Daniel Woodrell
I guess it's ridiculously romantic, but I wanted to be a full tilt, sink-or-swim writer.Collection: Romantic
I'm not from the movie world. I'm from the book world.
I rise near dawn, make a strong cup of coffee, wander to my desk and come fully awake by reading something written the day before.
You realize you're alive while you're alive, and you better notice it then, because later, it's hard to see.
I've bumped into at least three people in town who all insist 'Winter's Bone' is about them.
I always loved the verve and vivacity of pulp and I kind of merged it with my own interest in family stories.
There's an overlap between social-realist fiction and crime fiction - a sweet spot there.
The opening novel of the 'Bayou Trilogy' was the first one I finished.
When I started to be a writer, I was not going to run the risk of boring you.
I didn't really expect to be coming to the Oscars.
I felt like a number of things in me as a writer just clicked.
I have a book in the pipeline of short stories. You want to hear an agent scream, say 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.'
But I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books I have to start a new direction.
I joined the Marines the week I turned 17, and that led to a few experiences that might qualify as adventure - eye of the beholder.
Earned a bachelor's at 27, then an M.F.A. that is still completely unused and in mint condition, never taken out of the box.
I am well aware that the writers of New York, London, and Toronto are more readily noticed, though the shadowy and potent Ozarks Literary Cabal does what it can for me, then nightly joins me for dinner and calls me 'honey.'
I tell the story by feel most of the time, and I am not much given to labyrinthian digressions but seem to be naturally drawn to compression and pace, and the feelings come about on their own.
One of the interesting things about the Ozarks is you just about don't have street crime. It's strictly between people who know each other. It really isn't indiscriminate; it's kind of between themselves.
I was born in West Plains, and we lived here till I was one. Then my dad needed to get a job, so we moved to the St. Louis area. I lived in St. Charles, on the Missouri River, till I was 15.
I liked my fellow Marines. I didn't like pointless orders.
I just really like the verve and muscle of good crime fiction, the narrative punch of it. The underlying principle of good crime fiction is an insistence on a kind of root democracy. I've always responded to that notion.
There are people so alienated from the mainstream of American culture that it's like a parallel universe. They don't expect anything but trouble from the square world. Every time they interact with that world, they're given a ticket, sent to jail, drafted. It's never good. So they live by a separate value system.
I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books, I have to start a new direction.
You want to hear an agent scream, say, 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.'
The town of St. Charles near St. Louis was founded by a trapper named Blanchette. There is a section that's called Frenchtown on historical markers.
I'm always writing about character first. Plot, such as it is, comes from the characters.
For a long time, I didn't think I wanted to live in the Ozarks or write about the region. It seemed to be a sure recipe for obscurity, and to be obscure was not my conscious ambition.
We'd been living in the Arkansas Ozarks, then the Missouri Ozarks, because it is so inexpensive and does have natural wonders, but we shuffled things and moved to San Francisco, the corner of Dashiell Hammett and Pine.
I came back when I'd had a taste of other places and realized that I would never feel the same sense of connection to any place other than the Ozarks.
I'd just lie around all day. It's the chemo, the poison they pump into you. Sometimes I'd be walking across the room and think, 'There it is; I got to rest.' And I had to, right then.
I had bill collectors chasing me. We were skipping from town to town, not leaving forwarding addresses. The agent couldn't find me when he sold my book. He finally found me.
When poetry is on the money, 12 words can slay you. I admire that greatly.
I'd met some awfully tough gals in my life, and I find them compelling, if I don't have to socialize with them too much.
I can't say that dropping out of school at 16 to join the Marines was my best idea. On the other hand, maybe it was. Who knows?
If you don't allow yourself to change from book to book - take chances - it turns into a dullish job with no health benefits or pension plan and only intermittent paychecks.
I have always loved short stories. I have been at least as influenced by the short story masters as I have been by novelists.
It's called 'The Outlaw Album,' not 'The Ozarks Album.' These are stories that delve into different kinds of outlawry, from criminal acts to interior, or psychological, outlawry. The book is not meant to be a tapestry of the Ozarks.
I love Shakespeare and the Greeks - learned a lot studying them at one time.
I think all regions have had their peculiarities of speech rounded off by television, radio, and people travel so much more now.
I always gravitate towards anything from Ireland. With Irish lit, I love the use of language, but also in many instances, the Irish writers are writing about people and circumstances that I can relate to.
I have a Ford Taurus, and I don't care who knows it.
If I weren't so lazy, I would have 14 books, not eight.
I don't think I can write a book as nihilistic as some of my early ones. They're so bleak. I don't think I would enjoy that as much anymore. You really become fixated on ways out.
I realized there might be monetary or financial reasons to jump in and write a 'Winter's Bone Retriumphs' or something, and nobody would object to me doing that in publishing. But it would be a waste of my time, and they always take a little longer than you thought they would take.
In February of 1972, a snowstorm blew into Kansas City, and I decided to hitchhike to California. The roads were icy, snowflakes howling, and nobody would drive me to the highway, so I humped through the snow and ice and caught a ride with a concerned cop to the Kansas Turnpike.
It was in a grim room on Eddy Street that I finally opened 'A Moveable Feast.' I read it all overnight. I read it again the next day.
I've always been fascinated by the Mississippi River and the way of life in these small river towns.
This happens to me all the time: I think I'm working on one thing, but this other thing, whether I want it to or not, keeps coming through.
I was reading newspaper front pages from the 1930s, and I was taken aback. I'm not naive about American history, but I was a bit knocked off my feet by things that used to be on the front pages of newspapers.
I'm very attracted to poetry for all the reasons someone likes poetry. The notion of compression seems to fit my personality.