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| Susan Colleen Browne |
In early February, I took a fantastic weekend workshop on
Memoir Writing from Susan Colleen Browne.
It was obvious, both to me and the other students that Ms. Browne
taught from experience, “walking the walk” as a writer herself. I knew from
Susan’s warm and funny blog, Little Farm in the Foothills, that “…Susan Colleen
Browne is an organic "mini-farmer," creative writing instructor, and
novelist. She's the author of a romantic comedy set in Ireland, "It Only
Takes Once." Her memoir, "Little Farm in the Foothills," relates
Susan and her husband John's first, tumultuous year on their starter homestead.
"Little Farm" was awarded a spot on the Washington State Library's
Summer Reads 2010 book list.”
I wanted to know more Susan’s writing life, and she graciously agreed to a delightful “walk and talk” interview in Fairhaven last month.
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When did you know you were
going to be a writer? What has been your path?
I actually started late, in my early 30’s. I had been a romance novel junkie, and my husband encouraged me to write my own romance and use our brand new Apple computer. The process took me a bit over year; from getting an idea, then handwriting it on a yellow tablet, then typing it into the computer. I sent my manuscript to Harlequin, and got a nice letter back from the editor with some very good feedback. My mother,who had published several academic books) encouraged me revise it and ask the editor to take another look. So I sent it back to the editor and again got very good feedback, but it didn’t sell.
However, at this time my marriage was breaking up. After my divorce, I went back to school at Western Washington University to get a degree in Environmental Policy so I could support my kids. While I was there, I did well writing term papers, utilizing the writing skills I’d learned as a novelist. In fact, one nominated me to be a Writing Fellow. In the meantime, I kept working on romance novels at night, but though I came close several times, I never sold a book.
As I began working for the Whatcom County Planning Department in the mid-1990’s , I kept writing at night, but noticed that I was evolving from a romance novelist to writing more contemporary fiction. Interestingly enough, many published romance writers have also moved out of that genre, morphing into contemporary and suspense novelists. For the next ten years I continued to write and sent novels out to publishers. Again, I got wonderful feedback, came very close to being published, but it never happened.
I got away from novel writing for a while, but in November, 2006, I entered the National Novel Writing month, writing a 50, 000 sequel to a novel and actually completed it. That set me off on another writing project for the 2007 National Novel Writing Month, but after a while, my internal editor could see that my story was too depressing and wasn’t something I really wanted to write after all.
By that time, my second husband and I had sold our house in Bellingham and moved out to our farm in the Cascade Foothills. That was an amazing journey: two “boomers” leaving the city to fulfill their dreams of owning a farm. I thought that perhaps I’d write an 800 word essay about it, but the story was just too big to be contained in that structure. So, I began writing the whole story, checking with my husband John to make sure my memories were accurate.
Once it was done, I had to make a decision about how it was going to be published. The publishing world has changed so much: it’s less personal, fewer books are published and editors take less risk as publishers look to their bottom lines. I decided that I didn’t want to go through the 21st century submission process when I had another viable option: self-publishing. I established Whitethorn Press and published
Little Farm In the Foothills: A BoomerCouple’s Search for the Slow Life on May 1, 2009. And it turned out to be a good move, since it
did receive positive reviews and was even selected for the Washington State
Library’s 2010 Summer Reads Booklist.
Since then, I’ve also self-published my debut novel, set in
Ireland called It Only Takes Once
You write both fiction and non-fiction. What’s the difference for you when you write
fiction and non-fiction? Which do you
like better, as a writer?
Well, I’ve learned that both forms require good mechanics, voice, setting, and strong story-telling, for example, and writing in both forms has made me a better, more conscious writer. I must say that I love writing fiction, though. It’s such an interesting way to present ideas. Fiction also allows you to develop a character that’s going to have to change, and the plot is going to need to come to a climax. I also love developing ancillary characters and creating dialogue.
I find that when I’m not writing fiction, I miss it. I used to write two hours a day, but when the farm is in full swing, it just demands most of my attention and energy. From March through October, the farm is really a full-time job.
For me, writing practice is like doing piano scales so
that eventually, you just might to be able to play a sonata. What writing practices work best for you?
Today, I do daily writing for 15 – 20 minutes. I like to hand write my practices in a notebook, so I can easily look up the page. I’ve found that just stream of consciousness daily writing helps keep my creative juices flowing and develops story ideas and different takes on characters.I also believe that clustering/mind mapping is a great way to tap into story, details and character.
Your January 17, 2012 blog posting, “Wild Kingdom” was about your encounter with a bear very near your home. The last sentence at the end of the paragraph literally made me laugh out loud. This sentence is only three words, and the last word is italicized; however, in the context of the blog, it set up your experience and injected humor into your piece. Can you tell me how you created that?
What I did was focus on the image, of the dark mass of the bear, and how it moved across the road. I guess when you think your safety, or even your life is at risk, it really concentrates your attention! Also, I tend to use italics here and there when I'm writing in a more lighthearted vein. I think it helps add inflection to the language, so not only your writing voice comes through, but you give the reader a sense that they're hearing you tell the story.
How do you approach writing your blog?
My approach to writing a post: usually I write about something I've been thinking about a lot. Not just a quickie anecdote, but some topic that figures strongly in our lives here. For example, the bear and wildlife--it's the reality of living out here, that just taking a walk, we could encounter some wildlife that might pose a danger. But we try not to take the potential dangers too seriously, or we'd just be cowering in the house. An earlier post, from September, I think, was on the topic "Strawberry Yoga." I'd been thinking a lot about the physical challenges of harvesting strawberries and gardening in general, so it was current in my life at the time--but I wanted to make it light. If you don't laugh at your backaches, gardening and raising food won't be fun and satisfying!
You’ve been writing for more than two decades—what impels you to keep writing? Any projects that you’re working on now that we can look forward to?
Well, I love writing and want to keep practicing and stretching myself. As I told you earlier, I started off as a romance novelist, moved on to writing more contemporary novels, then wrote a personal memoir and finally have moved on to writing novels and short stories set in Ireland. I’m Irish-American myself, and I’m captivated by the country and people. And I’m also a freelance manuscript editor and I write non-fiction pieces, too.
As for what I’m writing now, that has a complicated answer. In 2008, I spent a year writing Little Farm In the Foothills. Late in 2009, after I’d published my memoir, I had an idea from a clustering exercise about a character called Emma, and wrote quite a bit of her story, intending to develop it into a novel. However, at the same time, I developed a short story that I called the “Not Emma” story, and liked it much better than Emma So, I put Emma aside in favor of “Not Emma,” a short story that I’m planning as part of a collection of Irish-themed stories. I’m quite enjoying my Irish stories, both short stories and novels, and look forward to publishing them through my company, Whitethorn Press. And of course, I do enjoy teaching writing and the business of self-publishing at Whatcom Community College.
Thanks, Susan, and I will look forward to reading It Only Takes Once and taking more classes from you.
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