A Creativity Interview with Novelist Dana Reinhardt

For the last year or two I've been interviewing artists about their creative process. A new interview went up this week, with young-adult novelist Dana Reinhardt, and I thought I'd post an abridged version here, including questions about her creative routine, how she pushes through when she isn't particularly inspired, and why she doesn't use notebooks to capture her thoughts. If you'd like to read a little more, you can find the full interview right here.

Dana Reinhardt: Photo credit: Chelsea Hadley

Do you have a writing routine you hold to?

Dana Reinhardt: I do. I try my best to stick to writing every workday. It's a bonus if I do any writing on a weekend. I try to write Monday through Friday as if I had a real job. My goal for each day can change but in general, my rule is that my workday's not done until I have three pages, which is roughly 1,000 words, maybe a little less. So it's somewhere in there. I generally don't let myself off the hook until I've done that. And sometimes I can do that in 40 minutes, and sometimes it takes me ten hours. But I try to have that done every single day.

Are there any tricks that help you be productive on those days when you're not feeling particularly inspired?

DR: Well, I wouldn't say tricks, but I think that the reason I put myself on the schedule I do is so that I can't not produce on the days I don't feel inspired. I guess I don't really believe so much in the idea of waiting for inspiration. I think that that doesn't come until you're in the act of writing.

So it's about getting yourself into the process?

DR: Yeah — I think inspiration only comes in the middle of writing. I think thinking about writing doesn't work; writing works. And the act of writing is when the inspired moments come, I believe.

Are there any tools you rely on to capture ideas?

DR: Not really. I have a notebook, but I'd say for each of my books I barely even take notes. Sometimes I'll think of something — a turn of a phrase or an idea that I'm not ready for yet, that feels like it should come later, and I'll jot that down. But there's very, very, very little that I write down like that. I have this kind of crazy theory, which probably is crazy, but — and I guess this applies more to ideas for books I haven't written yet — sometimes I'll have an idea and I'll think, "Wow, that's a great idea," but I don't write it down on the theory that if I don't remember it, it wasn't a good enough idea.

When you're not writing, what do you do to help feed your creative side?

DR: I feel my powers of observation now are — I'm sort of in tune with them a lot more. Before I was spending my time writing novels, I wouldn't necessarily stop and really look at the person who caught my eye walking by me on the street. Now sometimes, if somebody catches my eye walking by me down the street, I might take something away from that moment that I use in a character I'm writing about. So I pick things up: a lyric from a song, the way something looks in a certain light, whatever it is. I feel like my time not spent writing is often just spent collecting images or bits and pieces of things that might work their way into a book.

And that helps keep that part of your brain vibrating?

DR: It does.

Is there any advice you've gotten over the years that stands out, in terms of how to live a creative life and be creatively productive?

DR: I have a friend — this is a piece of advice I really like that really helps sometimes, especially in those moments where I'm thinking that what I'm writing is just crap — he says what he tries to do is what he calls "a jewel on every page" — just one moment, one turn of phrase, something on each page that makes him proud.

And, you know, my biggest goal is to do that. It's not easy because there are a lot of pages in a book. But one small thing can make the whole chapter feel worthy of being there. And I just try to work on those moments.