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I Always Think I Know The Way A Novel Will Go. I Write Maps On Oversized Art Pads Like The Kind I Carried Around In College When I Was Earnest About Drawing. I Need To Have Some Idea Of The Shape Of The Novel, Where Its Headed, So That I Can Proceed With Confidence. But The Truth Is My Characters Start Doing And Saying Things I Don't Expect.

-Julianna Baggott

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I Always Think I

Julianna Baggott

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I Always Think I Know The Way A Novel Will Go. I Write Maps On Oversized Art Pads Like The Kind I Carried Around In College When I Was Earnest About Drawing. I Need To Have Some Idea Of The Shape Of The Novel, Where Its Headed, So That I Can Proceed With Confidence. But The Truth Is My Characters Start Doing And Saying Things I Don't Expect.

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My Childhood Was Marked By The Great Fear Of Nuclear Holocaust. We Practiced Our Civil Defense Drills, Lining Up In Hallways, Curled To The Floor, But We Knew We'd Die Or, Worse, Survive Only To Suffer Radiation And Slow Death.

If You Look At The World One Way, It Takes From You - It's A Thief Of Time, Energy, Creative Mojo. But If You Look At The World Another Way, It Gives You An Endless Supply Of Motivation.

I Believe We're Brutes, But Then, Miraculously, There Are Those Among Us Who Stand Up Against That Brutishness And Remind Us Of The Goodness We're Capable Of.

Memories Are Like Water.

Sometimes You Meet Someone And You Know That Your Life Will Be Different From Then On.

Writers Are Socially Observant. We Find People Endlessly Fascinating, And Real Life Is Mysterious. Sometimes It's Hard To Stop Staring At The Strut And Squawk Of My Fellow Man. They Can Be Quite Inspiring. Sometimes It's Hard To Stop Talking To Them To See What In The World They're Thinking.

I Wrote Before I Could Write. I Got My Hands On A Journal, Maybe A Hand-me-down; I Had Three Older Siblings. My First Entries Are In The Handwriting Of The Sister Closets In Age (5 Years My Senior). She Must Have Gotten Tired Of My Dictations Because She Gave Up And Then My Blocky Scrawl Shows Up. I Wrote Plays As A Kid Mostly.

I Believe That One Of The Most Damning Things About Our Culture Is The Adage To Never Talk Religion And Politics. Because We Don't Model This Discourse At The Dinner Table And At Thanksgiving, We Don't Know How To Do It Well And We're Not Teaching Our Children About The World And About How To Discuss It.

Women Are Constantly Underestimated In Our Power, Our Reach, Our Collective Pull.

It's Not That I Bounce Ideas Off Of My Children As Much As It Is That Having Children Has Had A Profound Effect On The Way I See The World. They Have Mined My Soul. They've Made Me A Better Person And Therefore A More Empathetic Writer.

I Have Faith In Human Beings. I Struggle With That Faith.

She Knows That Whispers Can Be Useful. Sometimes They Contain Real Information. But Usually They're Fairy Tales And Lies. This Is The Worst Kind Of Whisper, The Kind That Draws You In, Gives You Hope.

I Want To Keep Looking At Ways To Stride Forward With Positivity.

Weakness, Like Not Being Able To Bury The Past. Weakness, Like Not Giving Up Hope When You Know You Should.

If I'd Learned Nothing Else, It Was This: If You Want To Be A Great Writer, Be A Man. If You Can't Be A Man, Write Like One.

So Far, I Should Be Calm And More Specifically Not Like That...anything Else? Would You Like To Do Surgery On My Personality? How About Open-heart Surgery? I´ve Got Some Tools

While I Was In College Becoming A Good Catholic I Was Also Becoming A Writer - One Haunted By Catholicism.

I'm A Woman, But I've Been A Sexist, Too.

Writing Is My Obsession, My Passion. My Relationship With It Is One Of The Most Complex And Agonizing And Richly Vexing That I Have In My Life.

I've Left The Church - For Many Reasons That I've Written About Publicly - But It's Still A Large Part Of My Identity, And I Still Have My Faith, If Not My Church.

When A Colleague Of Mine Had A Notable New York Times Book, I Said, Turn One Of The Chapters In The Collection Into A Pitch For A Novel And Sell It To Your Publisher.

Try To Think Of Writing As A Gift - More Complexly Put: It Is The Curse And The Cure.

A Good Novel Doesn't Just Transcend The Boundaries Of Its Target Market - It Knows Nothing About Target Markets.

Genres Are Just Bottles For The Various Boats. The Boats Matter To Me.

I Write Across Genres So I See Them, More Often, As Complementary Instead Of Separated By Boundaries.

I Am Deeply Catholic And Always Will Be, But I'm No Longer A Member Of The Church. I Left In 2003 Because Of The Sex Abuse Scandal.

Writers Aren't Born Properly Labeled So It Is Hard To Know One When One Appears.

The Fact Is There Are Many Women Who Nod Politely, Even Agree Openly Within Their Male-dominated Often Highly Educated Cultures, But Vote Their Own Minds.

You Learn To Exploit Genre For The More Important Things - To My Mind - Like Story, Character, Image, Language.

Sometimes When Reading Aloud To My Husband, I'll Start Crying. It Completely Stuns Me. As If The Words In My Body And On The Page - In Relation To Each Other - Are Cocooned Against My Own Feelings About What I'm Writing Until They're Loosed In The Air And Become Their Own. Then I Realize What I May Or May Not Have Done.

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I'm A Writer Of Faith Who Worries About The Intolerance Of Religion. I Look At The Past And Fear We Haven't Learned From It. I Believe That Humanity Is Capable Of Evil As Well As Great Acts Of Courage And Goodness. I Have Hope. Deep Down, I Believe In The Human Spirit, Although Sometimes That Belief Is Shaken.

Some Of The Best Work Done To Combat The Republicans Has Been Wit And Humor.

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I Try Not To Divide Plot And Character. I Get To Know A Character By What They Want And Fear And How Those Internal Forces Play Out In Their Lives.

The Lessons Learned In Journalism Also Apply. Writing For Npr Has Taught Me To Cut A Piece In Half And Then In Half Again - Without Losing The Essence. Apply That To The Swollen Prose Of A Bulky Novel And You Might Reveal A Beautiful Work.

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