(Note: This post originally appeared in Sharon Bially's Women Creating Success series.  Check out her book Veronica's Nap and her website http://veronicas-nap.com for more writers in this series.) 

When I heard last month that Michelle Hover, author of The Quickening, had arranged to take a year-long, unpaid leave from her job teaching writing at Boston University to write her next book, my already sky-high admiration for her soared.  Unlike many, Michelle supports herself entirely, with no spouse providing her livelihood or the roof over her head.  An artist in the purest sense of the term, she's able to devote herself to writing by leading a simple life focused on what's meaningful and essential.  As impressed by this choice as I am by Michelle's fiction, I'm honored to welcome Michelle today to chat with us about how she does it.

 

Q: Has there ever been a time when you've considered devoting your professional life to anything other than writing?  Does the thought ever cross your mind?

MH: Not really.  Lock me up in a regular office nine to five for more than two or three days in a row and I go nuts.  Too many busy bodies, too many collared shirts and pantyhose, too much air conditioning and bad lighting.  I feel like my skin will fall off in such an environment, so that limits my choices.

Still, during those long dry years in my late twenties and early thirties, I was just about ready to give up on writing.  I thought I should do something more directly meaningful, like social work or adopt a gaggle a kids or head out on Peace Corps.  I still think of those things when I've spent several days alone writing and wonder if I'm merely naval gazing, living out the highest form of selfishness.  My teaching helps to balance this feeling.  It means a lot to me to have that connection and try to help.  Often I find myself working two or even three jobs on top of my writing.  If I didn't have to stretch myself so thin to both make a living and do what I love, I would have the extra hours to devote to work as a hospice  volunteer or mentoring kids.  Everyone must feel this way though.

Q: Does teaching writing make your work as a writer easier, or harder?  In what ways?

MH: My course at Boston University is titled The Craft of Fiction.  It's a course in analytical writing, not creative writing.  Still, I ask students to read thinkers and writers such as Aristotle, Henry James, James Woods, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, John Barth, Charles Baxter, etc., then apply the author's ideas to a short story or novel to analyze whether or not the theories hold.  Surprisingly they do, though usually in subtle, fascinating ways.  I've carried that background to my teaching at Grub Street and my own work as well.  I believe we all have an inherent sense of story and pacing.  It's only our egos, laziness and fear--as well as the worst reflections and pressures of contemporary culture--that get in the way of following our instincts.  The above writers merely name parts of plotting and form that are already in our DNA.  Being able to identify, use, mangle, and raise my natural expectations as a writer and reader has helped my work tenfold.

Q: What sacrifices have you made in choosing a purely literary path?  Which ones have been the most challenging, and how have you dealt with them?

MH: For years, I had boyfriends who complained they never saw me in the daylight.  I write in the afternoons, about five to six hours every afternoon including weekends, and leave my mornings and evenings for my other work and play.  I'm such a slow writer that any less feels like I'm spinning my wheels.  Most of my friends are writers and artists, so they understand the pressures. To get any writing done, you have spend a great deal of time alone.  It will make you feel crazy. I probably am crazy.  But I've built strong relationships around me now that are wonderfully supportive.  Truthfully, I can't imagine my life any other way.

Q: On the flip side, how has this been rewarding?

MH: Imagine building a whole world just from your head.  Imagine falling into such a place for hundreds of pages over several years.  Imagine others reading it, sinking their feet in, saying that the world you put on the page reminds them of their childhoods, brings back the voice of their mothers and grandmothers, brings back the landscape they were born into.  There's nothing close.

Q: What kind of support has made your writing possible -- or at least easier?

MH: Over the years, I received small awards, publications, and recognitions that kept me going. Ursula Hegi nominated my work for Best New American Voices when I first attended the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference in my twenties. When I made it into the final publication, I was the one of the first paying participants at the conference to do so.  That attention helped get the attention of my agent, Esmond Harmsworth, who has stuck with me for years.  Lan Samantha Chang awarded me the PEN/New England Discovery Award in Fiction when I was broke, recently divorced, and had just moved my life to Boston.  I won a residency at Bucknell University for several blissful and isolated writing months.  When I thanked Ursula for all her help, she merely said, "Next time, it'll be your turn to help someone else."  I was amazed she would even think I'd ever be in that position.  I'm now been a judge in several writing contests and been able to award work I consider phenomenal, if overlooked.  I've seen some of my students get published, and tried to support them every way I could.  Though I'm not yet at the level where I can really make a huge difference for someone, I'm trying.  I don't think many of these writers and organizations realize the difference they make in someone's life.  I can never be grateful enough.

Q: There's been a lot of buzz lately about the potentially disadvantaged position of women as authors and in the literary world.  What's your take on this?

MH: I sometimes wonder if the rarity of male fiction writers today (at least in ratio to female fiction writers) draws them more attention than female fiction writers draw.  I wonder too if readers of fiction--who themselves are primarily women--aren't simply more attracted in some instinctive way to a male voice.  Of course, the above doesn't take into account the dominance of male editors and reviewers in the most esteemed publications.  That's another issue .  Still, I wish we could banish the terms "Women's Fiction" and "Chick Lit."  They are in themselves rather sexist.  Critics, reviewers, and award panels still consider literary fiction finer and more significant today than genre fiction, and I unfortunately (or not) share this snobbery.  If two of our most popular genres have synonyms of the word "female" tacked onto them, and if genre is considered a lesser form by those who judge such things, it falls to reason that the female writer is considered lesser.

I wish writers who are trying to produce serious work would refuse these labels and the oversimplified formulas that come with them, though writers often have little power to turn their backs on the market.  I know some fine writers whose publishers have stamped them with genre terms whether the writers like it or not.  I know writers who are trying out these forms just to have fun.  I don't really have a problem with that.  Good genre fiction is still damn hard to write. Still, I wish publishers and bookstores would see these labels for the dangerous misnomers they are.  If Applebees and Chilis were suddenly stamped "women's restaurants," wouldn't there be an outcry amongst foodies?  And would anyone complain if these restaurants, however popular and profitable, weren't reviewed in the national dining pages (unless those pages already regularly reviewed Red Robins).

Refusing such formulas is likely what Jennifer Egan was referring to when she encouraged women not to "cower," to instead stand up for their unique visions of the world.  It's difficult. Woman writers receive more hate mail (often from women) when they dare to produce immoral characters or less than happy endings.  Why don't we smile while serving our tea?  In truth, whenever I see the word "Women's Fiction" on a book, I steer the other way.  I don't think I'm the only reader to do so.  How strange when women themselves find what is considered "Women's Fiction" tedious?  How are we not supposed to doubt ourselves and our choices to be writers while such labels exist?

Q: You've mentioned that you hope the salary pinch of taking a year off from work won't make you too nervous to keep "moving forward and having a fine time" writing your new novel.  How do you manage to stay focused and centered amid that type of uncertainty?

MH: I was raised by Depression-era parents who instilled in me a strong sense of work, simplicity, and penny-pinching.  The fact that I'll have to dip into my savings this year, that I'll be living outside my means no matter how little I spend, is anti-ethical to everything I've been taught about money.  That's what makes me nervous.  Still, I know my mother is very excited for me.  She's seen how hard I've worked and knows I've earned some time.  And I think my late father would consider it an investment in my future.  I think he would be proud.

Q: How DO you plan to pay those darn bills this year?  Have you had to make any difficult choices, say, between electricity and chocolate?

MH: I'll be teaching a little at Grub Street where we're doing some exciting new programs on the novel, but the work won't be much.  Grub is a nonprofit, so the pay is limited despite all the wonderful things they do.  Otherwise, I'll be living on savings and keeping a close eye on what comes in and out.  In truth, I keep my life pretty simple, so I don't have a lot of bills.  It's only the luxuries that will have to go.  I'll certainly have to limit my love of eating out and those glasses of red wine.

Q: The working title of your new novel, Bottomland, alludes to being down on your luck and hitting the bottom of the barrel, yet reaching the richest soil.  You've suggested that this year without a safety net will bring similar gifts.  What resources do you draw upon to find such profound faith and courage?

MH: The support of friends and family mostly.  Truthfully, I don't feel that I'm being very courageous.  I'm being practical.  In order for me to move ahead, I have to slow down. And I have a way back.  My job will be available to me when I return in the fall of 2012. That's easy.  I know I'm far luckier than most.  I just have to work as hard as I can.

Q: Any words of wisdom for those considering taking the plunge and giving up security in exchange for time and space to write?

MH: I've been wanting to do this for years, but am happy I waited until now.  I've got a project I'm very excited about.  I've already got one book out, so I'm not entirely shooting in the dark.  I would recommend a strong vision for the work to come and experience to back you up.  I would make sure you can concentrate on your writing and your writing alone.  Other than that, what I lose in my bank account won't be any more traumatic than what I'd lose if I never took the plunge at all.

Thank you, Michelle - and best of luck writing *Bottomland.*  I look forward to seeing Ursula Hegi's prediction pan out many times over, at every level!