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HOW HE DISCOVERED WRITING

About 15 or 16 years ago, I was working at a record store and had never really considered writing. The guy that owned the record store, Jim Boylston, was a big reader, and he would come in once a week with a stack of books. After a while I asked him what sort of things he was reading, and he introduced me to authors such as Raymond Carver and Larry Brown.

I started reading these guys, and because many of their characters were normal people, or at least people like me or my family, I thought, "Oh, I can do this." I was näive, but it did get me writing and taught me that characters in stories and novels didn't have to live in New York or work as models or actors.

HIS LATEST BOOK, 'FRACTURE CITY'

It's a collection of 25 short stories that range from two to 20 pages. The oldest story in the book is probably about 12 years old. When I was starting to write these stories, I didn't think it would be a short-story collection. I was just writing. And then it got to the point where I had enough stories to make a collection, so I started sending it out.

One thing that struck me as I was putting the collection together is that there seem to be a few consistent themes running through the stories. I don't set out to write about themes, but there were three things that stuck out to me.

One has to do with love triangles. There were a few stories about two guys pursuing the same woman. There were stories about being a young X-ray tech, which were written at the time when I had just started working in the medical field. The third group are father-and-son stories. My son is 6 years old, so in the last six years, that's obviously been a focus in my life, and I think it's affected my writing. So, it seems to me, again without trying to, the collection shows a change in the things I write about and the things that concern me.

HIS FIRST NOVEL

It's a funny thing. It's an amazing feeling. It's sort of everything you imagine it would be, but at the same time, it's nothing at all like you imagine. It is great when you have a book and you hold it in your hands and think, "This is what I've been working for." It's the tangible result of years of work. But at the same time, as you hold your book, you still have to take the trash out and vacuum.

I've been very fortunate to publish two books ("Portisville" and "Fracture City" ) now. Still, each time I sit down to write it's not any easier. When you're staring at that blank computer screen, it doesn't matter that you've published two books.

HIS WORK AS AN X-RAY TECHNICIAN

I started doing it before I was writing, and I think in some ways working outside of the literary community shows you there's more to life than writing. So, when you do sit down to write, you better make it count. I think working in the health care field, you can't help but appreciate life. It makes me appreciate the fact that I get to write at all.

HIS WRITING PROCESS

I get up very early, before everybody else in the house and write for an hour and a half to two hours a day, five days a week. I think it's sometimes encouraging for new writers to hear that you don't have to spend eight hours a day writing. I find that in 90 minutes I can usually do as much writing as I want to do in a day.

My favorite part of writing is when I have a character do something that surprises me. It's those moments when a character says or does something you weren't expecting that it's fun and exciting.

Alexa Milan is a freelance contributor. Contact her at amilan@elon.edu.

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