I try to write about how we live today, how we use language, technology, our bodies. Dana Spiotta More Quotes by Dana Spiotta More Quotes From Dana Spiotta I am one Dana when I am talking to my daughter, another when I am talking to the IRS, and another still when I do an interview. These characters are just extreme versions of ordinary human self-switching. Dana Spiotta daughter self character I find poignancy in the moments when a person realizes that she has made mistakes. I am not as interested in the mistakes themselves as I am with the consequences and how the person responds to her realization. Dana Spiotta realizing realization mistake I think most writers have to have a practice of writing. For me it is very early in the morning. I try to make it a separate world from the rest of my life. Dana Spiotta writing morning thinking My teaching exists in a different part of my brain. However, I am lucky enough to teach very smart graduate students. Dana Spiotta smart teaching brain I take the outline from a real person as inspiration, but the in-line is totally made up. Which is why I usually invent imaginary names. Dana Spiotta inspiration real names I like to mix the real and the imaginary. Sometimes it is characters inspired by real people I know or know of. Sometimes it is a named person from the common cultural dreamscape. And it is tricky, because they have a lot of associated ideas that come with them, and a lot of actual facts. Dana Spiotta real character ideas You are always working towards the moments in which characters experience reckonings or insight or change. I like to track them past those moments. Dana Spiotta track character past Usually there is a paradox in what a character wants. A conflict is built deeply within them. And then you put them in motion, throw everything at them until they reveal themselves further. Dana Spiotta conflict want character When I write characters, I need to hear their voice. As soon as I get them speaking, and I feel how they use language, I understand who they are and what they want. Dana Spiotta voice writing character I want what I write to be deeply engaging and strange and true. Dana Spiotta strange want writing The writer has to be brave, I think. Dana Spiotta be-brave brave thinking The writer has to take risks and go somewhere full of mystery and possibility for the novel to deepen over the years it takes to write it. Dana Spiotta risk writing years There are lots of authentic, moving characters in so-called systems novels, just as there are certainly deep structural ideas in some character-driven novels. Dana Spiotta character ideas moving My teaching forces me to articulate what I think works in a piece of fiction and how I think it works. All of that gives me energy as a writer. Dana Spiotta teaching giving thinking
