Most of the concrete details incorporated in the poems are factually true, even though many of the characters/voices I’ve created are fictional and the comic book landscape of monsters, supervillains, and superheroes is frequently fantastic.
I do think it’s important for writers to help other writers. In no way is writing or publishing a zero-sum game or a competition.
“Seeing the evolution of Blood Meridian just reminds me of the value of the process: which involves drafting and revising, tinkering and experimenting, and for most writers, and certainly me, an unhurried attitude towards creative work.”
Genuine flash must be hard as diamonds, warm as poetry.
I found myself drawn to the idea of taking these big, comic book concepts and applying them to a quiet story about loss and the poison of nostalgia.
The world has so many great stories, and to limit the tales based on what readers may want, instead of offering them fresh slices of life through story, is a huge mistake.
What was most exhilarating for me, editing this book, was “the hunt,” discovering a new author or story that took me to a fresh place.
I try to write something new at least 3 to 5 times a week, and I tell myself that it doesn’t have to be good.
Lovepain is a short, easily digestible, novel, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t sophisticated or complex.
Everything I write is part of a life-long continuum of work that informs each other, and if I look at something I’m working now, I’ll see its origin in something I was thinking about maybe twenty or thirty years ago.
