Gas Station Guy (GSG): Where are you right now?
CK: It’s late. I’m in bed.
GSG: I wouldn’t say no.
CK: I made you. I can have you say what I want.
GSG: I’m terribly sorry. How rude of me. Would you like a cup of tea?
Peach: Awesome.
Claire: Metazen readers are busy, cut to the chase. Let’s start with you. Where do you fit (in either the literary or the existential sense)?
CK: I like the quote from Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love . “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Claire: You sound busy. How do you discipline yourself to write?
CK: I write because I want the tangible thing that I can only have by writing it. Also I employ someone to whip me lightly if I slack off.
Peach: Do you know how I end? Do you know how I started?
CK: I know how you started. Your ending still has infinite possibilities.
Peach: Will it be happy? When will you write me? How can you not know my ending yet? You’re my author, you should have it all figured out.
CK: I just don’t work that way. Some websites would have you believe that there are 20 rules for writing fiction: Never do this, always do that. But you read Metazen; you know there are no rules. Forget about plot for a second. You are a vision of what’s next, waiting to be told. You will find your story. That’s all.
GSG: Do I have a name?
Peach: Do I?
CK: You two are not so interested in getting to know each other, huh? It’s all me, me, me.
GSG: How come I get painted as the bad guy? Anyone would want to do that chick, she was asking for it.
Peach: He’s a dumbass, huh? Why do guys think they make the rules?
CK: First, there are no rules, just slices of reality. Secondly, of course you two don’t have names. You hardly know each other. It’s meat and me.
Peach: How did you get into my head like that?
CK: I like heads, they interest me. Momentum is born of heads and flesh and before you know it you have war and herpes.
GSG: OK. Be honest with me, who came first?
CK: Like you care. OK, Gas Station Guy, you came first. I saw you twenty years ago in Mishawaka, Indiana. You were standing by the pump, sweating. You were patient, but you knew if you stood there long enough I’d write you.
Peach : Twenty years ago? So you must have been about my age. I knew it. You are me.
CK: Nope.
Claire: I agree with Peach. Characters are like author sashimi. If you put them back together you’ve got a Writer Fish. Narcissistic beasts, you writers.
CK: Let’s say this. I bleed a few drops into each of my characters, we’re all blood buddies. It’s impossible to truly wear the skin of another, but with empathy drawn from your own experiences you can at least try them on. I’m character-curious. That has to be healthy for all humans, not just writers.
Claire: So Peach was sparked by a character you saw. Is that how you usually write?
CK: No. In fact I won a reputable short story competition this month with a piece I wrote out of defiance. I’d read an article which said ‘Never, ever, start a story with a character dreaming. If you do, the reader will feel cheated.’ or some such nonsense. So I wrote a story which…well you get it. I’m biologically compelled to be belligerent. My husband uses my defiance to manipulate me mercilessly.
Claire: How do you switch between writing novels, short stories and flash-fiction?
CK: For me, flash pieces are very honest stuff. I picture it and I write it. Flash is like having a piece of clay and in one or two sessions if your hands are wet enough you can wrestle it into something that fits the idea you had, all ready for firing. Writing a novel is like building a house. It has depth and height and layers and elements you can’t see but that have to be there to make water come out of the tap and the fridge stay cold enough to chill the wine. I can’t write a novel in a linear fashion, I write it like I would build a house. Drafts and foundations, plans and frameworks and structure and aesthetics and furniture and layers and layers of everything. It’s exhausting. But when it’s done people will just say – Nice house, Claire.
Claire: Literature is getting shorter and shorter. Where will it end? Can our messages be rich enough in the reduced word counts? What do you think makes good writing these days?
CK: I’m not convinced that there will ever be classic pieces of nano-fiction. 140 characters is a great exercise in brevity and articulation, but its limits are clear. Beyond that, good rich storytelling, whether it’s flash, short stories or novels needs honesty, effort, imagination, curiosity, perspective and stubborn unwillingness to settle for ‘not quite’.
With my writing, I want readers to nod and say yes. I want to get intimate with them. I want to be the first beer at the end of a hot day, or a blazing fire to warm your arse in January. I want to surprise, disgust, amuse, transcend the now. Be it snack sized or a banquet, I want to serve up an emotional buzz.
Claire: That’s a tall order. Who inspires you - who are your literary heroes?
I am emerging from a literary desert. I’ve been producing children for five years, holding down two jobs and renovating a house. I haven’t done a lot of reading of late. I’m thirsty for it, with ice. The written word is in danger of being dumbed-down because we are all stretched this way. So my literary heroes are those who sit down and write even when they don’t have the time. Those who strive for literature.
Claire: Here we all are, sharing a virtual bed. What’s on your bedside table?
CK: You promised not to ask. OK, there’s essential oil of petitgrain bigaradier (it smells good); a moleskine and pencil (I see my characters…all the time); a pile of books waiting to be read this summer. It’s a big pile. On the top are Nik Perring (for stolen moments); Voltaire and Quattrocchi/Nairn (research for my second novel); Robert Radcliffe (my friend)…
Claire: So you’re planning on doing some reading this summer? What else do you have planned?
CK: I’m taking the summer off work. I’ll be in England in July for the launch of the Bristol Prize anthology (featuring one of my short stories). Then I’m going to launch the first wave of agent queries for my novel and sit back and wait for the character building part…
Claire: OK, tell us about your novel.
CK: It’s literary fiction. It’s not what you’d think. It’s childhood and adulthood and a constant wind that turns the blades. The hero is a five year old girl. The story takes place in rural France in August. She’s in danger and there’s no-one she can turn to. It is written in present tense from her point of view.
Claire: Hang on, your first novel is written first person, present tense, from the point of view of a five year old child? Isn’t that rather ambitious?
CK: I told you I was defiant.
Claire: Good luck with that.
CK: Thanks.
Claire: Anything else on the agenda?
CK: I have two children under five. We’re going to write ourselves a long hot summer of mountain lakes and beach picnics, barbecues and sandcastles and peaches. There are peach orchards all around our house. I’ll be eating a lot of peaches.
GSG: Ah, shit.
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Claire King lives in France. She has an open relationship with her novel and a variety of short lovers. Her website is www.Claire-King.com. Read Peach and Peach (2) here.
