Over the past three months, I've had the supreme joy of having a prolonged "conversation" with Chad Thomas Johnston, prolific blogger, author, artist, musician, and "PUNisher Royale". His writing career spans a number of formats, media and genres. His first collection of essays, Nightmarriage, is due out as an eBook from eLectio Publishing in late summer 2012. His full length autobiographical work, The Stained-Glass Kaleidoscope, is currently searching for a home, but rest-assured. It will be released (believe me, I've read it).
Chad is extraordinarily witty, a massively talented wordsmith and a great friend. I know you'll enjoy reading this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.
The Accidental Author: Chad, first of all, thanks for agreeing to being put on the hot seat for my blog that literally tens
of people read. You and I first met in college at [Southwest] Missouri
State University at the Baptist Student Union. Fast forward fourteen
years and two highly divergent paths later, and it appears that we have re-converged somewhat due to our love of writing. Tell me a little about
the path that brought you to where you are today.
Chad Thomas Johnston: Dude, tens
of people is not bad. Google Analytics says I have readers, but they
apparently are not terribly fond of commenting. So in the end, I feel
like I also have tens of readers, if that.
I’ve
really always written in some form. As a child, I wrote little books
and bound them with Christmas wrapping paper. My friends read them. I
don’t know why, but they read them. Then in high school, I started
writing music reviews for largely underground Christian magazines. I
wrote about artists other than Amy Grant.
The only letter any reader ever addressed to me in a publication was written by a girl who bought the Prayer Chain’s 1995 Mercury album.
I had written about how artful it was, but she only wrote about how the
lyrics were too cryptic, and how she didn’t think it was really all
that useful to her spiritually. I wanted to write her back and tell her
never to read a poem of any kind, ever, because they would be of no use
to her.
While
working on my master’s degree, I wrote a thesis, which was my first
long-term writing project. I got a feel for what that was like, and
enjoyed it despite the often grueling nature of the project. Before
bailing out of my PhD program in Film Studies at the University of
Kansas, I decided that writing a dissertation would ultimately be of no
use to me (just like the girl who could not interpret the cryptic
lyrics). Only 5 people would ever read it. So I figured I could write a
book of my own, and maybe net 6 readers. Unless my readers are lying to
me, I have already done that. It took me three years to write my book,
and now I’m writing a second with a friend of mine who lives in
Virginia.
But
writing my first book was when I got the writing bug for real. I
realized I could put anything down on paper and lead any reader into my
mental wilderness without a pup tent or a book of matches to save him or
her from any mind-bears that might appear out of nowhere. I liked that.
Thus it began.
How did you get into writing? Or am I allowed to ask you questions?
AA: Oh,
Chad. Those aren’t the rules of the interview. But, since I love
talking about myself, I believe I’m inclined to turn this into a conversation rather than an interview. So, to your question.
I
really loved writing when I was in grade school. I wrote really
ridiculous stories about Santa Claus, giant doughnuts and vampires.
Wait...those may have all been in a single story. Anyway, I continued
to dabble in writing when I was in high school, but I also found other
ways to express myself artistically (acting and music).
I
am reminded that during one of my early high school classes, we took an
assessment that was supposed to reveal to us whether we were
“right-brained” or “left-brained”. I scored a big fat zero. Fortunately, that did not
mean that I was devoid of a brain. Instead, it meant that my brain had
no real preference for being artistic or analytical. Ultimately, for
my career, I chose to take the analytical path, and I got my Bachelor of
Science in Chemistry, and then later got my Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry
at Mizzou. My dissertation was my first long-term writing project. It
is an excruciatingly boring 300-page opus, complete with graphs, charts
and about 30 pages of C++ code that I wrote in the back. I’m not even
sure my committee even read it all the way through, nor do I blame them.
After
the birth of my first daughter, I found myself in Washington, DC,
working in the Optical Sciences Division of the Naval Research
Laboratory. My particular position did not
encourage a great deal of creativity without abandon. So, I found
myself writing in my spare time. I also found Zoetrope.com at that
time, and enjoyed posting stories I’d written and having critiques,
although, very few of the comments and criticisms were all that useful,
since most people were reviewing my work just so I’d be obligated to review their
work. Of course, I would conscientiously write an honest review, which
many people did not like, and so I didn’t make a great many friends
there.
I
never really did anything with my stories at that time. Then I moved
to Dallas, and took a position that required a great deal of travel. So
that meant many lonely nights in hotel rooms. One of the ways I would
“wind down” at night was writing. In 2010, I wrote a flash fiction
piece called A Summer Wedding.
It is a sweet tale of young teenagers in the Viet Nam war era. I
submitted it to Untreed Reads, and by May of 2010, it was released. I
have continued submitting a publishing fiction through them, and now
have five short stories. As a result of my “successful” writing, I also
did a collaboration with my pastor (Marc Farnell) on a book called Learning to Give in a Getting World, which has sold DOZENS of copies worldwide.
Now,
back to questioning you. You seem to have many artistic outlets. Do
you feel that writing is your primary outlet or just a pivotal cog of
your creativity?
CTJ:
I think writing is the area of my creativity where I am most capable
of expressing myself. While I love art and music, for example, both end
up being wrestling matches where I am pitting my abilities against the
ideas my brain is generating. A lot of times, I cannot quite realize
what I imagine in those two creative pursuits, but with writing I almost
always feel satisfied with what I come up with, and it is enjoyable for
the most part. There are definitely times of writerly constipation, but
for the most part, I find that if I regularly sit down and make an
effort to write, it happens, and I am satisfied.
I
first realized writing could be an outlet for self-expression in high
school when I wrote poems about women who broke my pitiful high school
heart. I considered myself a poet then, but it was very one-dimensional
in the sense that I only wrote when I felt sad, or maybe really
uninspired. The same was true of the music I began writing shortly after
that.
Eventually,
I realized through my friend, artist Danny J. Gibson, that creativity
could be a daily pursuit that was not necessarily dependent on a muse. I
just sit down and create, and inspiration usually catches up with me
along the way. It does not necessarily precede the creative process for
me anymore. It can, but as a rule it generally does not.
With
that realization, I came to understand that I could write about
literally anything I wanted. I did not have to limit myself to writing
when I feel sad or elated. I could write about absolutely anything, and I
could do it daily, as a discipline like a runner who runs daily to
maintain the progress he/she has already made.
Do
you write with any kind of discipline, or is it just as the ideas kind
of make themselves known to you? I like Stephen King’s idea of
discovering stories in a way that is comparable to unearthing fossils
that are already formed, and have a shape of their own. I am learning to
approach each idea I have as the tip of a discovery that may have roots
beneath the surface that are worth exploring.
I
bought your Rumspringa short story from Amazon.com today and am looking
forward to reading it. It’s a strange thing to think that you’re
selling a short story for $0.99, and other authors are selling their
full-length novels for the same price. It reminds me of the bizarre new
menu imperative at McDonalds where all coffees, regardless of size, cost
$1. It seems reasonable, but it’s also a little strange. If I want to
buy a smaller coffee, but the large costs $1, I feel somehow compelled
to say, “But shouldn’t this small coffee cost less?” Ha! I think this
kind of thing is just indicative of how the market for writers has
changed, and is continually changing. That pay-what-you-want idea
Radiohead introduced into the music market in October of 2007 with their
In Rainbows
record has sort of become a pricing cue for writers as well. I don’t
know about you, but I’d like to think your work and mine both are worth
more than $0.99. Ha!
AA: Rumspringa
is a bit of an enigma for me. I started writing it with no apparent
story line, just as a character study, since I tend to write more
plot-driven fiction. For me, my characters tend to be slaves to plot,
and their environment and circumstances tend to mold their behavior.
I’ve never really written anything where the character is more the
focal point, and so when I started out the story, I sought to study this
interaction between biological mother and daughter meeting for the
first time. The protagonist, Corrie, is a sweet girl who was adopted by
an Amish family, and whose life has been shaped by the values imparted
to her growing up in a strict community that shuns modernity. Her
mother, Wilma, seems to be a vile human being that struggles with
addiction of every flavor, and whose exploits have landed her in prison
multiple times.
Funny
thing, though. As their interaction progressed, I found a story arc
developing, and before I knew it, a simple plot developed. Strange how
those things work. By the time it was finished, Rumspringa became something of a thematic piece about grace, mercy, forgiveness, and ultimately, sacrifice.
I
wasn’t really sure how it would be received. Much to my surprise, it
has sold surprisingly well, in spite of its high “dollar-per-word” price
point. I can’t really say why it has resonated so well with buyers.
If I could, I suppose I would bottle that and sell it.
You mentioned writing as a discipline, with or without the ever-elusive “muse”. However, every writer has something that consistently and invariably inspires them to write. If you had
to choose something that we could call, for sake of argument, your
muse, what would it be? And why do you think it inspires you?
CTJ: I
am almost always drawn to wondrous things—eccentric things, remarkable
things, beautiful things, mysterious things. Whenever I come across
something that arouses wonder within me, that’s where I truly light up
and find myself inspired.
I
was going through the list of films I have rated on Netflix in the past
few months, and I ranked a few films highly for this reason alone.
Films open up wonders to me on a regular basis. In my list of rated
films, there was Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams,
which has lingered in my mind since I saw it. It’s a documentary about a
French cave that features pristinely preserved human drawings from over
35,000 years ago. I saw that film and thought, “Now there’s a film
that’s shown me something truly marvelous that I would never behold on
my own otherwise.”
Another was a documentary called Abel Raises Cain,
which is about this man who propagated all of these media hoaxes in
order to make society look at itself in the mirror and take a gander at
its own absurdities. For example, he created this nonexistent
organization called Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA), which
railed against animal nudity. One of their slogans was “A nude horse is
a rude horse.” People absolutely bought into this hoax, started SINA
chapters of their own, etc. In the end, it’s a hoax that shows us how
prudish and legalistic we are, and also how eager we are to champion
causes of all kinds if we think we will be better people for doing so.
It also goes to show: We’ll believe anything. I was just blown away by
this master of media hoaxes, and it occurred to me—maybe as a person
with a public relations background—that this sort of manipulation was
just creatively brilliant.
Films
like that have a way of inspiring me, and making me want to create
simply because it was creativity that led people to create the films
that inspired me. I suppose it’s a self-reflexive thing. I see the
mechanics behind it and say, “Look what creativity can yield! I have to
create, too!”
It’s
this sense of “I want to be in on that!” The only problem is, I tend to
get carried away, and I become like this kid at a buffet—like when my
sister and I would eat at Golden Corral’s buffet with our parents when
we were kids—and we would just go whole hog. We would eat everything in
sight, and cover everything in this ‘liquid cheese product,’ and stuff
it down our gullets. I end up wanting to create all these things all the
time, and I never have enough time. I want to do it all. That’s where I
think cloning myself would be ideal.
But
then again, cloning myself would mean my wife would have to put up with
more than one of me. I don’t think she ever bargained for that in
agreeing to matrimony.
AA:
So you would say that you aren’t necessarily inspired to write by a
single type of “thing”, but rather the products of creativity of others
in the world? That’s a fascinating perspective. I find myself most
motivated by music, mainly because it is an art form that resonates with
me on a very visceral level. My short story, Collisions, was written
in my head on a five-hour drive from Tallahassee to Tampa. It was
dark, it was stormy and it was difficult driving. But about two hours
into the drive, I found myself flipping to the ‘80s music channel on
satellite radio, and the first song that came on was “Owner of a Lonely
Heart” by YES. As I listened while I tried to concentrate on the
deteriorating road conditions, I found that I had never really listened
to the words of the song before. I started to wax philosophical about
the question posed in the concept of the song: “Is it really better
to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?” I allowed my
mind to run laps around that idea, and by the time I pulled into my
hotel for the night, the entire plot of Collisions was complete.
That’s
the way I work quite frequently. Other art forms can have similar
effects, but rarely do they have the impact that music has on me.
But, let’s “turn the page” shall we? In your autobiographical, magnum opus The Stained-Glass Kaleidoscope,
you draw from a great deal of personal experience. And, when honesty
prevails, there is always the potential to paint unflattering portraits,
not only of yourself, but of other people. Even though the intent is
not to offend, do you find that you have to balance your portrayals of
real people in your life with a “dash of kindness”, or do you prefer a
more unvarnished portrayal that is consistent with memory?
CTJ:
When it comes to portraying others in my writing, which I do often in
my writing, I prefer whimsical, exaggerated recollections because they
suit the way I see the world. When I write I sort of play in my little
sandbox of ideas, and painting unflattering portraits is not really
something one does in a sandbox. One plays
in a sandbox. One does not stick it to people in a sandbox. That’s
someone else’s hairy business. I don’t care to do that. If I truly do
not like somebody, I simply will not write about them.
A
lot of writers talk at length about this though. Anne Lamott tells the
ugly truth with great gusto, and makes me laugh while she does it. I’m
not as courageous as she is, frankly. But I also don’t think the ugly
truth is the only truth there is. As much as relativism is a dirty word
in church circles, I think it applies here: I think people are more than
just collections of facts, or a summaries of experiences. People are
who they are when they’re alone and no one’s looking, but they’re also
publicly constructed—talked about by peers, coworkers, family members,
etc. I like the notion that I’m writing about people in a way that only I experience
them. And like in a lucid dream, I believe it’s okay to take the
controls and take creative license with how I depict someone, especially
if it’s true of how I uniquely perceive that person. Someone else might
take issue with it, but my response is: Go write your own book about
that person if you want. This is my book. I’ll write it my way. Ha!
By
the way, I think ideas sort of plant themselves in my mind in all sorts
of ways. I didn’t mean to say that I only find inspiration in the works
of others. That’s just one source, really. I have experiences like you
mentioned with that YES song all the time.
My last essay for IMAGE Journal’s blog was both inspired by and a reaction to the documentary Being Elmo. But the one I’m currently polishing up is inspired by and is about the new Mark Kozelek album—Sun Kil Moon’s Among the Leaves.
I got the idea for the essay while listening to the album over and over
after getting it in the mail a few weeks back—a few weeks prior to its
official release. I pre-ordered it from Kozelek’s record label, Caldo
Verde, and just devoured it as soon as it came in the mail.
It’s
like “Put a quarter in my ear, and out pops a prize!” That’s how I feel
about cultural consumption for me, and how I get inspired. But I also
get inspired by nature, church, friends, family, books, Internet
articles, tweets, etc. Nothing is off limits when it comes to the source
of inspiration.
AA:
Whenever I allow thoughts to spill forth from my mind to the keyboard,
via my sometimes unreliable fingers, in the afterglow of the birthing
process, every piece I write always seems like the “World’s Cutest
Baby”. But, after it is allowed to sit and just exist for a while, it
can occasionally fester into a steaming pile of—well, you can choose
your own euphemistic expression. And yet, most times I can’t bring
myself to consign even my worst writing to the digital oblivion that
lies on the other side of the emptied recycle bin on my desktop. In
rare cases, something I’ve written before gets reincarnated into
something that really is
worthwhile. As you process your writing projects, how do you know a
“keeper” when you see it? Do you save your “stinkers” for later
resurrection?
CTJ:
Yeah, I have “World’s Cutest Baby” syndrome with my writing, too. I
really tend to think my writing is always good, but then I look back
after about a year and react with something like shock (horror in some
cases) at what I thought was great before. Sometimes it’s not even
passable. Ha!
For
me, that’s one of the benefits of writing over a long period of time. I
can keep looking back at things I wrote a year or two ago, and
determine if it’s substantial or not. It took three years to write The Stained-Glass Kaleidoscope,
and I definitely threw out some contenders for inclusion along the way.
(Note: “Threw out” = saved in a folder separate from the main document,
but ultimately retained in case I want to revisit in the future.) It’s a
good thing it took awhile though, or else I might’ve included some
things in the moment that I wouldn’t have in the long run.
I
also learned a lot about the writing process while writing it, and I’ve
learned enough since finishing the book that I could never write The Stained-Glass Kaleidoscope
again. It was just too cumbersome. So my 1,000 word essays for Image Journal are it for now. I want to write 50 of those and publish it as my
next book. Not that the first book has been published yet, but … you
get the picture. I liked tangents way too much before, and I still like
them, but I’m learning to streamline things a bit.
AA:
Speaking of first publications, obviously, you and I (and a bunch of
other people on Twitter and FaceBook) know that my digital publishing
venture, eLectio Publishing, will be releasing your collection of essays
about your wedding, marriage and parenthood a little later this year.
Obviously, in order to write a book like Nightmarriage
that is very self-effacing at times, you have to be able to look at
yourself and laugh, sometimes in situations that were probably very
painful at the time. How are you able to re-cast “cringe-inducing”
situations in such a way that (1) they are pleasing for you to write,
and (2) enjoyable for the reader?
CTJ: Well, mostly I don’t like to think I have to remain the monster that I am at my worst moments. So the writing is a chance to redeem darker moments by finding humor in them.
People
all have their flaws, and when two people marry, their flaws get
married too. So it’s basically like agreeing to create a disaster with
one particular person for the rest of your lives together.
In
the end though, my worst moments, and my wife’s worst moments, are not
definitive of who we are. They’re part of who we are, but they’re not
all we are. Like this weekend, I lost the gas cap to my wife’s Honda
Civic, and she was not all that thrilled about it. Neither was I. But am
I only a guy who loses gas caps? No. Plus, my wife lost her driver’s
license and debit card a few days later, so she could hardly be too mad
at me about the gas cap. The best part is, I found her missing cards. So
I got to be the hero. And in the end, two people who lose things cancel
each other out. Neither is better than the other.
Nightmarriage
is not a terribly serious book. It’s not a guide to marriage, or a
seedy, gossipy kind of tell-all. It’s playful dark comedy, and it’s me
looking back at the stories my wife Becki and I end up telling about
ourselves to each other and the people in our lives that are privy to
our dumber moments. It’s a compilation of blog entries, but I’ve gone
back and reworked them and hopefully elevated them to book-writing
status. (Emphasis on “hopefully.”)
In
the end, I hope it entertains. But I also hope it gives other people
permission to find humor in their own stories, no matter how awkward
they are initially.
AA:
I also know that you are writing your first major work of fiction with
a co-author who lives in Virginia. You seem to have more of a natural
proclivity for writing non-fiction pieces. How difficult has it been to
make the transition? What have you been your biggest obstacles thus
far?
CTJ:
My biggest obstacle has been, and remains, time. Time is eating my
lunch. I want to write a lot more than I do, but it’s not an option if I
want to spend adequate time with my family, get adequate sleep,
function at my day job, and take care of my body.
I definitely do prefer non-fiction, but I had an idea for a fiction book, and I wanted to write a follow up to The Stained-Glass Kaleidoscope that was less laborious and less of an Olympic exercise in navel-gazing.
The
other thing is, I understand and appreciate when other writers succeed
in dramatizing ideas, but it’s harder for me to do it myself. Coming up
with ideas is no problem at all. But making it all hang together is a
challenge.
I
still prefer non-fiction simply because I feel most like myself when I
am writing it. I consider myself an essayist above all other things when
it comes to writing. I have accepted that.
AA: I
found myself in an opposite situation. I started by writing and
publishing short fiction, and then through a series of unusual
circumstances, I ended up writing and self-publishing a full-length work
of Biblically-based non-fiction with the Senior Pastor at my church.
Fortunately, in my situation, I was able to exercise the creative
muscle in my brain by crafting anecdotes to illustrate the concepts in
each chapter. Now, I’m working on a companion Bible Study, which really
doesn’t offer much in the way of creative liberties. It’s going to be a
challenge. We’ll see how it turns out.
Speaking of co-authoring, how do you find writing a book with someone else?
CTJ: My
co-author Amanda Lynch does a great job of developing characters, and
I’m more of a concept guy. I have a hard time making nonexistent
characters spring to life and remain consistent throughout the duration
of a story. I think I am just mostly a nonfiction writer, and I had this
idea for this book that is a Young Adult-ish supernatural fiction
piece, and I thought Amanda would be a good fit for it.
She
lays a lot of the groundwork, and I fill in the details. The project
has been paused for awhile now, as Amanda had her second child only a
few months after Becki and I had our one and only (so far). Babies make
rigid writing schedules a little less feasible when other things like
jobs, spouses, and other things get in the way. But so far, we’ve had a
lot of fun together, making something out of nothing. We need to press
our noses to the grindstone again.
AA:
I know that certainly as I develop as a writer (and continue to do so,
although I have a long way to go), there are some egregious errors and
habits that I’ve shed over the past few years during my maturity. If
you had access to the mythical “Doc Brown DeLorean” and could go back in
time and tell your younger self (oh, say, 10 or 15 years ago) some
really valuable piece of advice regarding writing or the business in
general, what would it be?
CTJ:
I would tell my younger self that it’s okay if he doesn’t figure out
his life direction until he’s almost 30. Some people just take longer to
finish cooking than others. I know who I am and what I want to do now. I
couldn’t say that for sure when I was 27, or even 28. I am a writer,
and a hunter-gatherer of beautiful and bizarre things, and I catch them
all in my butterfly net and write about my pretty prisoners. Then I set
them free for the world to see, that God might be glorified. Repeat ad
infinitum. Amen.
AA: Amen, indeed.
Chad
Thomas Johnston is a writer, blogger, artist, singer-songwriter, and
publicist who resides in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife Rebekah, their
daughter Evangeline, and five felines. He is represented by
Seattle-based literary agent Jenée Arthur, who is currently shopping his
manuscript, The Stained-Glass Kaleidoscope: Essays at Play in the Churchyard of the Mind, to publishing houses. He is a regular contributor to IMAGE Journal's "Good Letters" blog at Patheos.com. He has also written for The Baylor Lariat, and contributed a feature to ex-Melody Maker music journalist/Nirvana biographer Everett True's CollapseBoard.com.
His collection of essays, Nightmarriage, will be published by eLectio Publishing in late 2012.
You can follow eLectio Publishing on Twitter (@eLectioPubs): https://twitter.com/#!/eLectioPubs
JESSE S. GREEVER is "The Accidental Author" and CEO of eLectio Publishing,
a digital publisher for Christian authors. If you are a Christian
author and have a manuscript that you think is worthy of publication,
check out the submission guidelines and follow the directions for manuscript submissions.
Greever is also a co-author of the book, Learning to Give in a Getting World, and numerous fiction titles from Untreed Reads publishing.
Greever is also a co-author of the book, Learning to Give in a Getting World, and numerous fiction titles from Untreed Reads publishing.
You can become a fan of eLectio Publishing on FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/eLectioPublishing
You can follow eLectio Publishing on Twitter (@eLectioPubs): https://twitter.com/#!/eLectioPubs
