We asked the nonfiction writers from our Paradox issue questions about the creative spaces that make their writing possible. A few then answered those questions, delving into their ideal writing conditions, creative rituals, and inspiring musical and literary works. Read on to learn more about E.M. Liddick, author of “An Effigy of Memories,” J.G.P. MacAdam, author of “Dead and Dumb,” and Tim Walker, author of “The Lost Summer.” Make sure to check out their work in Volume 11: PARADOX!
E.M. Liddick, author of “An Effigy of Memories”
What is (are) your favorite creative ritual(s)? In other words, what habits/practices help you access your creativity?
Music has always been a centerpiece of my life. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that one practice that helps me access my creativity is listening to music. I have a playlist titled “Writing” that I pop on anytime I sit down to write. Something in those songs–the chord balance, the pace, the “mood”--helps me tap into the emotions hidden away, brings them to the surface.
Where did you create your piece(s) for Vol. 11? Did your chosen spaces influence your work(s), and if so, how?
I wrote “An Effigy of Memories” on a couch in my living room after the visits to Pennsylvania mentioned in the piece; that is, in my home. And I suppose this space, less chosen than instinctive, helped to frame the paradoxes of “home” central to this piece; helped to identify the emotions involved in visiting someplace so familiar, yet so foreign–and approaching something that feels like “letting go.”
What other media (music, movies, books, etc.) influenced your work(s) for Vol. 11?
Nothing directly influenced “An Effigy of Memories,” but I would be remiss in ignoring the countless indirect influences, namely other writers whose work produces a frisson of ecstasy. Writers like Elizabeth Smart (By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept), Juan Gabriel Vasquez, and Andrew Miller, to name only a few.
What jumpstarts your creativity when you’re feeling blocked?
Is “nothing” an okay answer? I’m kidding–sort of.
When I feel blocked, I’ll often return to the “Writing” playlist I mentioned above in the hope that I feel something stir within me. I’ll also go for a long walk to clear my head, to make space for “catching thoughts,” to borrow from Dinty W. Moore, and allow my brain and body to identify associations and emotions that might propel my writing forward.
When all else fails, I plead for rain. It’s my favorite weather. And oftentimes the combination of the moody sky and the rain’s refrain is enough to stir something within.
What advice do you have for artists starting out in your medium?
Keep scribbling, be true to your voice, and don’t be too discouraged. Your voice will be wrong for some, and right for one.
J.G.P. MacAdam, author of “Dead and Dumb”
Please share a photo, video, or other visual representation of your workspace or another space of creative inspiration.
I’m not too comfortable sharing pictures of the inside of my house, so I’ll just say: my kitchen counter, my couch, the table, the “office” which is our spare bedroom, our bed, the floor when my back’s out—I write in all these places and spaces. Also, driving my kid to preschool or taking a shower often gives me those oh-so-important moments to reflect on what I was just working on; something often flickers in the back of my brain while I’m planting marigolds or vacuuming or something. My phone, my laptop, sticky notes, the margins of books I’m reading, the inside of my skull in the middle of the night—these are my main writing tableaus. I guess you could say my daily life as a working, dog-walking, lawn-mowing, sometimes-luckily-managing-a-full-night’s-sleep suburban dad is my creative space.
What is (are) your favorite creative ritual(s)? In other words, what habits/practices help you access your creativity?
I think part of my creativity ritual, if I can really be said to exhibit any habits with my writing other than writing everywhere at all times, is that I keep a lot of lists. On sticky-notes and in emails but also in my head. I’ve always got different writing pieces, fiction and nonfiction, novels and essays, on the backburner; not to mention other pieces that are already written but are currently in a wait-and-read-again-in-a-month mode; as well as a constant churn of pieces out on submission; and pieces pulled from submission for rewrite because they’re being rejected left and right; and pieces abandoned; and pieces currently in the throes of research and general (read: usually pointless) outlining; plus pieces I’m just planning to write and taking notes on and and regularly sending said notes to myself in 100-email long threads; and pieces I’ve audio-recorded but which require more editing or rerecording; and pieces I drafted years ago but realized I need to read one or two or twenty books before finishing; and (the very best) pieces that need only a few finishing touches before they’re ready for primetime, or at least I like to think are ready. In short, I’m in a place right now with my writing routine that there’s always something I need to be working on.
Where did you create your piece(s) for Vol. 11? Did your chosen spaces influence your work(s), and if so, how?
Phew, I probably got the initial draft for “Dead and Dumb” down over the course of a week or so in September 2022. I distinctly recall trying a new nap routine for our (at the time) toddler. I sat next to him on the couch and spread the black-and-brown blanket over us. The TV was on Dora the Explorer, volume turned low. The curtains were drawn. My laptop was on my lap. My kid sat still and, over the course of fifteen minutes or so, he slowly closed his eyes and conked the heck out. I was afraid to move, lest I wake him. So I sat, a copy of The Aeneid, and me, and my laptop, and my snoozing kid, and I finished out the final sections of this piece before nap time ended.
What other media (music, movies, books, etc.) influenced your work(s) for Vol. 11?
I’m glad you asked! Many of the books I had open while composing this piece include: Enuma Elish: The Babylonian Creation Epic, by T.J. Stephany; The Sungod's Journey Through the Netherworld: Reading the Ancient Egyptian Amduat by A. Schweizer; J. Ciardi’s 1954 translation of Dante’s Inferno; and F. Ahl’s translation of Virgil’s Aeneid for Oxford University Press. Not to mention binge-listening to Dominic Perry’s The History of Egypt Podcast and Doug Metzger’s Literature and History Podcast. (And I think I just revealed how much of a hopeless geek I truly am.)
What jumpstarts your creativity when you’re feeling blocked?
Time, or rather the fear of running out of it.
What advice do you have for artists starting out in your medium?
There are no shortcuts. This writing stuff is hard, takes a lot of time, often results in work that never sees the light of day. You gotta love something about the work itself; be infatuated with words themselves in some way. So, don’t be too hard on yourself. Keep working and the words will come. Also: Eat something. You’ll feel better. ;)
Tim Walker, author of “The Lost Summer”
What is (are) your favorite creative ritual(s)? In other words, what habits/practices help you access your creativity?
I read a lot, and very widely. I have a large number of intellectual interests, and I follow them all simultaneously and look for connections between them. When I identify a promising theme, I research it online and start collecting links to related information and writing short paragraphs that might fit in with it. The theme has to have personal resonance, so I also mine my memory for experiences that relate to it.
Where did you create your piece(s) for Vol. 11? Did your chosen spaces influence your work(s), and if so, how?
My workspace is ideas, and books in which ideas play a central part, so I chose to depict this with a photo of two of the fifteen bookshelves in my personal library.
What other media (music, movies, books, etc.) influenced your work(s) for Vol. 11?
I mention this in general terms in my essay, but I can be more specific. I no longer own many of the books I read then, but I have an artifact from that era of my life, a term paper from a one-month “short quarter” at SUNY, when I took an independent study class with Robert Neville, then a professor in the philosophy department. About 5,300 words in length, and omitting all the personal stuff in "The Lost Summer," its title is an alliterative definition of paradox: "The Coincidence of Contraries." My epigraph is from William Barrett’s Irrational Man (1958), an introduction to existentialism my parents gave me for Christmas when I was a broody high-schooler: "From the point of view of reason, any faith, including the faith in reason itself, is paradoxical." The endnotes of my term paper refer to works by Karl Jaspers, Ronald Laing, Thomas Merton, Rollo May, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, among others.
What jumpstarts your creativity when you’re feeling blocked?
I find it helps to read new essays or to reread essays by the writers I love. (The first of these in order of preference is Joan Didion. One of her favorite words, which often turns up in her essays, is febrile. As a tribute to her, I have used it in “The Lost Summer” and in some other published essays.)
What advice do you have for artists starting out in your medium?
If your goal is to make money, or even a living, from writing, then you will probably want to cultivate a journalistic persona. My advice is for those who, like me, have no need or desire to do that: Just be yourself. No one can do a better job of being you.
