Why Do I Write & What Is My Process… | Breena Clarke

–by Breena Clarke

Breena at home in Jersey City with my bamboo plants

When I’m asked to answer the queries — what is your process? — why do you write? I begin by saying that I come to writing as a reader. I believe it is important for me to claim that because it does explain why and how I write. I also admit that I answer this way to reinforce the notion that I am studious, scholarly, serious.

I think writing long fiction is good for me because this is what I like to read. So– when I say I’m reading, seventy-five percent of the time I am reading a novel.
But you know what? There is another bit of it.

There is something I am less eager to mention — an aspect of my personality that isn’t always desirable.

I am a talker, a gum-flapper. I come to writing as someone who wants to run her mouth — to get her say. I want to ” go on and on and on” about a subject. I enjoy bending folks’ ears. I like to relate anecdotes. I tell jokes badly, but I like to engage in banter. I was raised in a household of gentle, ordinary, raconteurs.

Ironically, now that everybody is a chatty cathy on their cell phone, I don’t really like the constant checking in that is typical. I’d love to get you in a face to face conversational head lock though. I reach for that relationship in my writing.

This is where I begin and this is the place I return to when I feel I’m off the step somewhat. I put a face before me and work to spin out the tale so that this “one” understands.

The process of my writing is that I consider myself a “recollector.” I’m one who plows through experiences and research, then chooses a perspective and relates the tale. I begin with digging around to discover something or someone in historical accounts. It is necessary for me to get excited about the subject or the swath of time or the particular individual I’m writing about.

Very often I get passionate because I see an opportunity to address the erasure, misunderstanding and denigration of African American people/individuals. If that last sentence sounds self-important and “pouffy” it is because I want you to understand that I have an agenda in my fiction. Imagine a creature crooking her finger to urge you to come closer and look at what’s at the the end of her finger — just there.

Then follow the sweep of my arm and look at the broad — the panorama. Did you see that? Did you hear it? Can you smell that?

The more I think about this . . . I’m an interrogator, too. I get up a lot of questions in the process of writing a novel. The systematic satisfaction of the questions about time, place, biography that lead to more complex questions about perspective and emotions and meaning is the writing.

I suppose I don’t reach a pure logjam the way I hear other writers describe because I consider wool-gathering and reading and swimming and day-dreaming to be part of the process of writing. Questions and answers are generated in the course of these pursuits — and dreaming.

I believe in creative visualization. I think about the novel. Often less writing and more thinking solves a problem. Sometimes this is difficult because your own and the expectation of others urge more output. I get impatient with my process. I want to produce more, but I have to accept what’s happening.

I honor naps — rest periods during the day. I have the luxury of working at home. This has drawbacks, but afternoon naps are a civilized perk. This way, I can take advantage of my more productive, creative hours in the early morning and early evening.

In fact, as a diabetic who takes medication, I experience a quite common blood sugar drop in the afternoon. Makes sense for me to zone out and regroup. Writing then is an integral part of my day — not cramming to meet a deadline. I can do that, too, but I consider that to be more like typing than writing. Journalists know what I’m talking about.

I suppose I have an agricultural system as a work framework: rise early and work hard and eat and rest well and rise again and work hard and efficiently until a product can be brought out. Constancy is important. I’m exhilerated when I stop and collect and check my output and like it.

My sister, Cheryl Clarke, is a poet — published and celebrated. We’re often asked if our parents were writers. They were not. They were hardworking conversationalists. Both had an encyclopedic knowledge of mid-twentieth century popular music.

My parents gifted us with stories of their growing up in the African American community in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. My parents’ community included their sisters and brothers, a medium-sized clutch of interesting people.

We had an aunt who was a WAC in WWII and an aunt who was trained at Madame C.J. Walker’s school and ran her own beauty parlor and school.

We had fortunate circumstances because these people were so steady and stalwart and focused on our success. I’m always applying myself diligently to my writing because I want to honor them.

Now I’m a pokey little puppy. So that where someone else is steaming along at a fast clip, I’m thinking and scratching, woolgathering and lolly-gagging . . . and writing.

Breena Clarke
visit my website at www.BreenaClarke.com

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Breena Clarke is the author of Stand the Storm and Oprah Book Club Selection, River, Cross My Heart