Ask the Author: Errid Farland, Secret Writer

Errid Farland has three very different yet equally compelling short short stories in this month’s issue. She talks about some of her other projects, why she writes pseudonymously and talks of the saddest poem she ever did read.

1. You write using a pseudonym. Why? How did you come up with the name?

I started writing later in life.   It embarrassed me, like a dirty little secret.   It took months before I let somebody (my friend Lisa) read my stuff.   Fortunately, she raved about it, as friends do, which gave me courage to continue, albeit under the mask of Errid Farland.   At that time I was in a metaphorical dry place in my life, far from home, thus the name.

2. You own ShowMeYourLits.com. Talk a bit about that project.

Thank you for asking about ShowMeYourLits.com.   I would love to discuss it.   SMYL was created to fill a niche in the writing community.   We are not a workshopping site, and we are not big on social interaction or networking.   There are plenty of sites that fill those needs.   Our focus is the creation of new literary fiction, primarily via a weekly flash challenge.   In our language, a “flash” is a piece of writing done within a specific time limit, as opposed to a piece with a specific word count.   We post a prompt late Saturday night.   Players have until Tuesday evening to access the prompt, write for 90 minutes, and submit their work.   We post all the submissions under the anonymous name of “Big Shot,” then the players read, briefly comment, and vote on their favorites.   We also offer simple games, The Daily Drabble and The Exquisite ‘Ku, as a fun and low stress way to limber up the left brain and ease into more important projects.   More than anything, SMYL is fun, and it serves its intended purpose.   So far there have been hundreds of new works written in our short life span, and perhaps even thousands if you count the Drabbles and ‘Kus.   I like to count the Drabbles and ‘Kus.   Some of them are fabulous.

Our members are constantly mentioning their surprise at the benefits of the flashing process.   A good percentage had never tried it before joining, and they were skeptical, but most ended up loving it.   It seems to provide different benefits to different people.   Some want to improve in craft, and have remarked that flash has helped more than anything else in that regard.   Some have a problem with the butt-in-chair requirements of writing and like the discipline of creating something new each week.   Many, perhaps most, are surprised at the stories they bring forth.   Also many are surprised by the quality of their 90-minute offerings.   One would think such hastily written stuff would be lacking, but that’s so often not the case.   It’s not unusual to have an amazing story or two or five each week.   Some have been pure genius.   And many, many have appeared in print–or pixel.

3. You offer us three very different stories here. How did these pieces come about?

All of the pieces were written as a result of flashing to a prompt.   I’m such a fan of flashing for the very reason that it produces unique works.   There’s something about that ticking clock, in combination with a prompt not of my making, that leads to the creation of works I would never have written had I planned them.   None of these stories would have come out of my head had flash not dragged them out.

4. What is your writing process like?

Unlike most writers, I struggle with a relentless case of writer’s block.   I’m not one who has twenty potential stories dancing around in my head.   When I sit down to write, I’m tabula rasa.   I literally write one sentence, then another, then another.   I rarely know where a piece is going until it goes there, and I rarely know how it will end until I type the last sentence.   It’s a scary way to write, but it’s why flashing works so well for me.

Beyond that, I do the more typical writer thing in that I set it aside for days or weeks, then read it fresh, edit, and submit.

5. What is the saddest poem you’ve ever read?

Why the one by Elegiac Wind, of course.   I loved Elegiac Wind.   He was a kind soul, don’t you think?   Kind souls can be most vulnerable to breakage, and he was definitely broken, but in a good way.

6. Tethered seems rather allegorical. Was that your intention?

No, that wasn’t intentional.   As I said before, I rarely preplan stories.   I rarely work out complex metaphors or allegories before I begin to write.   They do appear, though.   There is a recurrent theme which underlies many of my stories, but I don’t recognize it while I’m writing it.   It’s as if the process of flashing causes me to dredge up artifacts hidden along secret internal passageways.   Often when I’ve completed a flash, I’ll read it and think, “Well, look at that,” because it will present a piece of me, to me, with such clarity.

There is that aspect in Tethered.   I don’t like to reveal too much of me in a thing, because I like a reader to bring his or her own truth to the table, but in this piece, Modesto might not be the main character.   It is through the devastation wrought upon him that the sister takes form.   Those familial demons pass down through the ages.   Whether they be addiction, violence, power, cowardice–whatever they are–they are forces of destruction that continually reform and reappear, and so often they’re as pretty and as cold as Modesto’s hermana.

7. What are you working on right now?

I’m flashing weekly, working on a never ending backyard remodel, and pretending I’m going to do a final edit on one of my completed novels, write up a synopsis, and send out queries.   Sometimes I’ll even open up that file entitled “Novels,” just to show myself how serious I am about it.

8. Will the young lad in Dawning be loved?

I love my characters and wish them the best, but I’m also a realist, so in truth, that’s a question life will answer for him.   Dawn loves him, and I have to believe she’ll do her best, but all those experiences which have shaped her young life will impact him.   How can they not?   Surely it will be neither all good nor all bad–for both of them.   I don’t judge her for it.