India Choquette
ORP: What would you say is your most interesting writing and/or artistic quirk? Do you have any habits that you believe help or hinder your creativity?
India Choquette: I always write with an old-school stopwatch. Wherever I am, whatever I’m writing, I time myself. If I pause my work, I stop the clock (and sometimes the annoying beep is enough to deter me from stopping). I like the stopwatch it cues me to be mindful of my focus, and because the object itself acts as a symbol of “work time” (and I can’t time on my phone because I need my phone as far away as possible from me when I’m working).
ORP: What books have you read many times?
IC: THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson, MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh, and THE VEGETARIAN by Han Kang. Since I grew up in Vermont, I’ve always felt a connection to Shirley Jackson’s writing, and I like books with unexplained elements. I am also drawn to mysterious and somewhat confusing or unlikable women, and if I were to tie these three books together, I’d say that they all include women who want to improve themselves, but go about it in a very strange and possibly misguided away.
ORP: What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing or creating? What advice would you give to another writer or artist?
IC: The most valuable piece of writing advice I’ve received is actually through the example of my mother, who is a visual artist. Growing up, I watched her carve out time for her art at every moment of her life, from the time she was raising two little kids in a house without running water, to the period where we were housesitting and moving around, all the way until she finally got her own studio space. Life didn’t always make it easy for her to create, but she found a way. I’ve tried to bring this same determination and flexibility to my own work. The advice I most often give is to be patient. The expectation that we are going to be immediately good or immediately successful is neither helpful nor realistic. Find joy in the work, embrace the friction of building expertise, and if you keep writing, you will narrow the gap between your vision and execution.
ORP: How does writing/art influence your worldview, and how does your worldview shape your writing/art?
IC: I write to figure out my worldview. I wrote “What I Will Do” because I was trying to understand the trap of justification and the ways we set “boundaries” with political activism and moral acts. But it was also an attempt to process grief—we lost our neighbor while I was working on the story, and I couldn’t make sense of how we were just one floor away from each other, but he felt unreachable. I found myself thinking about all the little things I could’ve done differently to make us have a more neighborly and kind connection. What does it being a good neighbor look like in New York City? That’s what I wanted to figure out.