Author photo credit: Allison Michael Orenstein; Art Direction: The Magazine of Yoga

Ten Breaths of Inspiration for the Writing Life

BY MAGAZINE COLUMNIST CORINNA BARSAN

Emma Straub’s debut collection of stories, Other People We Married, will be published in February. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Paris Review Daily, Juked, Barrelhouse, The Saint Ann’s Review, and many other journals.

Emma is a native New Yorker, and thinks that you should go to Mala Yoga the next time you’re in Brooklyn.

Author website www.otherpeoplewemarried.com

Five Chapters website where you can buy Other People We Married

And groovy indie bookstores where you can buy Emma’s book, too!

The Magazine of Yoga On The Lit Mat Interview

one

Who or what was your greatest influence in picking up the pen?

Books and stories were an enormous part of my childhood, so I suppose my greatest influence would have to be my parents. Some of my earliest memories are of my parents reading me to sleep. There still is no greater pleasure. How could I not want to contribute?

two

In what ways do you make room for the creative process in your
day-to-day?

I feel very lucky in that much of my day-to-day life is creative.

Not only do I write, but I also design and screenprint posters with my husband (mplusedesign.com), so my creative brain is usually on. It is often hard to prioritize my various activities, but whatever I’m doing, it’s creative.

Well, I also spend a lot of time thinking about what I want for dinner. And lunch. And a mid-afternoon snack.

three

Which one word, image, sound, feeling, or memory defines the act of writing for you?

Dedication.

In the last eight years, since I graduated from college, I have spent more time writing than doing any other job—I’ve written stories, essays, more novels than I care to admit. Some of the things I wrote in that time have been published, but most have not.

For me, the beauty in writing comes from the perseverance, in the belief that what I write will get better over time, as long as I keep practicing, and that the practice itself is what I love to do.

four

How do you find inspiration when the well runs dry?

I have a long list of stories to write—some are well thought out full ideas, some are just phrases or images. Whenever I finish a project, all I have to do is take a tiny peek at that list, and I’m off and running.

five

Is there a tidbit of writing advice that has stayed with you over the years?

Keep your butt in the chair.

I am a twitchy person by nature, and find it nearly impossible to sit still for longer than five minutes, but if I stay put long enough, work magically gets done. A stronger woman than I would also say that turning off the internet works wonders, but I wouldn’t know anything about that.

six

What is something you know now about writing that you didn’t know when you were just starting out?

Well, I’m certainly just starting out, in terms of my life as a professional writer, but one thing I’ve heard several far more accomplished writers say over and over again is that it never gets easier. Everyone has to relearn how to write a novel or a short story every single time.

I find that terribly reassuring, that we’re all in it together, feeling around in the dark.

seven

Whether you do yoga or another form of physical or spiritual practice, how does it affect your work?

To me, yoga and writing are more similar than they are different. Both are about trying to stay focused, about slowing down, about making the time to do something that is, at core, more about the process than the end-result.

I started practicing yoga in 2004, and I can say without exaggeration that it has made me a calmer, kinder person, and I’m sure that those qualities have also imbued my work.

eight

What is your most favorite guilty pleasure?

I don’t feel guilty about much. There are a lot of things that I love that are completely ridiculous, though, and I will happily list a small number of them here: movies about teenagers, reality competition shows, red fingernail polish, Twitter, cheese. I could go on and on.

nine

If you had to pick one book to recommend as a must-read,
which would it be?

This year, it’s Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. Just an astonishing novel, as vivid a book as I’ve ever read. If I could pick a book from any year, right now I’d pick Martin Dressler, by Steven Millhauser, or maybe John Williams’ Stoner. Those are both a little depressing, though, so one can always turn to Jennifer for a pick-me-up.

ten

What is on your nightstand now?

Right now I’m reading Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies, which is a total delight. Boarding school novels get me every time.

Also on my nightstand is my Five Year Diary, which is one of my most prized possessions. I’m on the third year, so every day I get to see what I was doing last year, and the year before. There is a remarkable consistency—lots of yoga, lots of writing, lots of talk about food.

What can I say—a girl likes what she likes.

You can find Corinna’s musings and discoveries on her blog at Shiny White Page.

© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.