Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Interview with Frances Mayes

From Victoria:
I’m no expert; I’ve written only two novels. Most of my books are nonfiction, which is so much easier for me. No plot necessary! You write what happens, as well as you can. I started both novels with a general idea, not an outline. I learned as I proceeded, letting myself go down discursive paths if they appeared. Unless you’ve written one, you can have no idea how deeply tracked in your psyche a story is. How to keep all the subterranean working aloft in the narrative is the skill you must learn. I enjoyed writing my second novel so much. By then, I let the characters have free reign. I liked them and was not going to let anything bad happen to them. They’d had their share of sorrow. In my pages, they could soar. Writing is a rich life, the life of the imagination, of possibility. To create something where there was nothing—well, that’s the joyous root of any artist’s life. (Read more.)
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