Artist's Statement

The whims of my fleeting thoughts prevent me from writing most stories. The process of artistic creation, or storytelling through writing, in my case, may be more accurately described as the process of dismissal.

When I decide to sit down and come up with a new story, at some point I inevitably let my mind loose to chase down ideas, words, fragments of thoughts as though it were a playful dog chasing butterflies or leaves blowing through the air. Many, many things come to mind, then, and most of them I dismiss and forget as quickly as they arrive. Waiting until the glimmer of an undeniable idea catches my attention and keeps my free spirited thoughts returning to it.

Usually my fascination centers around a combination of action/situation and character, the first firmly delineated if lacking in details, the second a vague sketch. Something about the combination must hold me still, at which point I play with it as though it were clay or Play-Doh, molding it into many different shapes for a certain time, after which I take inventory of what I have, decide what I think of the ideas, decide what I want, and for the first time purposefully direct the creation of my story.

At this point my perpetual interest in connections vs. isolation begins to shape my action or situation and character around it, provided it wasn’t already built into my initial conception of character or situation. Usually the idea of connections between people, or their absence, is not built into the action or situation that captures my interest.

As I begin to pencil in my vague sketches of characters, this element almost always appears as part of their core identity. Does a character need or want to connect? Is a character isolated? Most frequently I examine the desire to change from isolation to connection, which may result in action that may, in turn, result in success.

My own experiences, the experiences of others I’ve observed, and those of stories I’ve known, in that order, inform my focus and exploration of isolation and connection. They shape my own perception of the idea, and with that perception informing me I find and create characters whose wants and needs revolve around their connection or lack of it to others around them.

At the same time, I develop a vague or tentative conception of my plot. Once I have both my characters and this plot conception I focus on inserting my characters into the plot and modifying the plot around their identities, wants, and needs, all of which return to the idea of connection. As the two coalesce I begin to write, and my story takes on physical definition before coming alive.