Welcome to the 5 Questions Series. Each week, I’ll ask five questions of some of my favorite authors, editors, publishers, and other industry professionals. This week, I’m talking with Michele Wong.
Your story, The Inevitable Recipe for Solace, won first place in Flash Fiction Magazine’s contest. (Ed. Note. I was the judge and I love this story.) There were also so many positive comments on the piece when it was published. What was your inspiration for writing that piece and how did it feel to know it touched so many people?
I recalled watching my mother make Lemon Meringue Pie and my grandmother teach my sister and I how to make barbecue pork buns. There weren’t enough of these moments which I regret as I see food as a way to bond not just in the eating but in the making of it. Also, I wanted to deal with a few factors. I’ve had two friends who have come out late in life and it’s been hard on both their ex-spouses. As a LGBT person, I’ve championed their honesty and courage, and have given them unwavering support, but at the same time, I feel very much as well for their straight partners who now have many questions regarding themselves and their former marriage. I also wanted to place the daughter’s own struggle with being abandoned side by side with the mother’s struggle. Despite how different the two women are and how tenuous a mother-daughter relationship can be, there are similarities and in the end, the daughter knows who will be there for her and her unborn child.
We’ve talked before about intuition and creativity. How integral is intuition to your writing process?
I actually see images first, some of which I try to pen down. Having studied as well as gone through CBT for anxiety, I once saw how it visits each part of our body which led me to write Anatomy of Arriving. I think the mind connects imagery to words rather subconsciously and quite often, our writerly mind unknowingly connects things we have seen to a story we are currently writing.
What happens when you hit those pesky places of creative blockage?
I so understand when other creatives bemoan feeling “dried up” and I’ve been in that state a fair bit. I sometimes feel and wonder why some pieces don’t quite hit the right note and this adds to the blockage. Reading anything from poets such as EE Cummings or writers like Murakami, Nicole Krauss and Marilynne Robinson helps in nudging one’s creative inclination. I also recently told myself to just write a few lines or edit one page even when not motivated, just to imbibe the understanding that writing is a calling and a craft rather than a whimsy.
There’s so much poetry in your words. (I just read “The electric-issness of life” and it is stunning. Do you find flash fiction specifically lends itself to a blurred border with poetry?
It means a lot to have you say that Finnian. I started out wanting to write poetry but always wanted to have a story written within that framework. Years ago, I sent a short story to the theatre director Kathleen Weiss who was teaching at UBC at that time. She called me up out of the blue and said she would mentor me for a year in playwriting. And for that whole year, she read my work aloud and emphasized how vital it is in hearing one’s words through someone else’s mouth. It was quite illuminating, and it highlighted the poetical and rhythmic quality of words. This was what drew me to flash fiction as it’s so flexible in form and function. Yet sometimes I think there’s strength in just using straight colloquial language. Right now for my first collection of short stories that I’m working on, the stories that are more realistic are more lyrical, while some stories that are surreal are written more in concrete phrasing as the topic is already a stretch of the imagination.
What advice would you give people on building a life of writing for themselves?
Start with any idea that feels authentic to you. Authenticity has long staying power and it will give you the momentum to continue writing. There will be days you don’t feel like writing likely due to your workload, just feel free to pen one sentence. Maybe from that one line, will grow another and another. Julia Cameron encourages artists to just do one simple sketch or art piece to allow that ‘flow’ to happen. Also read widely as much as you can to understand the basic concepts such as plot and point of view etc. I’ve benefited from reading a genre that is not my wheelhouse and love mysteries like Gone Girl!
Bonus question: Have you ever taken a picture of a weird bird?
Two years ago in Singapore: Saw a stealthy hornbill stalking innocent chicken. Luckily certain humans and their nosy cellphones scared it away.
Finnian Burnett 