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You are here: Home / 3Ws / 3Ws – Jan Ellison

3Ws – Jan Ellison

August 21, 2015 Filed Under: 3Ws, author interviews, books are awesome, writing

Jan Ellison photographed in San Francisco, CA September 24, 2013©Jay Blakesberg

Jan Ellison photographed in San Francisco, CA September 24, 2013©Jay Blakesberg

 

 

What do you create?

The biggest, best thing I’ve created is four new people. The eldest is six foot four and sometimes my husband and I look up and wonder how this extra man ended up living in our house. In four days, he’s headed off to college.

I’ve also been writing fiction and creative non-fiction for fifteen years. My debut novel, A Small Indiscretion, published in January by Random House, took longer to create than all four of my kids put together. That said, create is not usually the word I think of when I think of writing, and I don’t think of myself as a particularly creative person. My daughters are creative; they knit, sew, act, draw, paint. My dad is creative; he writes music and invents whole new worlds in his science fiction and fantasy novels. The things I’ve “made”—the essays and short stories and the novel and the bad poems—feel more like the result of an interrogation than an act of creation. It’s more about finding something that already exists in my head, letting it out, understanding it. It’s as if there’s this lump of stuff, a block of ice or clay, and my job is to chip away at it, to shape and reshape it, for months, years, decades, until it finds its true form.

 

Why do you create?

There’s that word again, create. This is semantics, perhaps, but when I started writing, I didn’t set out to create anything; I set out to purge what was inside my head. To exercise my mind in a way that felt necessary. To manipulate words in a manner that was pleasing to me. Words are the only material I’m interested in manipulating; stories are the only thing I’m interested in making. Even my poems tell stories, so I suppose at bottom, I create out of a story-telling impulse.

But I also turn to words when I want to preserve something—a memory, a scene, a feeling, a snippet of overheard dialog—or when I want to know more about one of those memories or scenes or snippets, either real or imagined. I want to find out what’s beneath it, or behind it, or before it. Sometimes I write to escape the mundane and slip into a narrative more interesting than my own. Often, I write to find out what I think. In fact, the act of putting words on the page is more akin to thinking, to me, than creating, but with luck, and time, and compulsion, and work, that thinking can sometimes turn into something tangible, like a book.

 

What do you consume?

I come from a family of beer drinkers: My brother is a prize-winning home brewer; my dad won’t drink anything but excellent IPA; my sister lives in London and drinks Guinness. In my family, ordering a glass of wine in a bar is just strange, and drinking cheap beer, like Bud Light, is sacrilege: You may as well be drinking water.

So a month ago, I would have said that what I consume are great novels and good beer. But—brace yourselves—I’m giving the whole low-carb, gluten-free thing a shot, so I’ve had to give up beer. Novels are wonderful and everything, but I’m here to tell you that there is no replacement for an excellent ice cold beer on a Friday afternoon. There just isn’t.

 

Links

The book: A Small Indiscretion
Essays & Short Stories: Writings
San Jose Mercury News: ‘A Small Indiscretion,’ a large love of writing
San Francisco Chronicle: Review
Newsletter: Sign up!
Facebook: Jan Ellison
Twitter: @JanEllison
Amazon
iTunes
IndieBound
Barnes & Noble

_MG_4124-1Ellison_Final jacket

 

4 Comments

Comments

  1. Angela Terry says

    August 21, 2015 at 1:16 am

    What a wonderful interview! I started reading A Small Indiscretion and it’s so good. I paused in my reading because I realized that I might have to book myself a hotel room to sneak away and read this book all in one go. And very interesting on the “why create” – Thank you and Ms. Ellison for this interesting and fun interview.

    Reply
  2. Nicholas Parenti says

    August 21, 2015 at 1:51 pm

    I am absolutely touched by your interview. It is personal to me, because I recently realized how writing allowed for the opportunity to connect to the world around me. Writing is like an assortment of my cluttered thoughts arranged to create a masterpiece. Your writing is flawless and I will be following your work as an inspiration to my writing journey. Thanks again for a wonderful interview and have a fabulous day.

    Reply
  3. Lisa Brackmann says

    August 25, 2015 at 11:29 am

    Jan, I have to laugh — I recently moved home to San Diego after more than a quarter century away, and OMG, the beer here…it’s just insanely good. I’ve been low-carbing otherwise but with the beer…no. No. I cannot.

    Reply
  4. E.T. Ellison says

    September 9, 2015 at 4:15 am

    This just in: the whole thing about IPAs (and other quality brewed matter) being carbohydrates is a hoax foisted upon us by the 1200. If you don’t know about the 1200, they’re the mean-spirited pan-dimensional entities that conspire to make our lives miserable in all sorts of ways; they’re the ones who hide your wallet, your keys, etc. I know the 1200 are real because Thodkin Marblemeister (go ahead, google him) himself told me about them. Enough for me. Cheers!

    Reply

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We are in the habit of starting and ending our day We are in the habit of starting and ending our days side by side in our lawn chairs, while the light rises or dims. It’s still chilly at the outer edges of the day. Sometimes Roxy shivers. I bought her a sweater, but she won’t wear it. Sometimes I try to wrap her in my jacket, but she’s not having that either, so I throw her ball and try to get her run and then she comes back to her chair, warm for a little longer. #dailyroxydog #huskychihuahua #dogssittinginchairs
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Happy as a dog in a freshly dug nap hole. #dailyro Happy as a dog in a freshly dug nap hole. #dailyroxydog #huskymixesofinstagram
I saw this little dresser at my favorite magic ant I saw this little dresser at my favorite magic antique store sometime in November and didn’t buy it. But then, of course, I kept thinking about her. She’s the perfect size for my office, and I found those drawer pulls hilarious. When I finally went back in December, I told myself I was shopping for wall art, because I assumed she would be gone. But she was right where I’d seen her last: balanced on another dresser with boxes of old picture frames and tchotchkes piled on top (the true mark of a magic antique store). I didn’t even realize she had a towel rack — that she was a wash stand, not a dresser — until I asked about the price, said I’d take her, and my favorite magic antique store person asked if we needed to unscrew the towel rack to fit her in my car. I suspect this little sweetie is not from the days of necessary wash stands so much as from a country kitchen in the 80s. She was in rough shape, and not made from wood worth stripping and re-staining, but her price reflected that. I had to disassemble that door and put it back together, but I’d been in the market for some experience working with old furniture, and she made me feel brave about trying. I thought about painting her something more neutral, but I’m so glad I didn’t. She deserves to be pink. She’s not perfectly painted and needs a few touch ups. I learned some things about chalk paint and finishes. The drawers stick a bit. Eventually, I’d like to line them with fabric and when I do, I might plane the edges to smooth things out. But goodness, I love her in a way that I wouldn’t if I hadn’t spent time cleaning away her cobwebs and scrubbing the grime from her hilarious drawer pulls. She’s also become a little shrine for the book I’m working on, which makes me love her even more. I’ve always been a person who sees some soul in certain things, and I’m learning to cherish that idiosyncrasy, because there’s so much joy to be found in a brave little toaster or an underdog wash stand. We’re not here in the world for all that long. We may as well love some bright little things. #furnituremakeover
After Roxy started stealing my seat, I dragged a s After Roxy started stealing my seat, I dragged a second lawn chair out. She nudges me over and we sit in our chairs, side by side, and watch the sun set. Well, I watch the sun set. She spies on the neighbors. #dailyroxydog #dogstagram #sundayevening
I truly don’t understand how anyone is this cute I truly don’t understand how anyone is this cute. I never get used to it. There’s no immunity. She’s adorable beyond what pictures can capture. #dailyroxydog #huskymixesofinstagram #ilovemydog
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