Member Spotlight: Jordan Dotson

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? For me, writing is as essential and unremarkable as breathing. I couldn’t be me without this function, this way of inhaling and exhaling the world. For the world itself, however, I believe that writing—at least the kind of storytelling I pursue—is our species’ collective memory. It’s what remains when our bodies and pride fade away. Stories are our undiluted meaning. They’re not relevant to any other species, nor even to the world, but to us, they’re everything—our inhalations and exhalations. Or, maybe it’s simpler just to say that stories are better than we are, or, at least, have the potential to be, and for that reason they may be the most important thing of all.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Structure. Always know what structure you’re working within. When we have writer’s block, it’s because we don’t know what comes next. Yet, if we stay aware of the universal structures of writing, whether it be in journalism, the novel, an essay, or anything else, we always have at least some clue about what needs to come next, or why other things cannot come next. Musicians, you know, rarely have this problem. The theory of structure is built into everything they do, to the point that it becomes entirely intuitive. For this, they’re rewarded. There have been astonishingly few musicians who can create grand art from pure improvisation. Even the greatest jazz improvisers still have to work with a predetermined key and time signature. Yet for some reason (it might be the fault of the English Romanticists), many writers think that we’re different, that the job itself is to charge ahead blindly. I never do that, and thus, never experience writer’s block. I always take the time to map out a structure. It almost always changes, that structure, but knowing how my own story relates to Freytag’s pyramid, the hero’s journey, or the subtle shape of a favorite novel, this means I always have something to tinker with and make forward progress.

What is your favorite time to write? Nine to five. I treat it like a job. Or, to be completely honest, two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, if possible. I don’t think anyone can accomplish more than four good hours of writing in a day. Treating it like a job is great though, because once that hand on the clock turns over, your brain too clicks into place, and life is now organized to ensure you get the job done.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? It’s cliché, but have the courage to write poorly. It’s true because writing—real writing—is editing, and this can only take place after you’ve generated something imperfect. There’s no such thing as first-draft perfection. For that matter, there’s no such thing as perfection. But splashing out something that’s deeply imperfect, yes, that’s amazing, that’s where the real work begins.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? Probably the same thing that excited Homer, Sappho, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Hank Williams: having an audience. Being able to share emotion and meaning with other human beings. Readers. Just, readers. They’re really all that matters. That said, this may be more difficult today than it’s ever been in history, because there are so many writers, and so many marketing and commercial forces vying for the reader’s attention. But ultimately, there are more readers today than ever before, and that’s certainly exciting. Just imagine: how many readers will there be one hundred years from now? Two hundred? We may not live to know our readers, but our stories can live to be known by them, and how amazing is that?

Jordon Dotson’s The Ballad of Falling Rock is out now with BHC Press.