Scott Pomfret
Oyster River Pages: Why do you write and/or create?
Scott Pomfret: Words are my joy.
ORP: What is the most challenging aspect of your artistic process?
SP: Having the discipline to map out ahead of time where any particular piece is going. Doesn't mean I'm married to the plan, but I flounder around inefficiently if I don't start with a plan.
ORP: What do you think is the best way to improve writing and/or artistic skills?
SP: This is like the perennial question of how to lose weight: eat less and exercise more. There are no gimmicks or short cuts. For writers, the best way to improve writing is to read, to write, and to listen with openness to feedback on your writing from reading peers.
ORP: What does vulnerability mean to you as an artist and/or writer?
SP: My best writing requires me to dig deeper beneath the surface, expose what is important to me, and create stories that may very well fail in the end. But it also requires a little corresponding hardness, in recognizing that not everyone is going to like every piece I create, and that's ok. This is particularly true in memoir. For my gay Catholic memoir, I met a priest at a book signing with whom I particularly clicked. Months later, he wrote me an email expressing his disappointment with the memoir. I had made myself vulnerable in relating my experience in the memoir, but I was confident I had been true to myself, so I didn't find myself disappointed in turn by the priest's reaction. Instead, I felt sure there was something out there that would resonate better with him than my work did.
ORP: Do habits help or hinder creativity? Why or why not?
SP: Writing habits are like rhyming or rhythmic conventions in particular types of poetry. Structure actually kick-starts the creative process if it is viewed in the best light (rather than hampering "freedom"). Structure can harness and focus many disparate influences/impulses and end the paralysis of the question, where do I begin? In my case, I write daily at particular times and in particular preferred places with a particular cup of coffee. If I have several projects going at once, which I always do, I choose ahead of time which I will work on. And I keep a reading discipline, too, every day, which informs whatever project I'm working on.
