Writer | Emma Grey Rose
Q&A
A2: You evoke big emotion in small moments, where simple interactions carry significant weight. What is your strategy for intense emotional delivery within brief gestures and encounters?
EGR: I'm a big fan of brevity in writing. I believe that sometimes a 'less-is-more' approach is effective in delivering an emotional impact. I've come to believe this can be true of our lives outside of writing, as well. Sometimes all that needs to be said is one sentence and it will be enough. 'I love you' is strong. 'I'm sorry' can be equally strong. It all depends on context: who is saying it, what has happened, how we know them, and so on. Writing can be a direct reflection of life and in life, there is often a lot of brevity.
A2: What is your process for piecing together memories in a way that deviates from traditional storytelling? How do you approach memory to facilitate your preferred style?
EGR: I like to give the highlights of a memory: the most important stuff first. Everything else is like gray fuzz. Memories themselves are sort of like snapshots. That's how, I think, most of us remember things. A snapshot here, another one there. We remember certain details more than others, particular emotions stick out for us, certain people. I try to emulate this as best I can.
A2: Do you have a ritual that assists you in your creative flow?
EGR: If I'm in the mood for music, I will write to music that doesn't have lyrics. Lately though, I've preferred silence. If I finish a piece, I will usually let it sit for at least a day before starting an edit on it. I edit a piece over and over until no more edits are needed. That can be very tedious. For instance, the novel I wrote took so many edits, I cannot count them. At one point I felt I had gone down a rabbit hole. That's due to my process: edit, read, edit, read, and so on until 'edit' is no longer happening. This is far easier for shorter pieces. But sometimes it isn't. I've edited a flash piece ten times before. To save my sanity, I have to say, eventually, "Okay. This is done." When an idea pops into my head, I write it down, because ideas are fleeting, and with an idea often comes the first few sentences or maybe even a full paragraph, and so I believe it's best to jot it down and return to it later. Unless you are in a position to write it at the very moment it starts to develop. Even then, I won't do a full write on it. I always let things sit. It allows some time for the story to simmer and develop. The only time that I write outlines is for novels. And I don't start with an outline. I let the story develop in my head as I go. I use an outline so that I don't forget the ideas for the storyline. But no major drafting. The story will come to you, as my friend George du Bois says. He is right. The story will always come to you.
Snippets of Half-Light
My son comes home from school. He talks about a girl that he knows. He says, “She asked me if I have a crush on her and I don’t know why but every time I see her, I feel blushy.”
I tell him this is normal.
***
There is a child crying next door.
***
I have a dream about my mother. My father is in it also, even though they are both dead. I find her upstairs, in a house I’d never been to before. But I am there downstairs, sleeping. Pretending to sleep. Because there are loud and obscure noises throughout the house and a dim blue light that radiates throughout the lower level. A TV is on, somewhere. There is a door, off its hinges, in the back of the room. I hear someone walk into the room, where I have pulled the covers up to my face. Just their footsteps, that’s all I hear. I know they are there to kill me. I know they are standing behind the cot. I pretend to sleep.
Then, I hear the footsteps again. They disappear. I stare at the door, standing upright, off its hinges. What an odd door, I think. What’s behind the door?
I find my parents, upstairs, in a bedroom with a large, beautiful window that lets in the same blue light from downstairs. But this light is softer. It is moonlight.
They sleep on separate beds. I try to wake my father. To tell him there is someone here, in the home. Lurking. Waiting to kill me. He sits up. He snores loudly. I am disturbed by the fact that he is sitting up, eyes half-open, and continuing to snore.
Then, he lies back down, asleep.
My mother, in the other bed, has woken. She sits up.
She begins to dress herself. She looks just as she did after the stroke, with one arm limp, immobile. The other, working to pull a T-shirt over her head. She looks cheerful. I say, “Mom.”
I feel a relief. I sit down on her bed. She lays herself back down, with the T-shirt on. She opens her free arm, the working arm, and I put my head down on her chest.
She speaks as if she’d never had the stroke. She says, “I heard you’re doing beautiful things in life.”
I begin to cry. When I wake, I am still crying.
Please visit https://emmagreyrose.com/ for additional work by Emma Grey Rose.