25:19):
That in order to understandmeaning, you have to be able to
put something into words foryourself if not for somebody
else.
So yeah, words are reallyimportant.
I don't know if that answersyour question, but it makes a
lot of sense.
We write fiction and we readfiction in order to make sense
out of reality.
If you want sense, you know,don't go, don't listen to the

(25:40):
news.
I mean you, you read stories,you write stories.
Human beings need to make senseout of what's going on around
them.
And uh, and through words we do.
So.

Dr. Shepp (25:51):
So is that something that you figured out in your
philosophy class or just on yourown?

Actually, I figured it out as, as a fiction
writer and I'm, I'm not the onlyone who figured it out.
I mean, I think I said an oldtruism about making sense
through, through, throughfiction.

Dr. Shepp (26:07):
And I'm, I'm partly asking because another thing
that I noticed about yourwriting is how well you seem to
understand people.

Well thanks.
That's good to know cause that'sso important.

Dr. Shepp (26:17):
Well, some of the observations that you
communicate in your book andespecially the depth of
character, the depth ofunderstanding of someone's
character tells me that youunderstand people.
So I wanted to ask you how youthink you came to develop that
skill.
Well,

I know my mother was very big on understanding
people making sense of them.
I don't know.
That's an excellent question.
I'm not sure I can answer it.
I just, I just know that as awriter to meet character is so
much more important than plot.
You cannot, when you got yourcharacters down in the page and
you're working with them, youcan't just move them around like
chess pieces.

(26:54):
Sometimes they won't move andit's not because they're real,
they're not, you made them up,but they've already gained
enough, um, reality so that, uh,you can't make them do stuff
that doesn't make any sense forthat person.
But that's not what you'reasking me is it?
No, but it's interesting still[inaudible] I don't really know

(27:15):
because the funny thing, I'msort of a hermit, so it's not
like I've been out and aboutamong thousands of, I mean I've
lived for a long time and um,friends are very important to me
and, uh, the people that I'vemet are interesting, but I
don't, I tend to spend most ofmy time alone.
So it's sort of a bafflingquestion why I'm good with, I

(27:37):
think maybe you just extrapolatefrom your own personality and
you generalize from that to giveother people the same, um, to,
to invest them with the samecomplexity that you recognize in
yourself.
I don't know.
That's all I can think of justgoing from the specific to the
general kind of thing.

Dr. Shepp (27:57):
Sure.
Well, so, so if it's okay, letme, let me give an example to
the list and I'm just, I'm justgoing to read a paragraph.
So this is from your book winnerof the national book award and
it is your, it, your characterDorcas who is describing her
sister Abigail.
And this is what she says, theonly effective weapon against
her was indifference.

(28:17):
I had always instinctively knownthat, but had not until that
night begun to know just howhorrible that was.
She thrived.
She prospered on any sort ofattention, like a plant on
light, even horror, disgust,even fear, love, disapproval,
clinical interest, curiosity,outrage, hate, cold and warm.
No matter how you regarded her,you were already lost for the

(28:40):
mere fact of your regard becameher nourishment.
To look at Abigail was, is tofeed the beast.
To look at her with strongemotion is a kind of suicide.
So that's signal.
An example of a paragraph whereI'm nodding my head thinking,

are you a therapist?
No, I probably do.
Awful.

Dr. Shepp (29:04):
But, but it's an understanding that I don't
think, I don't think everyonehas either the patients or the
interest, maybe sometimes theskill, but it might just be the
lack of interest in trying tounderstand another person that,
well in fact, I think part ofwhere we are in our culture, in
society today is that we justdon't take the time to

(29:27):
understand other people.
But, but you communicate in sucha way that you really take the
time to understand whetherthat's true in your life or if
your characters are combination,but that you, you take that
time.

Well, it's interest.
I think people are really,really interesting.
And um, and what you have toavoid is labeling in real life
or are on the page.
You know, people throw aroundstuff like narcissist and you
know, paranoid and, and thewords have meaning and they have
use.
But, um, people are not, uh,people are way too complicated

(30:00):
to be, to be pigeonholed, youknow?
And if they weren't, I don'tthink I'd bother writing.
I mean, it's the fact thatpeople are so interesting that
makes them worth writing about.
People can surprise you.
And I know this because you cansurprise yourself.
You can think that you knowyourself really well and then
you can wake up one day and dosomething totally off the wall

(30:20):
and not know where the hell itcame from.
And if you can do that, thenobviously anybody can do that.
You know, it's really thatsimple.

Dr. Shepp (30:29):
That's a great point.
And I would think that a lot ofpeople listening could, can
relate to that thought but alsomight be even inspired by it.
Um, okay.
Because I know performers are,are, are wanting to know
themselves in order to bring outthe best of themselves.
But sometimes you can justsurprise yourself.

Yup.
Yeah.
It can be positive or negative,but you can go, Oh, what the
heck was that?
And it's, um, it's you, I'm notthinking of anything in
particular.
I just know that this issomething that happens and if it
happens to me, it happens toeverybody and um, yeah, people
are kind of wonderful in a way.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
[inaudible]

Dr. Shepp (31:18):
you just mentioned something that is universally
true.
I wanted to highlight again justin your writing, how I would
find myself nodding my head,thinking that you're expressing
universal truths and, andwriters do this.
Comedians do this too.
And, and I, you might notconsider yourself a comedian
because I think you've saidbefore that you don't think of
yourself really as funny, butthat the universe can sometimes

(31:40):
just be funny, but you right.
Um, with comedy and, um, and yetyou also write with just some,
some truisms.
And one of the things that mademe nod my head and, and sort of
say, yes, that's how I knowothers have felt was Amy's Amy
Gallup, your character, hermusings on parents who calculate

(32:00):
and recalculate when it would beall right to die.
And I laughed hysterically atthat.
Um, like, like a comedian who,who pulls out truths that we
experience every day and thenjust highlights them in a
different way.
You do that with your charactersas well.

Yeah.
Well, I know that's something Iknow just because I am a parent.
Um, but um, yeah, that's justtrue.

Dr. Shepp (32:23):
Is that something that you, that you want to try
to do is include some of thoseuniversal experiences

that would mean thinking about the catering.
Um, I don't want to cater to,which sounds snotty.
I know I don't want to cater topeople because I think more
highly of my readers than, thanthat.
I don't, I don't either they'regoing to like what I'm writing
or they're not, but um, no, I, Idon't, if, if I have a character

(32:51):
thinking something is becausethat character would think that
at that time, given thosecircumstances, you know, is he,
is that simple?
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was wondering because Ithought, do you, do you make
observations about life?
Write them down and then try toweave them into your stories?
Never do.
I also never sit, well, I don'tgo out much, but I don't sit and

(33:14):
take down people's conversationsin order to understand modern
idioms.
And I really, I probably shoulddo that because it would help if
you know, when you're trying touse, when a character uses slang
or something modern.
I'm probably, I could stand tobe acclimated to it more than I
am, but no, I don't.

(33:36):
I don't do that.
I don't, I've never, all mywriting teachers, I had a couple
emphasize the importance ofkeeping journals and I've never
kept a journal.
I don't keep lists either.
I have a thing about, I don't goto grocery store with a list,
which is stupid because thenI'll forget something.
But there's just something aboutthe act of writing something

(33:56):
down in a journal and writingdown a list that just turns me
off.
I don't know what it is.
Okay.
So that's unlike your character,Amy Gallup, who, who wrote
things down when they would cometo her.
She's a better writer than I am.
A little tricky.
But anyway.
Yeah.

(34:17):
Well, it's interesting becauseyou hear a certain, um, advice
repeated many times.
If, if one is wanting to becomea writer, one of those things is
to write everything down.
Another one of those things isto be an observer of everyday
life.
Um, another one of those thingsis to write what you know, but
those pieces of advice not onlydon't have to be true, but they

(34:37):
certainly don't have to work foreveryone.
No, they don't.
And the right way, you know, isparticularly did you read about
what happened to me with, uh, Idon't know if you've ever read
those story that I wrote.
Um, sculled under the bed and itwas in my first collection in my
collection of short stories andit was published in a nonfiction
book.
Uh, it was one of those booksthat was, uh, it was for

(34:59):
students that I had a lot ofsmall stories and essays in it
with, with questions for thestudent afterwards and prompt
writing prompts and so on.
Okay.
So this was from Jenny in thejaws of life, your collection of
that collection and somebody,somebody took the story under
the bed from that, which is astory of a woman whose guy
breaks into her house and she'sraped.

(35:20):
And then she gets very angry ather friends for treating her
like a, a cliched character.
And, um, anyway, it wasreprinted, which was fine.
It would have been nice ifthey'd asked me first, but they
was reprinted in this.
But then it was, it was treatedas nonfiction and it was talking
afterwards about, you know, will, it's rape was, and I thought,
what, wait a minute.

(35:41):
And it didn't, it did, it didnot horrify me or I, in fact, I
thought it was kind of funny,but, um, it was also kind of
annoying that it wouldn't beable to tell the difference
between a piece of fiction and a, you know, a serious one.
And I, now I don't remember whyI started telling that it's
something to do with thequestion you asked me.
I don't remember either.

(36:02):
[inaudible] but it you don'twrite in order to inform, for
goodness sake.

Dr. Shepp (36:05):
It was the pieces of advice that I had asked you
about and writing what you knowwas one of the[inaudible].

Oh.
And a friend of mine also whowas a, was a psychiatric nurse,
had she had a friend who was apsychiatrist who read that store
and he said, this woman hasexperienced this.
Oh, that's why I learned this isso interesting to me.
He said, look at this, this andthis and this.
Some sort of checklist.
And he said she wouldn't knowthat unless she'd experienced
that.
And I thought, buddy, you don'tread a lot of fiction, do you?

(36:31):
Because you don't understand therole of the imagination.
I know this because I sat andimagined it.
You know, that's how I was ableto do it is assuming this story
is successful, assuming thewoman's reaction was a
reasonable one for a human beingto have, it was, it was an act
of imagination.
It was not an active experience.

(36:53):
Um, you can know throughimagination if you're, if you're
working right.
And, uh, you can also be totallywrong obviously, but do you
agree?

Dr. Shepp (37:01):
Yes, I do.
I do.
And, and, and I think, um, yourimagination is something else
that I wanted to just tease outfor a minute because many
performers will use imagery orvisualization to mentally
rehearse what they're wanting todo, the way they're wanting to
perform.
And my guess is that you have apretty vivid, um, visual

(37:24):
imagination as well.
I could be wrong, but when youdescribed Amy's Amy Gallup's
fears, I just say, Amy, I don't,but when you described your
character, Amy, Gallup's fearsof going to the doctor, um, with
such very, very vivid imagery, Ithought that performers could
relate to that, that use of, ofimagery when they anticipate

(37:47):
what might go wrong in aperformance.
Um, the frustration of, of one'simagination getting carried away
and then causing just a sense ofpanic and fear about what might
happen in reality.

[inaudible] yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean when I, Amyis, is basically me only a
better writer and with adifferent biography, but her
fears are, I pretty much my own.
So I know a lot about them andit was actually pretty easy to,
to do that.
And I suppose it would be easyto extrapolate from a fear of a

(38:23):
doctors or for a fear ofspiders, do fears of other
things.
It's just, that's again, that'simagination.
It's just, um, because whenyou're afraid, when you're
phobic, your imagination isjust, you know, your worst
friend.
I mean, you do imagineeverything don't you?
I mean, otherwise you wouldn'tbe afraid.

(38:44):
So, uh, so it's just a matter of, of thinking about it and then
writing down what you see.
I mean, otherwise I'm actuallynot very good with visuals.
It's hard for me to describethings that are physical, you
know, that are visual, but I cancertainly easily describe things
that occur in my ownimagination.

Dr. Shepp (39:08):
Something else that I think you relate to about your
character, Amy Gallup is, um,your frustration with the world
of publishing itself and how itchanged.
That's funded.

That's sort of interesting.
I think I was riding on your ownhorse here, but yeah, I, I
enjoyed that.
There's a lot of you feel thisway about, you know, what's
happening in publishing.
So

Dr. Shepp (39:29):
because it's changed so much over time and, and I
know most performers regardlessof what kind of work they do,
um, maybe I should say allbecause just about everybody is
going to be faced with the ideaof do I open social media
accounts or not?
Um, how much do I sensor myself?
Do I try to engage with people?
Do I express popular opinion, myown opinion?

(39:52):
Do I express it strongly?
Do I water it down?
Um, and, and we develop thisobserver self, um, where we, we
don't just go through lifeexperiencing what we experience.
We, we judge it.
We have, we become, uh, anobserver of ourselves and
critique ourselves before we saysomething.

(40:13):
How does that affect a writer?

Uh, I don't know.
It probably depends on how oldyou are.
I'm not old enough to worryabout influencing and, um,
social media.
I mean, I am on, uh, Facebookand I have an Instagram account,
but I dunno, I, can you give mean example?
I mean, my thing with my biggestthing with publishing is how

(40:38):
writers are now expected tomarket their own stuff, which I
think is grotesque, tends to bethe ability to market is a
skillset.
I mean, you can be a talentedmarketer and you could actually
be a talented a writer and atalented marketer, but it's,
you're not likely to be boast.
And the idea that they areadapting skills.
Yeah, they're completelyskillset.

(40:59):
I always say when I was a, whenI was a brownie, I used my sales
pitch was, you don't want thesebrownies.
You don't want these girl scoutcookies, do you?
I mean, I feel horrible tryingto get them to give me their
money.
I can't do that.
Not my job.

Dr. Shepp (41:17):
But that's not your question.
Well, it relates to my questionbecause on, on social media, and
I, and I don't just mean it forthe sake of relating to social
media, but also for the sake ofselling.
Because if you're, if you'regoing to sell your product or
sell yourself as a performer,you're expected to do it on
social at least these days.

Stupid.
But yeah, that's right.
You are supposed to do it.
And so it does relate to myquestion.
Yeah, exactly.
Nothing wrong with selling.
My Gregg, my grandfather was awonderful salesman and he was
really gifted.
He, he liked to sell.
He believed in the products thathe sold and he liked knowing
that the names of the childrenof the customers that he sold to

(41:56):
and all that.
I have total respect for that.
I just don't have that ability.
And I'm, you know, if I did, I'duse it, but I don't.
So does that affect the way youthink about the future of, of
your career?
I mean, does, does that comeinto account when you think
about publishing again?
Um, it's a funny thing about thefuture for P.

(42:16):
I am an Uber boom.
Oh, I like to say Uber boomer.
I'm, I was a first twinkle inthe eye of world war II.
He was born the last day of 46.
And I, my theory is that peoplewho were my age who grew up with
, um, the getting under yourdesk for the nuclear thing and
you know, all that, I don'tthink the future is ever really

(42:37):
been as real to me as it was topeople before or even since then
.
People are very upset, rightlyso about, about, uh, the
environment and all that.
But still, I never really gotinto the habit of thinking about
the future at all.
I mean, I understand that it'ssomething you're supposed to
plan for.
I'm not irresponsible, but, um,but it's never been completely

(42:59):
real to me.
And for this reason, I've neverworried about the future of my
so-called career.
I just, it doesn't, uh, doesn'tbother me.
I, I want to equip myselfhonorably.
If I write something I wanted tobe good, I would hate to kick
off before I finish this.
A lot of latest books that I'mworking on, I mean, you know,
you, you want to do the rightthing, you want to not leave a

(43:21):
mess.
But other than that, I justdon't worry about it at all.
And that's part of what I, um,relish about your characters and
then the way you communicateyourself is they use seem to be
more of a process orientedperson.
Less concerned about outcome.
Oh yeah, that's right.

(43:41):
I never thought of it that way.
But yeah, that is, it's aprocess.
It's everything really.
It is for many performers tothat process and how you think
about the creating of what it isthat you're trying to do, um,
really does need to at leastmost of the time.
And for most people it reallydoes need to supersede the
importance of the outcome.

(44:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You have to devote yourself tothe thing you're actually doing
and not, and set aside anyanxieties you have about whether
anybody's going to buy it.
You have to do that.
It's just, it's just that, it'sthat simple.
You can't because it wouldotherwise you're going to be,
it's just, it's not good to doanything else.

(44:24):
Just get it down, get it downand send it out and um, and be
tough about it.
I mean, you have to toughen upand not make a big deal about
rejections because it's, I havea friend who's both a writer and
a, uh, an actress and boy, theperformers, actress and
actresses, the kind of rejectionthey have to deal with is just,

(44:47):
it's just humbling for somebodywho's just a writer to think
about.
I mean, at least when amanuscript comes back to you and
they say, we, you know, we don'twant it.
They're not telling you inperson, they're not chewing gum
and sneering at you.
And you know, you have totoughen up, toughen up and focus
on the work and that's all youcan do.

(45:09):
And then how do you trustyourself in the work enough to
let the outcome be okay?
Um, well, you generally have oneor two readers that you trust to
make sure that you've donesomething that you think is
good, is really good.
I mean, you could still, youcould still learn something
about that needs improving, um,from a, from a good reader.

(45:32):
My husband was a wonderfulreader.
I have a couple of friends whoare wonderful readers.
And of course you can, if youlook into a really good copy
editor, once you have somethingexcepted, they can, they can
save your bacon too.
So it's not like you can't learnanything, but you know, w if
you're satisfied basically withwhat you've written, uh, chances

(45:52):
are you're not gonna, you're notgoing to change your mind about
what's basically on the page.
You just have to assume thatyou're right.
Hmm.
And you can be wrong of course.
But you know, that's the chanceto take.
The funny thing is if somebody,cause I had this happen once

(46:13):
with a story.
Um, they said, well, we'll takeit, but you have to change the
ending.
And I, you know, I was youngenough so I went and changed the
ending and I think they wereactually right.
I do think that they were rightand the story was stronger once
the ending was changed.
But I never felt like it was mystory after that.
I was very, I was, I was very,it was interesting.

(46:34):
It was like I no longer was sureof what I had on the page
because somebody else had comein and said, you know, you need,
you need to change the end.
It was just interesting to mebecause that's the only time
that ever happened.
And as I said, I think theperson was right.
And so interesting becauseyou're, you're speaking to a
couple of skills at the sametime.

(46:54):
I mean one is just the skill oftrusting yourself.
Yeah.
Which is so important because ifyou do have outward success in a
performance field and then themore success you achieve, you
will have voices and then morevoices telling you how things
should be done.
So it does become so importantor maybe it's always important

(47:17):
to, to trust yourself.
And yet you're also speaking tothe skill of, of maintaining an
openness for learning.
[inaudible] yeah.
Cause obviously you couldn't bewrong, but you have to really,
the person.
Uh, and it's really interestingwhen I wrote, which was it, I
think it was the first Amy book,which was the writing class, I

(47:37):
was pretty sure everything wasfine.
And my mom, who was a goodreader but not a writer, she
read it and she said, you know,and this was when it was a
mascot for him before, before itwas published.
She said, you know, your yourintroduction be better if you
cut this out and started here.
And she was absolutely right.
And not only that, I mean itwasn't a, I wasn't a huge

(47:58):
difference, but I did.
There was a bunch of Deadwoodthat I hadn't recognized that I
would have recognized in astudent story if somebody in a
workshop had just shown me thatI would've given them exactly
the same advice that my mom gaveto me.
But because I was so used toreading it over and over again,
you know, as my first chapter,it just, you know, duh.

(48:19):
It didn't occur to me that itwas Deadwood.
So yeah, you can learn, you canmake things better.
And I suppose experience helpsto tease out, yeah.
The balance in there.
Yeah.
Also sometimes you really needto know whether a, something
that's kind of subtle actuallycame through or not.
I mean you can cause the trickin writing is you don't ever

(48:42):
want to overexplain.
You want to leave your readersomething to do.
Readers like to have things todo, they don't need to be
spoonfed.
And it can be sort of abalancing act.
And if, if you can actually needa reader to tell you, uh,
whether they understood thepoint you were making, you know,
on page so-and-so, uh, that canbe helpful too.

(49:03):
The last thing that I wanted totease out was in relation to
what happens to Amy in yoursecond novel that features her
and Amy falls down where she hasan accident and hits her head
and then her life changesdramatically.
It happened magically.
And I think a lot of performershave that fantasy and that dream
that just something will happen.

(49:25):
Look, I mean, well, you couldcall it magic, but I mean, and a
lot of people don't like to hearabout luck, but everybody has
different kinds of luck.
And to think about luck issometimes you get lucky and you
need luck.
You really do.
Everybody does.
Um, but you know, that doesn'tmean that if you didn't look out
on Monday, you're not going tolook out on Tuesday.
I mean, it's just, uh, but yeah,for sure.

(49:47):
Amy is lucky.
I was lucky.
Um, it, you know, I took thatclass, I didn't have to take
that class.
If I hadn't taken that class, Idon't know if I ever would've
written.
Um, and, and you know, DavidSedaris read my book in the
library and if he hadn't donethat, I probably wouldn't have

(50:08):
written any other books afterthe, the first, uh, collected
stories.
So again, yeah.
Oh yeah.
You didn't know that.
Oh, yeah.
That's an amazing, I mean, Iknew David discovered the book,
but I didn't know that youwouldn't have written any.
I think so.
I mean, by the time that I heardfrom him, uh, uh, I[inaudible]

(50:28):
book was published in 87 orsomething and my son was born
that year.
The next year my husband diedand then I came out to
California and I had a child toraise and, you know, money to
make and so on.
So, no, I, I mean I was, I wasrunning some workshops and
stuff, but, um, writing wasreally not paramount in my mind.

(50:48):
And I, I had started that, uh,winter, the national book award,
but I wasn't really committed toit.
It all was because of him.
I'm making such a, uh,production out of it that my, my
publisher got excited andreissued the stories and said,
have you got anything?
And I said, well, yeah, I have a, well they said, right.

(51:10):
You know, we'll, we'll publishyour not, I mean it all stemmed
from that.
I love libraries by the way.
This is, um, libraries are soimportant, which again gets,
gets back to marketing.
I mean, yeah, sure you want tomake a profit.
But really the first book that Iwrote was basically sold to

(51:30):
libraries.
And that was about it.
Cause I was a nobody who'dwritten, um, written a bunch of
short stories and uh, but peoplego to libraries, you know, and
some of the people who go tolibraries tell other people
about it or they go tobookstores.
So when you go to bookstores,you know, now they go to Amazon.
Right, right.

(51:51):
Mmm.
I wanted to shift gears probablyfor the last time and just see
if I could ask you somequestions that I ask everyone.
Sure.
Okay.
So, Amy, what in life are youstill curious about?
Ah, what in life am I?
Gosh, what in life am I stillcurious about?

(52:12):
Oh, she, I don't know.
I mean, what's going to happennext?
But that isn't so much curiosityis dread.
Uh, I, that's awful to say thatI'm not curious.
Am I curious about anything?
I don't know.
What do people say?

(52:32):
Tell me what other people sayand then I'll say, I will, I
mean, what are people curious?
There have been others who havesaid what comes next is what
they're curious about.
So that's, that's been said.
Um, but there's no, there's noright or wrong, uh, you know, to
the answer.
Well, I mean, I just, I thinkthe problem is over the last

(52:52):
couple of years and I won't getinto it, but, but the, the news
news cycles and the politicshave sort of taken over
everybody's mind, includingmine.
It's very hard to wake up in themorning and not be thinking
about things other than thingsthat I would prefer to think
about and wonder about.
So, you know, I think mycuriosity has probably been
hijacked by, uh, by events.

(53:14):
I agree.
That's a, that's a great point.
And, and we could, we can talkabout that another time.
Um, what is more

Dr. Shepp (53:26):
distracting to you as a writer?
Is it praise that you receive orcriticism?

Um, my stomach, I receive a lot of either one.
I mean, um, praise.
See, I don't, I'm not distractedby criticism.
I welcome criticism actuallybecause you can learn from it.
And if it's, if you can't learnfrom it, you can just shrug it
off.
Um, so I'm just trying to think,is that anybody's ever said

(53:56):
anything distracting in praiseof me?
I dunno.
Neither one.
I like both.
Um, not because I have to be thecenter of attention, but it's,
it's always nice to hear backfrom people, uh, about what
you've, what you've written.
I mean, it really is becauseafter all, you're there, your
readers.
I mean, one of my favoritethings was on Amazon.
Once somebody said that theytook, they bought national

(54:18):
winter and Nash book award andit wasn't funny and they were
seriously cheesed off about itand they put it in their
driveway and drove over it abunch of times.
I felt like saying, you know,you idiot when you go to the
library, you didn't have tospend money on something.
Some reviewers that, it washilarious.
So anyway, both are, both arenice.

Dr. Shepp (54:41):
Well, as, as a writer, you must prepare
yourself just for the task aheadwhen you're writing a short
story or beginning of a novelalong the way, though in the
course of things, somethingunexpected can happen.
Um, is there somethingunexpected that's happened to
you in the course of your, ofyour writing?

Um, let's see.
Unexpected, not so muchunexpected, but I, I wrote that
in fact the story that I wastalking about before the under
the bed, the rape story, Istarted off, uh, sure that the
whole point this woman was goingto make was that it's, it's
really kind of a foul thing toassume that people who undergo
certain experiences should havecertain responses, that there's,

(55:25):
there's something humanizingabout that.
And in fact, her response, whichis to just sort of, uh, not
behave in a sort of normal wayfor somebody who's been
assaulted makes perfect sense.
And she's actually quite fine.
And I found that the closer Igot to the end of it, the less
sure I was that she was quitefine and I was very, it was hard

(55:46):
for me to figure it out.
I don't think she was, I thinkshe was mostly right, but not
completely, but, but theexperience of writing, it was
interesting that way in that,um, I couldn't tell I, and to me
it was a real question how itwas a first person story.
So you're in the narrator'smind, you're seeing what she

(56:07):
sees.
And so on.
And how trustworthy is this a,is this a trustworthy narrator
or not?
And I had a lot of troublefiguring out whether she was and
I decided at the end she wasn'tquite.
So that's the most of a changethat I've had.
Yeah.
So how

Dr. Shepp (56:24):
do you feel about the idea that each reader might come
to different conclusions aboutyour characters or, um, think
that their futures would be,would be distinct and different.
So for example, one reader mightthink that a certain something
happens to your character,Abigail.

(56:45):
Um, and another, another readermight think something entirely
different is going to happen forher.
How do you, how do you feelabout that?
Is that something[inaudible]

that's good.
No, that's good.
Because all readers bring to thetexts that you've written,
everything they know about life.
And um, so everybody, there ismany different versions of a
story or a novel as there arereaders.
It's just, and that once you'vegot it down, you're an authority
on what you meant or what youthink you meant, your authority

(57:12):
on what's actually on the pagein terms of text.
But you're not an authority onwhat what it means except what
it means to you.
You're not the boss of the storyanymore.
The boss of the story iswhoever's reading it, there is

(57:36):
such a thing as lazy reading.
If somebody's completely miss,misses the boat and didn't
notice that something kind ofimportant happened on page 12.
They were probably reading tooquickly or they were distracted
or something.
And you, but other than that,no.
Um, if they read the whole thingand process the whole thing,
then they are the boss of whatit means.

(57:57):
They're the boss of what thefuture of holds for certain
characters.

Dr. Shepp (58:01):
That's great.
And again, very different thanthe nonfiction where you're
invested in someoneunderstanding exactly what you
meant.
Exactly.
Yeah.
What is one comment that stillstands out to you because of its
impact?

Comment on what

Dr. Shepp (58:16):
feedback on you feedback on your work.

Oh, I remember I had it in something that I
thought was funny to when I wasin the master's program at
creative writing to John Hawksand he went through it going
cliche, clique, cliche, cliche.
You only have to do that to meonce.
It's like being hit with atruncheon.
It's just, and I didn't realizehow cliche written a thing was
until he said it.
So I would say that was probably, uh, the most significant

(58:42):
comment.
Yeah, it's good.
It's good cause you, that's a,that's a skill you have to
develop.
You have to actually, clicheshappen when you're not seeing
with your own eyes and hearingwith your own ears.
Cliche happens when you, yousort of slide into a rut.
Uh, when you're imagininginstead of thinking it through
for yourself and all you have todo is have somebody hit you with

(59:03):
a trench in once and then, um,unless you're really thick
skinned, which I'm not, thenyou'll, you'll learn and you
won't do that anymore.

Dr. Shepp (59:10):
Gen Z, how do you move on from failure?

I'm moving on from failure.
Gee, I want to say I haven'tfailed yet, but it just, um,
yeah, I probably, because I havetried so little, so few things
in my life, I don't, well youmove on from the only fire
failure I know is rejection ofstuff.
I mean, and I mean as it's, it'swork a day, but you know, the

(59:36):
failure of submitting somethingfor publication and then, um,
the way you move on from that asyou either you, you make sure
that it's, you think it's worthpublishing and then you just
keep sending it out and you Syou stop thinking about it.
You, you, you know, you get itout.
You don't, cause it's, nobody'sgoing to come into your house
and tell you that they're goingto publish it.
So you shrug it off or you don'tlet it define you.

(01:00:00):
Um, that's the only thing I knowabout it is a tough enough, send
the stuff out and, and don't,don't wait with baited breath to
get thing back.
Ideally, forget it's even outthere so that you've got a nice
surprise when some day somebodysays, Hey, I want to publish
this.
I like that.
Yes.
You're still living in themoment.

(01:00:22):
I mean, I've known people thatpaper their walls with rejection
slips.
To me, there's something kind ofsad about that because you're
still giving your stilly givingpower where you shouldn't, you
know, power over you.
I mean, they do in fact havepower over you because they're
going to publish you or theyaren't.
But, um, you don't have to stareat the stupid rejection slips.
You just, um, that's not whatyou're about.

(01:00:45):
You're about writing, not, uh,not getting published.
That's somebody else's problem,which is easy enough to say, but
it's the truth.
I think Emily Dickinson, EmilyDickinson shoved her poetry in a
drawer, you know, now you knowperfectly well.
She figured that somedaysomebody who's going to open the
drawer and, and it was going toget published, but still she
focused on the work and that'swhat you have to do.

(01:01:09):
Just two more questions.
Um, have you ever had what youwould say was a transformative
moment in your work and if so,what was it?
I don't think I ever had a bigtransformative moment.
I've had some moments where Igot get excited by a chapter
that I read or an observationthat I made or a connection that

(01:01:31):
I made.
Um, but, but nothing, it's justthe kind of thing that's, it's a
really happy thing that happensonce in a while when you're
writing and you, and youactually get it right.
You have a thought, you have anidea about your character, uh,
about what she sees or feels,uh, what her fantasy is or, you

(01:01:52):
know, and, um, and it's right.
And you know, it's right.
That's very exciting.
But I can't give you a specificone.
It just happens.
It doesn't happen very often,but it happens sometimes.
It's very comforting.
Hmm.
Cool.
I think that's cool.
Um, so lastly, in, in, in brief,what would you say you've

(01:02:14):
learned about yourself in yourparticular work as a writer?
Ah, what have I learned aboutmyself?
I am, I am very, uh, I am, I donot have, I know that I've hell
have I learned about myself.
I know myself well enough sothat I can use myself.

(01:02:37):
Oh, that isn't a big dealbecause all writers use
themselves.
It's, if you're a Fitzgeraldsaid that all of his characters
were him.
Who is this gal?
That's true.
But what I've learned kind of tomy sorrow is I'm really, I mean,
my last three books, the onesthat I'm working on now is about
a woman who's a writer who livesin Escondido.
I mean, it's just, you're right.
I've just flat out writing aboutmyself only she's different from

(01:03:00):
me, but she's me.
And I guess that's what I'velearned is to just sort of mind
myself directly.
Uh, and that's it.
I mean, I'm not going to writethe great American novel.
I don't have, there are talentsI absolutely don't have.
I don't have a big picturetalent.
I can't write Moby Dick, whichis like the greatest novel ever

(01:03:21):
written.
It's just completely, I mean,most of us who are writing the
canvas is huge and most of usare like down in a little corner
someplace, scribbling away, andthen you read something great
where, where the, the breadthand height of the canvas is
just, you know, breathtaking.
It's very exciting.
I'm not that.
And that's okay.

(01:03:42):
You know, I'm just very gratefulthat I can write well at all.
And I know that's really enoughfor me.
I'm really excited to hear thatyou're working on another novel
yet another Amy novel.
I mean that's apparently she'sall I got.
So I'm, I'm excited about that.

(01:04:03):
I will really look forward toit.
And I don't know if you want toshare anything about it or, or
if you prefer not.
No.
This one.
I'm gonna it's between her and I.
The nice thing is I can usecharacters that I already
developed so I don't have tocome up with a lot of new ones,
although there are some, but italternates between her and Carla
who is one of her students inboth of the earlier ones.

(01:04:25):
So it's actually focused, Ithink more on Carla than on Amy.
But, um, it's, I think aboutpart partly about Amy's, um,
resistance to sort of connectingemotionally with other people.
Um, but it's also got serialkillers in it.
I D I don't know what's going, Ihave absolutely.
No, it's exciting.

(01:04:46):
That's what, that's one thingthat I will say that that's kind
of cool about writing fiction ifyou do it the way I do and I
think many people do, we don'tnecessarily know what's going to
happen.
You have, you have a generalidea in mind, but the writing of
the thing itself is anexploration.
You start out with certaincharacters and you start out
with a premise and then it'slike you're off on a journey, um

(01:05:10):
, to try to figure out whathappens next.
And that's kind of fun.
I mean, it's a pain in the neck,but it's also kind of fun.

Dr. Shepp (01:05:19):
Well, I'm excited to read more about their
relationship.
I found myself intrigued by theway you described Amy's conflict
there in, in the second bookwith her, Amy falls down where
she talks about her dismay that,um, she didn't feel known or
understood by the people in herlife and then sort of her
surprise that perhaps she wasknown and understood by some of

(01:05:42):
the people in her life.
Yeah.
And so I'm looking forward toreading more about that
relationship between she andCarla.

Jincy Willett (01:05:48):
Right?
Nobody's ever completelyunknown.
I don't think, unless theyliterally live in a cave.
I don't know.
It's fun writing about it.
Introverts too.

Dr. Shepp (01:05:58):
You said somewhere that, Oh actually you know it,
there we go.
Confusing you and Amy.
Cause I think it was Amy thatsaid, um, that, that the, the
best of the writer is on thepage.
And so why would you want totalk?
Right,

Jincy Willett (01:06:10):
absolutely.
That's why I was sort of amazedwhen you got in touch with me
cause I thought, well I'm not aperformer.
There are people who areperformers and writers.
It's like salesmen is askillset.
So David Sedaris, it's like arock star performance performer
in addition to a, you know, intoa, right.
Apparently Dickens was wonderfulto performing his readings and
Twain was wonderful and I'm surethat there are other writers,

(01:06:31):
most of us, yeah, the best of usis right there on the page.
And um, you don't really need tosee us or you know, hear from us
too.
Experience what we have to say.
And yet, I'm so glad I did it.
This was fun.
Really interesting questions.
I'm still going to be botheredby that.
Curious.

(01:06:52):
She has,

Dr. Shepp (01:06:58):
well I guess maybe I am just repaying the favor of
something staying with you.
I don't know because a lot ofyour writing stays with me, but
um, but I, but I do want tothank you for your writing and
just the way that it hascontributed to the pleasure in
my life.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And um, sometimes, um, my, mylack of being able to fall
asleep after reading, reading,um, some of of what you've

(01:07:22):
written, but, um, there are fewfiction novels that, um, I
recommend to other peoplebecause usually I read it and I
experienced it and then I'm donewith it.
But the writing class isdefinitely one of my favorites.
So, um, I want to thank you forthat and I want to thank you for
taking the time to talk to mebecause I really appreciate it.

(01:07:44):
I won't summarize ourconversation, but um, but I'm
the better off for having it, sothank you all.
Thank you.
This was fun.
I'm glad this has been managed.
The moment with dr Shep, likephysical collection of moments.
It's how you manage the momentsthat makes the difference.

(01:08:06):
My thanks again to Jesse Willettfor joining me on today's
conversation and thank you forlistening.
You can learn more about chintzyon her website,[inaudible] dot
com and be sure to check out herbooks wherever you can get your
hands on them because you'll beglad that you did a special
thanks to those of you who havetaken the time to rate or review
this podcast.
I really appreciate it and yoursmall effort really does make a

(01:08:27):
difference to help this podcast.
So thanks.
You can subscribe to the managethe moment podcast for free just
by clicking the subscribe buttonwherever you're listening to
this podcast, and then you'll besure to get the newest episodes
as soon as they're uploaded.
And for more information aboutmanage the moment podcast, you
can see the episode notes forthis broadcast.

(01:08:47):
You'll also find us on socialmedia and I'm on Twitter and
Instagram at dr Shep.
Thanks so much for listening andtaking the time to share these
moments with us.
Until next time.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
[inaudible].

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Jincy Willett - Critically Acclaimed (seriously fantastic!) Writer & Novelist

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jincy Willett - Critically Acclaimed (seriously fantastic!) Writer & Novelist