Good Stuff From Katie

I just wanted to take a moment to chat about my friend Craig. I’ve known Craig for a few years, and not only is he a great guy, he’s also cute, funny, and an amazing lyricist and musician. (Sorry, single girls, he’s also married. Rats!)  You can listen to a song of his here.  If you like that, good news! He’ll be opening for me at my San Francisco reading Thursday night to warm things up! I love Craig’s writing, so I decided to ask him some questions about his work: 

What is your writing process?

Sometimes, it starts with an accident. I’ll mess up part of a song I’m

playing and I’ll like the way the mistake sounds. If I feel like I can

turn the “mistake” into a whole song, I’ll give it some love and build out

the rest of the parts.

And that’s when time goes away and I get lost in the recording process.

The song takes on a life of its own and I follow where it wants to go. I

spend hours/days/weeks adding instruments, doing multiple takes, messing

around with effects, and wavering between frustration and confidence at

how it sounds.

Once I finish a few home-recorded demos, I record them in a “proper”

studio: a place filled with buttons, knobs, meters, and $3000 German mics.

My favorite recording studio in San Francisco is Tiny Telephone in the

Mission.

What comes first, the lyrics or the tune?

Usually the melody pokes its head out first.

As for the lyrics, I’m a big fan of the subconscious as a source for

those. When my mind is at ease (falling asleep, walking to work, swimming

laps), words for my songs will wander into my head without invitation. I

love the surreal imagery in Jeff Mangum’s lyrics from Neutral Milk Hotel;

apparently he practiced lucid dreaming to create a lot of that stuff.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on another batch of songs at home that I can take into the

studio.

Eventually, I’ll consider bundling my songs into an album and releasing it

somehow. But mostly, i’m just enjoying the process of recording music. If

other people like to listen to what I make, that’s awesome. But I’ll keep

doing it either way.

So Girls in Trucks comes out in two days. All over the country, people will be able to go to their local bookstores and look at my book. They’ll pick it up, flip through it, decide whether or not they want to spend a few hours with my inner most thoughts. Strangers might buy it, along with sunscreen, before heading to Cancun for vacation. Daughters I will never meet might grab it as a gift for Mother’s Day.  I’ve never been married, but I feel,  I imagine, a lot like an bride the day before a $500,000 wedding. I can’t sleep. I’m breaking out. I’m worried about what people will think of my taste. And what if no one shows up?I got sort of worked up about it last night. I walked my dog around the park, and I called friends and left them messages. (It was Friday night, so, like normal people who are not freaking out alone before a pub date, they were out.) I ate too many noodles. I had night sweats while sleeping, getting up twice to look at the book.People will be able to buy this Monday, I thought. Weird.I wish I could say I woke up refreshed and calm, filled with inner wisdom. I think good blog posts are supposed to end this way? As finished thoughts? Well, the news here is that I am still anxious. Also, there are noodles all over the sink, and the dog needs to go out again.   

I don’t know it you’ve ever written a story, but it’s hard. Really hard. I once wrote a story about a woman and her cat twenty-two times start to finish before giving it up. It gave me a case of the crazies. I finally had to start something else.You’ll never see that story, but what you should see, if you are interested in a perfect story, is the work of Deb Olin Unferth. She has a book of short shorts recently published with McSweeney’s called Minor Robberies, and every story is a gem. I met Deb this fall, and she drafts all of her stories by hand, rewriting them for months and years until every sentence is perfect. At first a Deb piece seems quirky and simple, but (like a good piece of art) when you it again you begin to sense how complex and gorgeous it is.  Bonus! It comes in a trilogy with a book by Dave Eggers and Sarah Manguso. Take a look if you’re a story lover. You can find it on Powells. I’d link to it, but I am not a natural blogger and can’t figure out how yet. 

I’m Katie, the author of Girls in Trucks, a novel coming out on April 7 from Little, Brown. I’m thirty-four years old and I live in San Francisco. I spend most of my time working on my next book, although soon I’ll be taking off around the country to read to you about Sarah Walters.  I call this blog “Things I Think You Should See” because I often come across and meet amazing writers and artists and musicians I want to share. I’ll be writing about them a lot. I might also just post pictures I think you might like,  or good songs, or funny stories, or video of my dog. She’s super cute. You should see her.