Keri Healey

Hugo House: Most writers we invite to create a new piece of writing on an assigned theme say no. Why did you say yes?
 
Keri Healey: Because if I didn't say yes to every decent invitation I received to write something, I'd never write again.  It's true.  I'm essentially very lazy. 
 
HH: Could you tell us a little bit about your process—how you approach writing something new?
 
KH: As I hinted at above, I'm a big jotter.  I rely a lot on memories as launching pads.  I've had the benefit of a lot of colorful people in my life and I use them all the time to create new scenarios for plays and stories.  I also jot down pieces of conversation I've overheard and personal responses to paintings, building, signs I see.  I like to keep a collection of visual objects that might spark a conversation.  I'm a playwright, so I always think in dialogue terms first: what would one person say to another person about the thing at hand?  That's where I start.
 
As far as process details, sadly I don't have a very strong sense of writing discipline. Meaning I don't get up every day and write until I produce 2,000 words.  Or even 200 words.  Frankly, I work incredibly well on a deadline.  If something's due at a certain point or if I have an idea that I can't shake, I can sit down for 8 hours and write without stopping until the idea is articulated in some form.  I dump a lot of information down really fast and proceed to shape it into something later on. 
 
I edit by reading aloud to myself.  All the time.  I come from an acting background, and I hear words and conversations as music.  If the rhythms don't work when I read them, that informs my editing process.  I'll write a few pages, then read it back, tinker with it, letting the characters really talk to each other and then move on to the next few pages—always going back to the beginning of each scene and viewing it as a discrete unit that needs its own shape.  Then, of course, I have to back up and see the scene as part of the larger whole.  This goes on until I "feel" a natural ending.
 
HH: What childhood game conjures the most vivid memories for you? Why?
 
KH: My two best friends in fourth through eight grade were Susan Katz and Donna Jo Incalcaterra.  Whenever two of the three of us were together, we'd decide to go over the missing girl's house and one of us would talk to her at her doorway or through her window and rag on the third girl, while the third girl would be hiding close by, listening.  So, for example, Susan would tell Donna Jo all about how she'd just had a fight with me and wasn't I so conceited and blah blah blah...and then she'd ask Donna Jo how she felt about me.  And then Donna Jo would rag on me to Susan.  And then I would reveal myself and say something like, "Oh, that's real nice, Donna Jo."  It was a miracle that this ever worked more than once, but it did.