Lynn Kilpatrick’s essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Ninth Letter, and Ocean State Review. Her collection of short stories, In the House, was published by FC2. She earned her PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Utah, and she teaches at Salt Lake Community College.
What is most difficult about writing?
For me, I think it’s understanding and honoring the difference between what I want and what the piece I’m working on is, wants, or needs to be. That sounds kind of hokey, but I’ve come to appreciate that sometimes a piece needs to be an essay or a story or a sonnet, and if I’m trying to make it a novel, it’s not going to work no matter what I do. Sometimes it takes a lot of writing to find the form. And maybe even more difficult is coming to the realization of the fact that something isn’t working, and then letting it go.
What is your philosophy of failure?
Well, since I fail a lot, I guess I’m pro-failure. I think if you’re not failing, then you’re probably not making yourself vulnerable enough, whether in the act of writing or in the act of seeking publication. I think failure is a sign of working towards the edges, which I always want to do. I think the worst thing is to fail at something you didn’t want to do in the first place, to try it against your own best intuition and then fail. That feels like a waste of time. I guess if I’m working towards the edges, then automatically it doesn’t feel like a failure.
I guess part of my philosophy is redefining what “failure” is. Is it work that is never published? I guess I don’t feel like that’s a failure, because I think everything a writer writes is part of her education. It’s a step or an exercise that leads to something else.
I guess I would consider it a failure if I rejected everything that had brought me to this point. But then again, maybe in the future that will be necessary in order to make the next big leap. I guess failure is not trying, or just doing the same thing over and over for external approval instead of trusting your own instincts.
What is the biggest mistake you have made as a writer?
I think the biggest mistake I’ve made is not understanding my own writing habits better. I’m not an every day writer, that doesn’t work for me, but I haven’t figured out what does. Between my job, my exercise addiction, my son, my dog, my social life, I don’t prioritize writing enough. For me, it’s about balance, and lately the scales have tipped in the direction of exercise and socializing. For a few years, I had a good habit of writing in the morning and teaching at night, but as I’ve been teaching longer, my focus has been pulled away. I really love my students, and so I think I might have been spending too much energy on their writing and not enough on my own. I’m hoping I can figure this out a bit more on sabbatical!
What is the biggest mistake you have made as a person?
That’s a rough one. I pride myself on being blunt, to a fault, perhaps, but I’d have to say not being honest with others or myself. I think I’m better at that now, but it’s not always easy. On the flip side, I’m not always diplomatic, so I know I’ve hurt people’s feelings, even when I’ve not meant to, even when I meant to do the opposite. I think also, to go back a bit, I’ve cared too much what other people think. Wow, this is one entangled answer. But it’s all related, of course.
I think a woman has to be a bit of a bitch to be an artist. I don’t mean she has to be mean, I mean she has to be protective of herself and her art and her time, and sometimes that leads to hurt feelings and negativity all around. So, I guess my mistake is not being better at walking that line between mean and protective. I know some people who do it really well, so I should try to emulate them more.
What is your best failure story?
My favorite one involves a short story I wrote, “The Professor.” I sent it out and it kept getting rejected, from magazines, from prizes, but I knew there was something good in it, something really honest. The story is based on a few true things, mainly a professor I had in a graduate program who died of a heroin overdose. So I kept working on the story, but nothing much happened.
I was at AWP when I heard Peter Turchi on a panel. He said he gave his students an assignment to destroy a piece of writing, just wreck it. That really sparked my interest, so I went back to the story with the intention of destroying it, turning it inside out.
I had written a sestina story once, and I had written a crown of sonnets essay, so I was already interested in using poetic forms with prose. When I went back to “The Professor,” I wanted to keep some of the original writing, but I wanted to be able to discuss the real events, to mull them over with the reader.
What happened was I wrote a sestina essay which used repeating end words, just like the poem, but instead of lines, I used sentences. Each sentence had a footnote, some of which included sections of the story, and some of which included explanations. The essay maintained the third person, but in the essay the “she” is definitely me, versus the story, where some of the scenes are invented.
The failed story turned into a successful essay, which was accepted the first time I sent it out, to the Exploring the Boundaries section of Creative Nonfiction.
I’m really proud of that essay because I feel like I listened to the piece (finally) and understood what it needed to be. I found a form that really fit the ideas, emotions, and events of the piece. So what could have been a failed story became a successful essay.
This story from my own writing history gives me hope for other projects which are in various states of failure right now. I’m also holding it in the back of my mind as I embark on a new non-fiction project. I’m not sure of the form it will take, but I’m hoping it will show me.
