Author To Author Interview: Brandi Megan Granett
I am filled with a passionate desire to share one key idea with the world. This idea is that thoughts are things. The very stuff we fill our minds with spills out and fills our worlds.
By learning what we are thinking and where those thoughts come from, we can change our experiences within the world.- Brandi Megan Granett
Cathy Lamb: Hello Brandi, thanks for joining me here for an Author to Author interview. I have many questions for you, but tell us first about your latest book, “Cars And Other Things That Get Around.” What is it about? What was the inspiration?
Brandi Megan Granett: “Cars and Other Things That Get Around” is a collection of my early short fictions. My students inspired me to put this work together. I wanted them to see what I published before literary journals went digital. Also, I wanted to experience the tools of self-publishing to share this knowledge with my writing students.
You have written two other novels, too, My Intended and Floaters. Not to cut you off at the literary pass, so to speak, but give us a sentence each on what those books are about, too.
“My Intended” is about a woman who married her fiancée posthumously. It is really a story about how the people in her life allowed her to grieve and reconnect to the world. “Floaters” is the story of a newly married woman questioning her life’s decisions.
I am always curious about people. Maybe that’s why I became a writer. But I’m curious about you! Tell us about your life. For example, where do you live, what are your interests and hobbies, what did you do last weekend?
I live in Stockton, NJ, a town on the Delaware River. My biggest passion next to writing is archery. I recently switched to compound archery, so I spent my weekend learning all about my new equipment!
I am very impressed with your archery skills. If you are ever upset with me, I will remind myself to run away from you in a zig zag sort of pattern. Not that you would actually point a bow and arrow at me, of course.
What just drives you crazy about writing? What’s the hard part of it all?
What drives me crazy about writing—that is a great question! I have to say that creating chapters makes me nuts. I usually write the novel straight through and then need to go back and figure out where the chapter breaks belong. I love sharing my writing process with my husband; he reads and comments on all of my drafts. The characters in my books become our family friends.
All my characters live in my head. Some I like. Some I don’t. Some are friends of mine, some aren’t. But back to you.
You have several different jobs. You are so busy I feel like laying down and taking a nap FOR you. Can you tell us about what you do?
I like to keep several irons in the fire. I mainly work as an online writing professor for several colleges. I also have a private writing mentor practice; I want to help authors that are either new to writing or removed from a community of writers to hone their craft and reach their writing goals.
I understand you have a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Aberystwyth University in Wales, an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College, and an M.Ed in Adult and Distance Education from Penn State. (That’s a lot of degrees!) What degree did you most enjoy receiving and why?
Not to disrespect my creative writing degrees, which I enjoyed immensely, my M.Ed challenged my boundaries; I had to pass Statistics! And it taught me how to be a better teacher, which I value every day. From my PhD, I learned the value of being ruthless with revision. In order to graduate, I needed to revise some elements of the non-fiction elements of thesis. In a very short amount of time, I learned how to kill my darlings with lightning speed. I was shocked to find that this translated to my fiction writing.
Oh, I love that line, “I learned how to kill my darlings with lightning speed.”
What are three rules you live by?
This is probably my favorite question.
Thoughts are things—what we dwell on shapes our reality.
The universe sides with love—if you follow your heart’s passion, the universe will work together with you.
The moment of power is now—in any given moment, you can choose differently. You can change your life.
Fun quotes written by Brandi:
Day dream believer but never a homecoming queen. Writing mentor, novelist, and archer. (In describing herself)
Perhaps the biggest lesson of all from my archery experience is the power of standing up straight. In archery, if you don’t keep the same physical stance from shot to shot, you ruin your chances of shooting arrows that hit the mark. If you hunch over, you wind up pulling with your fingers and plucking the string. You may even strike the string against your arm, which can, even with an arm guard, hurt enough to make you curse like a truck driver. As in all things in life, if you stand up straight and keep your balance (however you decide to do it — because like life, a good archer’s form has some uniqueness tailored just to them) you will hit your mark more often than not.
Shoot like You Aren’t Afraid to Miss
Connect with Brandi Here:
https://www.facebook.com/BrandiMeganGranett
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brandigranett
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandi-megan-mantha/
