I don’t know who said “a writer writes” first (most believe it was Billy Crystal in Throw Momma From the Train), but I know who has said it the most - Celeste Seay.
Proving her point, Seay possesses a large body of marvelous work, mostly unshared beyond the privileged few. We’re fortunate to have Seay as a member of the Johnson County Library Creative Writing Group, where she produces amazing stories in response to assignments from The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction by Brian Kiteley.
Seay shares some thoughts on writing, as well as her response to #75 Teach from the chapterThought and Emotion.
How long have you been writing?
I started writing little stories when I was six years old. At some point, I stopped putting my little stories down on paper, and told them to myself in my head. Then later, as an adolescent, I started writing them down again. It wasn't until the 1990s that I began to perceive that writing stories down was the way I wanted to spend my time.
Why do you write what you write?
I write to find my place in the world. The words I put down tell me how I belong.
Do you have favorite resources that support your writing? Books, websites, blogs that you revisit?
I like reading books about writing that other authors have penned, but I seldom read them through. There will be a snippet here or there that speaks to me and I tuck it away. What supports my writing the most isn't other writing, but living, mostly. Describing the world to myself, whether or not I am putting words down. Learning to see, to be aware.
What do you most enjoy about the writing process?
The zone. When the thoughts flow and the words come.
What do you find maddening about the writing process?
What is always most maddening is the blank canvas, the empty page. Not knowing what will happen in the end. Not knowing the end, having to write my way to it.
What are you reading?
I'm usually reading more than one thing, and often quite a few more. I'm in an a-few-more period:
True Grit by Charles Portis
Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan
The Longitude Prize by Joan Dash
Pilate's Wife by Antoinette May
Why do you love the library?
It encourages us to read, and reading opens us up to new possibilities, and being open to possibilities makes us more adaptable, and being able to adapt makes us more likely to be happy and being happy makes us more likely to revel in our gifts.
In order to read the text of In One Day, visit Read Local on Soundcloud and select the story you want to read.