Award winning fiction writer Jeffrey Ford will be reading on Thursday, March 26, 2015 at 7pm in the Lewis J. Ort Library located on the Frostburg State University campus. He is known for such works as Vanitas (1988), The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque (2002), The Girl in the Glass (2005), and The Shadow Year (2008). This reading is free and open to the public. I was able to speak with Jeff to dicuss his personal writing and revision processes. As an aspiring writer, I found his comments very interesting and insightful. I hope you feel the same.


Your first novel, Vanitas, was published in 1988. In what year did you begin to develop that story? How did it change throughout the process of revision?

Jeffrey Ford: That’s almost 30 years ago, so I’m a little rusty on the details. I do remember that I got the idea for it, or at least the feel of it, by meshing together a copy of The Adventures of Baron Von Munchhausen (with illustrations), which I picked up in a garage sale, and that scene in The Third Man, where Orson Welles is standing beneath the Ferris wheel. Somehow the story came together from those two things. I wrote it on yellow note pads, sitting on the floor in the basement of a row house my wife and I were renting in South Philadelphia. The editing process largely took place in typing it up, and I do mean typing. I didn’t have a computer then. In fact I don’t think anyone had a personal computer yet. The book is unruly and it needs a serious edit still, but it was thrilling work, and I was sure at the time I was writing it that it was a masterpiece. The reality of it set in some time later.


What is your most successful revision strategy? What process would you recommend to beginning writers to help them with their own revisions?

Jeffrey Ford: Every day, before I start forging ahead with a story, I go back and read it through from the beginning, making changes and fiddling with it. Once I’m done with that, I launch forward into the story some more. As the story grows, it refines itself through those daily revisions. With a novel, I go back ten or twenty pages and read forward. When I’m finished, or I think I am with story or novel, I’ll then read the thing over maybe ten more times to see if I caught everything and all is smooth. You’d be surprised what you miss, even with this kind of attention. If you want to be a fiction writer, though, revision is where it’s at. When I got to the point where revising was as exciting as the original process of storytelling, that’s when I started publishing.


Do you have a specific time or place in which you feel you do your best writing? Early mornings? Midnight? Outdoor patio? On the couch?

Jeffrey Ford: For years I wrote late at night, after work, and trained myself to get by on 4 hours of sleep. I had no choice with kids and a full time job. That was fine when I was young, but now that I’m old, I write mostly in the morning after breakfast. When I was young, I was talking to my father-in-law, who was a cartoonist, and I told him I wrote late at night. He told me, “You’ll see eventually. The night is a cruel mistress.” I know now what he meant. I usually go till about 1pm and then that’s it for the day. I have a room I write in, sitting in a swivel chair, at a desk with a computer. I know writers who are very successful who write at cafes and bars and diners. I could never do that. I like those places too, but when I’m in them, I’m always watching and listening for the bits and pieces that become stories. I need to hide away, talk to myself, and play head music without words. My favorite writing music is by Harold Budd.


As an award winning fiction writer, what is the most important piece of advice you could give to young writers who are just starting out?

Jeffrey Ford: Here’s a list of 20 suggestions:
1. You gotta love your work.
2. Revision is the key.
3. Master the skill of daydreaming and from time to time analyze its processes.
4. Be a practiced observer.
5. Take time to talk to friendly strangers.
6. Only by forgetting about the money have I made money.
7. Listen to children and animals.
8. Speak your mind. Let the inmost become the outmost.
9. Enjoy your freakin life.
10. Be kind to other travelers you might meet on the path.
11. Enjoy your colleagues’ successes.
12. One must retain a zest for the battle.
13. You will never learn more from a teacher or a workshop than you will from the act of writing.
14. Swim through libraries.
15. Family and friendships trump the importance of writing.
16. Irony is the engine of the world.
17. Vital fiction is not the result of hiding but an act of revelation.
18. Be skeptical of advice. Try to make your own mistakes.
19. Always try to work with great editors.
20. Never run with the pack as there is always a point where you will be left behind. Strike out on your own. Let your intuition be your guide.


Where do most of your ideas come from? Personal experience? Where do you find your inspiration?

Jeffrey Ford: Well, for starters, from books, life, friends, strangers, students, movies, dogs and cats, comics, colleagues, woods and fields and ocean, children, internet, and dreams.


Michael Schussler