Sean Murphy

Sean Murphy is the Founding Director of 1455, a non-profit that celebrates storytelling. He has appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered" and been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and AdAge. A long-time columnist for PopMatters, his work has also appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, The Good Men Project, Sequestrum, Blue Mountain Review, and others. His chapbook, The Blackened Blues, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. His second collection of poems, Rhapsodies in Blue was published by Kelsay Books in 2023, and This Kind of Man, his first collection of short fiction, is forthcoming in 2024. He has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize, twice for Best of Net, and his book Please Talk about Me When I'm Gone was the winner of Memoir Magazine's 2022 Memoir Prize. To learn more, and read his published short fiction, poetry, and criticism, please visit seanmurphy.net/ and @bullmurph. Q&A with Sean Murphy by Indie Author News (2014) Q: Who are your favorite writers, your favorite books, and who or what are your writing influences? A: So many writers and books! I've been especially inspired by Hawthorne, Melville, Flannery O'Connor, Ralph Ellison, Milan Kundera, Kurt Vonnegut, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Keats, Shelley and Bukowski. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is one of the important books in my life, and I regularly revisit Catch 22, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Great Gatsby, and anything by Orwell. Q: When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer? A: When I shifted from comic books to children's books (Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain had a tremendous impact) and, eventually, to Stephen King, I fell in love with the idea of creating stories, as well as reading them. As early as grade school I began writing poems and short stories and, with the encouragement of some remarkable teachers, kept plugging along. I was on my high school newspaper staff and by the time I got to college, I was learning how to write both fiction and non-fiction, some of which got published. Along the way the act of writing was less a decision and more a simple reality: it was what I did, and I've continued to do it, always seeking to improve, learn and expand the ways I communicate. Q: Do you remember the first story you ever wrote? A: I do. It was a very short story entitled "Never Let a Black Cat Cross Your Path" which reflected my interest in scary stories--and likely was heavily influenced by some of the work I was reading at the time. Most of my early short stories were imitative of Poe, as was a great deal of my initial attempts at poetry. When I was in high school I wrote a longer (20pp) story and that may have been the first time I realized this was something I could aspire toward doing more of. Q: Tell us about your writing process. Do you have a writing routine? A: I've always envied the discipline of writers who have a set routine: waking up before sunrise, cranking out a thousand words or so before breakfast. Or the lucky (and talented!) authors who are able to sustain themselves through writing and have time to set aside each day. For me, it's always been a frenetic balance between work, life, sleep, reading and human interaction. But any writer understands early on that there are myriad distractions and excuses: in order to get writing done one has to write; often and badly. The moments one lives for are when you get obsessed by an idea and see it through to fruition. These are the times when sleep, socializing and even eating become secondary. For a longer project, like my memoir -which took several years to complete--it necessitates a different type of discipline; a more marathon than sprint mentality. That said, my response to people when they ask how often I write or how I've managed to write so much, is simple: I seldom watch TV. Q: Please, describe your desk/workplace. A: I do have a desk, by a window, with a computer. But I'm old school: I write the way I always have, on a legal pad, in longhand, usually sitting on the floor on my old wooden coffee table that has absorbed spills of ink, beer, wine, candle wax and sweat. No blood, as of yet. I am obsessed with music, so I invariably am listening to music (typically without words) when I compose. Q: What do you find easiest about writing? What the hardest? A: Easiest? I don't trust any writer for whom writing comes easily. The hardest part, aside from the struggle to make time for it, is the ceaseless self-doubt and insecurity that accompanies almost any writing endeavor. Even when I write an 800 word music review -albeit one that will be published--I always have to gear myself up for the task: I need to ensure I know as much about the topic at hand as possible, have done my homework and do the subject justice. For personal writing, including essays and fiction (and, of late, memoirs), there is often the concern of being able to translate what you see in your mind onto the page. So often scribbled words, however eloquent, seem such a pale approximation of the vision or idea that occasionally inspires the story. Q: What is the greatest joy of writing for you? A: For me writing is always an act of communication, an attempt to initiate a dialogue--even an internal one. Being able to share ideas or thoughts or emotions with people (friends, family, strangers) and hear from them that you've managed to describe something they can relate to, or a feeling they thought they alone held, is supremely gratifying. The act of seeing a longer project through from conception to execution is something any writer should be proud of. As someone who possesses an active imagination and a sensitivity that occasionally is too acute by half, it's wonderful having an outlet that helps me interrogate the thoughts, fears and passions that fuel my life; to think anything I write can have a positive impact on anyone else is the best gift I could give or receive. Q: Can you give some advice for other Authors regarding the writing process? A: First and foremost: read and write all the time. It's the most basic and ostensibly simple advice, but it's crucial. I meet aspiring writers all the time who talk about what they want to do (or will do) "eventually." Writing material that aspires to connect in a meaningful way with a broader audience involves hours and years of hard, often unfulfilling work. Don't quit your day job, but treat your writing like it's your life. Seek to execute sentences and scenes you haven't encountered, even in books you admire. Work toward cultivating a unique style and ways to convey familiar -and unfamiliar--themes with honesty and originality. Turn off the television, shut off your phone, and understand the real dirty work that results in quality writing involves lots of long, lonely hours. If you aren't feeling it with all of your being, how can you hope to engage a potential reader? Above all, trust yourself and love yourself: writing is necessarily a solitary endeavor, but you are connecting yourself with a community of special human beings who have made our world demonstrably better. Celebrate the idea of contributing something of yourself to that tradition. Q: When you're not writing, how do you spend your time? A: I do have a day job, and thankfully it affords me an opportunity to write. As with most authors, I'd reckon, the dream is to make a living solely from writing my own work. Of course, an exceedingly small percentage of writers can do this, so it's not only imperative to have a day job, it's important to find one that is meaningful and amenable to one's talents. I used to think I had to write all the time to be a writer; the reality for me is that the time not spent writing can help keep me hungry and insatiable: there is a certain itch that can only be scratched through writing, on one's own time, in one's own space. In some regards, it's a significant blessing to pay the bills and cultivate a balance that is as productive and healthy as possible. When I'm not writing (or reading), I try to experience opposite sensations: being outdoors, working out, interacting with friends, talking, existing without self-consciousness. I also do some of my best thinking while I'm driving; I've been known to pull over or stop in a parking lot to scribble down a thought before it disappears. I'm a huge believer in balance, and each person needs to find what works for them, what inspires them, how much time they need with people or by themselves, and hopefully the life you choose is one that feeds and sustains the creative impulse. https://www.indieauthornews.com/2014/03/indie-author-interview-sean-murphy.html