This was from a mini book promotion for Sleep Walking Under The Moon Soul of Lake Michigan. Click on picture after to buy book. Anyway, Here is a short section from one of the interviews that will be out there-somewhere-soon.
Q: What in your academic and/or career background best prepared you for the commitment it takes to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard)?
A.H.K: Going to college and writing papers is where I think the preparation for the discipline aspect of writing came from. Inspired from professors that said “dig further” into your essays. Going to the libraries and turning through the pages of old books and scholarly articles, and it’s strange to think, that even back then we weren’t really allowed to site the internet as source material.
Writing really was an extension of a research based approach for me. It takes time, and staying up all night and writing those papers, wading within those “aha moments”; trying to figure out what anything is about. The long hours I used to burn with (and unfortunately still do), writing theoretical papers on philosophy and sociology really prepared me for the solitary life of writing.
Discipline is by far the most important aspect to writing, other than Imagination and the will to write, and even I admit, it’s something I struggle with, especially in a time with so many media outlets constantly buzzing around.
Really, just keep going, and man I can only laugh, because I’m only thirty one, but writing takes growth and it starts to click. I’m only getting somewhere near “there” lately. You have to keep practicing and reading and refining, and also though, I was trying to document everything, and laughably, I was trying to be the best writer on the planet. Early on I wanted to be a “writer”, and what does a writer do? They write. So I typed and typed and made a mess out of everything, including at times, my own damn life. But what I did, the whole damn time, was write.
Quickly, I also think that you have to want to be a good person, whatever that means. I think the writer often writes to achieve a zen type of mentality, trying to come to some level of sophistication we call peace within both oneself and the world. The search for wisdom and growth seem to be core essentials of the writers we call “the great ones”. It’s hard being human, we all know that, and in the end, no matter what it is, being a good citizen or a good writer, only humans, but a good writer is always trying, trying to be better.
(Click Picture to buy)
Adventures In American Writing 