Jay: A reluctant gunslinger escorts a dying woman and her young son across a wasteland to a distant sanctuary. TQ: Describe Three in 140 characters or less. I have a lot of different projects in various stages of completion and usually the thing I’m most excited about is whatever I’m not currently working on … kind of an old grass-is-greener thing. TQ: What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?īesides making myself sit down and do it? For me, it’s maintaining the discipline to stick with a project until it’s done. (That’s usually the only way I can tell whether I have an actual story or just an idea for a story.) But then I leave a lot of space in between those points to enable myself to discover the moment-to-moment drama that always reveals itself over time.

So I’ll usually figure out the beginning, the ending, and several critical turning points along the way. I plan the major story points ahead of time, so that I always know where I’m trying to get with a story. Jay: I’m a marginal plotter out of necessity, though it’s so marginal I think most genuine plotters would say I’m a pantser. It’s terribly inefficient and I don’t recommend it to anyone. Creating and editing are two different jobs and you should never try to do them at the same time, because your Creative Brain is usually very shy and sensitive and your Editing Brain is kind of a jerk, and you have these internal conversations that go something like:Ĭreative Brain: “Oo oo, an idea! Here I will write it …”Įditing Brain: “Erase that immediately or else everyone will know you are a talentless hack.”Ĭreative Brain: “Well, it’s not exactly what I want-“Ĭreative Brain: “… but I just thought it was a good start –“Īnd then you end up sitting there staring at a blank page for hours on end feeling miserable and useless. That’s a violation of one of the most basic rules of creative writing.

Jay: I’m not sure if it’s interesting necessarily, but I really have a hard time not editing while I write. TQ: What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk? I’m much better looking in text than in real life. As far as the why, I’ve just found it’s the way I’ve been able to express myself most effectively, both creatively and also in what should probably be otherwise normal personal interactions. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s, though, that I decided maybe it was something I wanted to try to do at a more professional level. Jay: Like most of my ilk, I started writing when I was a kid, before I knew it was a “thing” you did. I’ll take off my shoes and try not to spill anything. Jay: Hi, and thank you very much for having me.

Three by jay posey