My esteemed colleague Grant Jarrett, author of Ways of Leaving and More Towels, tagged me to take part in the Writing Process Blog Tour, so here goes. Make sure you scroll down to see who I tag… 

What are you working on?

I’m working on two new things: a dystopian, near-future novel about the collapse of the health care system and revising a book of short stories about cats and mind control.

How does your work differ from the work of others in the same area/genre?

This is tricky for me because I don’t think I have a genre, and the work I’ve been able to finish lately is the result of being okay with that. For instance, my novel Forest of Fortune is categorized as a mystery, but that doesn’t come close to covering all the bases. The novel cozies up to the supernatural and collides with crime, but it also deals with casino culture, advertising, addiction and loneliness. Because it’s set on an Indian casino I imagine some stores will shelve it in the Native American section next to a biography of Geronimo and others will shelve in the Gambling. I’m not a genre writer (NTTAWWT) but everything I write has one foot in one genre, and the other foot in another. Sometimes more than one. Sometimes many feet. So there’s your answer: I’m a centipede.

Why do you write what you do?

I think my mind has a counterfactual bend. Yeah, that’s interesting, but what if…. I’m fascinated by history. I’m intrigued by ordinary people in extraordinary situations. I can’t get enough of stories about things going wrong during periods of organized confusion and ordinary madness, like a psychotic break during spring break. How can you tell when someone is going crazy when everyone is “going crazy”? That’s what I did with Forest of Fortune: I put a bunch of people with compulsive behavior issues who are haunted by the past in a casino that may or may not be haunted.

How does your writing process work?

I’ve learned two things about my process over the last few years: 1) If it worked before, it probably won’t work again. That old saw about having to start from the ground up and reinvent the wheel is definitely true for me. If a method, approach, or location worked on one project, it probably won’t work on the next one. On January 1, I started using a daily word count – one page a day – for my book projects and that has worked wonders. At least for now. 2) Embrace change. I’m a creature of habit with a strong inclination toward laziness, yet few things are more stimulating than a change of scenery. The last two years have been marked by constant movement as I shuttled back and forth between Los Angeles and San Diego, but they’ve been very productive years. I’m moving back to San Diego next month but will keep moving, keep exploring, keep mixing things up. 

Next up on the Writing Process Blog Tour:

Maggie Thach is an award-winning journalist whose byline has appeared in The Fresno Bee, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Reno Gazette Journal and other news outlets across the country. In a past life, she was a sports reporter at The Salt Lake Tribune, where she covered high school, college and professional sports. These days, she’s working on a memoir and figuring out what to do with an MFA in creative nonfiction.

Julia Evans is a writer in San Diego. Her work has appeared at Hobart, Black Candies, and So Say We All’s storytelling showcases. She is a PEN in the Community instructor. Follow: @juliadixonevans. I should probably update my blog with a bio one of these days.