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A Nonlinear Process: Saverio Colasanto interviews Corinna Chong

What are you looking for in a winning submission?

I think the best stories have an energy that announces itself from the very first sentence. Much of that energy comes from a keen attention to detail. You can tell a writer loves crafting sentences when they move seamlessly yet rhythmically, peppered with little surprises in diction and phrasing choices. An authenticity in the voice is also important. A writer who knows what they want to say and has devoted time and energy to figuring out how to say it most honestly can win me over on any subject, character, or plotline.

Your third book, Bad Land, was just released on September 3. What was your inspiration for the novel, and was there anything that surprised you while writing it?

Ever since I started writing I wanted to write something about the Alberta badlands. As a kid, I used to visit Drumheller, a two-hour drive north of Calgary that passes kilometres and kilometres of flat, unbroken prairies before suddenly descending into an otherworldly, desert-like valley with banded hillscapes and heavily eroded rock formations. When I set out to write this novel, I wanted to capture the eeriness of that setting and also play with the way in which it could mirror the characters and their conflicts.

I spent more than ten years (on and off) writing this novel, and there were many missteps and surprises along the way. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises was the direction the novel ended up taking at its midpoint. The characters embark on a road trip that I hadn’t initially planned. I think the road trip was suggested by one of my astute writer friends when I was in a bit of a rut. Prompted by this suggestion, I wrote the sentence, “We went north.” The story began to unfold from here in unexpected ways that gave me a deeper understanding of who the characters really were. This part of the writing process, which forced me to explore more freely without adhering to any structural signposts or plot points, ended up being the most gratifying.

How has your writing process evolved over your career? What does your writing routine tend to look like?

I think I am more efficient with the time I set aside for writing now, mostly because I know how precious it is. Having the responsibilities of a full-time job and parenthood can very quickly edge out time for writing, which has led me to be very intentional about reserving space (both temporal and mental) for writing projects. All that said, I am not very good at having a strict writing regimen, though I deeply admire those who commit to waking up at 4 am to write before going to work. My teaching job affords me the privilege of having flexible time in spring and summer, which is when I get most of my writing done.

Especially when in the early stages of a project, I have found that writing by hand is extremely helpful as a method of battling my debilitating perfectionism. Writing by hand forces me to surrender to the messiness of drafting and get the ideas down so I have something to work with. Then, once I’ve got some momentum going, I transcribe my scribblings into a word doc and revise as I go. I love this part the most, because it’s where I can obsess over the shape and sound of sentences. I continue in the word doc until I (inevitably) hit another rut, at which point I return to the journal and start the process again. Developing this routine has helped me to spend far less time staring at a blank screen with a blinking cursor, growing more and more demoralized with every passing second. I think I’m better now at accepting that writing isn’t a linear process, but one that involves plenty of meandering and retracing.

Which books and authors have influenced or inspired you the most?

Lorrie Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Gaitskill, Alice Munro, Jeanette Winterson, and Margaret Laurence were all writers whose work I read and loved in the early years of studying the craft of writing, and I think their work continues to influence mine today. Lorrie Moore’s Self-Help and Birds of America are two of the books I can return to again and again for inspiration. More recently, I’ve been awe-struck by the work of Jenny Offill and Maggie Nelson. Weather and The Argonauts have become two of my favourite books of all time.

Do you write with a chosen theme in mind, and if so, are there specific themes that you would like to explore more in your future writing?

I don’t tend to write with theme at the forefront. I find that it’s more generative for me to begin with character and conflict. What ultimately drives me to write is my interest in people; I’m endlessly curious about why people behave the way they do, where their idiosyncrasies come from, what kinds of complexes and histories are at the heart of their relationship dynamics. I like to think that theme will emerge organically in the process of writing and will therefore ring with more truth in the end.

 

 

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