Charlie Watts
ORP: What inspired you to begin writing or creating? Has that source of inspiration changed throughout your life?
Charlie Watts: Teachers. In fifth grade, our local Pennsylvania school system test-drove a new curriculum format called “open plan” that featured a lot of self-driven assignments (vs. class lectures). Frequently, “write a short story about…” was one of the homework choices. My teacher, who no doubt wrecked her vision reading my microscopic left-handed pen scribbles, showed me that a worldview in which everything was essentially a story would be a perfectly fine way to proceed. My primary college and grad-school teacher, the author Meredith Steinbach, inspired me with her clarity of mechanics, her bent toward the poetic, and her endless patience with my poor spelling and fixation (in those days) on farming equipment. I think I would also credit my father, originally an English Lit professor, who challenged me to write about more than just the gunshot or the hurricane, and make sure to include the cat on the counter or the sound of a bed being made.
ORP: Do you write or create with an audience in mind? If so, how do you consider the relationship between that audience and your work throughout your creative process?
CW: I probably think more in terms of readers than audience — although that may seem like an annoying semantic quibble. But, for me, instead of imagining the reaction of a particular group — will they like this, will they be interested, what will they compare it to — I find myself thinking of an individual reader who does not have the inside track on what the heck I’m trying to describe or convey. It’s like the difference between how I think I sound when I sing (because I can hear the actual artist in my head…) and what other people hear as they walk by, eyebrows raised. I aspire to write in a way that puts the reader at the actual concert and not, instead, at the mercy of my rendition! That’s my goal, at least.
ORP: What does success as a writer or artist mean to you?
CW: When something I read — a novel, a story, a line of refrigerator magnet poetry — captures my imagination for whatever infinitely complex combination of reasons and moves something in me (intellectual, emotional, comic…), I feel so grateful that it found me. I want to thank (at least psychically…) whomever caused it to come into being. That’s how I think about “success” in writing: if I can offer that kind of spark moment to someone else, then it’s a great day. Having my efforts appear in public increases the odds a moment like that might happen, so, obviously, getting published is a huge plus!
ORP: What does vulnerability mean to you as an artist and/or writer?
CW: This question jumps out at me because I find I have trouble not trying to save my characters, by which I mean that I often start with the idea of a deeply flawed person and, despite my best intentions, they tend to wander toward something redeeming. I think vulnerability — at least when you look at it as a verb — works in a similar way: a process of lifting away, moment by moment, the constructs behind which we hide. The funny thing is — and this is something I forget and (try to) relearn every day — the more I go toward the things I fear and resent and dislike about myself… the less bad it all feels! Same for writing a story. Without vulnerability, I feel there really isn’t much joy.
