I was re-experiencing these things that happened a long time ago, and I'm trying to relive it now, and I'm bringing all of my current motivations and personality into that which were not there at the time. It's hard to remember exactly who I was when I was ten, fifteen.
Chelsea MartinThe thing about writing or making art is that I'm not thinking about that stuff while I'm doing it. Like the driver's ed kid, in retrospect I see that that was meaningful, and I felt close to him in that way, but at the time I just thought it was fun to draw, and that's all it was. I think that's what's weird about life and about making art. You have to talk about it later. I guess I should be prepared to talk about it now. That is why I'm here. But again, pass.
Chelsea MartinIn fiction you can make up everything to create the feeling. You can manufacture a story with whatever tools you want. With nonfiction you have to rely on what actually happened to describe what you're feeling. That's hard. You have to know what will feed into the emotion you're trying to convey. And that's hard because you don't necessarily know what causes your emotions.
Chelsea MartinI don't do the like, "This led to this, and this was why this happened." That doesn't feel real and isn't how I experience things.
Chelsea MartinWhen I was going through the stuff with my dad and thinking about terms like restraining order and domestic violence, I was really just searching for a way to define what I was going through. I didn't really understand what it meant to disown a parent or not want to have a parent in your life. Even the word parent was confusing to me because my father came into my life so late in my teen years.
Chelsea Martin