To be quite honest, along with thinking and such when it comes to writing, I'm not into words like "theory." I'm a PhD dropout. No matter how many twenty-five-page papers I wrote, I never felt like I was saying much. I didn't feel like the writer of the book, whose work I was analyzing, would have been impressed. It didn't matter how much time or effort I put in.

I also liked it when professors assigned us stories that they love. In general, I liked workshops more when they were more than just a workshop, when the professor took the time to actually guide us as young writers and teach us things it took them a long time to figure out on their own. I could probably write ten pages on this question.

I don't revise a lot when writing short stories. As far as the novel, I definitely thought more about plot. Honestly, I'm still pretty confused about what "plot" means. I've been reading some of my Goodreads reviews and one reader noted that the The Last Days of California "reads like a short story stretched to the breaking point, padded and brought into novel range..." I don't know what people want, really.

Perhaps adding a line or two of dialogue to try to better capture an emotion. But I've found that if the story isn't there in the beginning, right from the start, I generally can't beat it into shape no matter how much rewriting I do.

There's definitely a magical quality to writing that can't be explained. I can write something I love in two days, or I can work on a story every day for months and it never comes together.

You don't need a dead father to explain a character's sadness. And impressing yourself with wit/cleverness often feels like what it is - authorial intrusion.

It's definitely about the rhythm of the words and how they sound together, writing one sentence and then another and another and cutting something immediately if it doesn't feel true. I come from a family of musicians and - while I have no musical abilities of my own - I think I inherited a good ear.