Dreams, Expectations, and the Pleasure Principle: An Interview with Jon Doughboy by Joseph Linscott
“I harbor no hopes for readers. Once I’ve written something, my job is done, and readers are free to take away whatever they want from it.”
- Why did you make the decision to write about a character detailing their dreams? Was there anything liberating in writing through dream logic?
I vaguely remember reading some writing advice about never using dreams because they’re cheesy or cliched and probably took that as a jumping off point or challenge. Like, guess I’ll try to write a story that’s just a conversation about a dream. I like a lot of bad or small-minded writing advice for this reason. Gives you something to work against.
2. Often dreams reveal the dreamer to themselves, but this story actively pushes against that kind of interpretation. Why did you make this decision?
I’m not sure I make decisions when I write. I get a feeling, get curious about a character, or swept up in a voice, and then sort of see where it goes. I’m never 100% certain I know what one of my stories is about. They’re probably about more than I’m conscious of and convey less than what I want them to or reveal different things to different readers. I think my idea here was that the character’s dream is revealing something to her but she’s also using it, the telling of it, to allow or even force her friend to reveal something to her too, something they both half know already but need to hear.
3. You’ve written in your bio that you are “a recovering ‘literary fiction’ writer who now produces ‘prose entertainments’ to pass the time.” I was wondering if you could speak on the difference between these two, in your eyes, and what you see in the landscape of publishing, lit mags, online writing, etc. that makes you see this binary? Is it a binary?
When I first started writing I didn’t think “I’m writing literary fiction or mystery or fantasy.” I just thought, “here’s a little story I wrote.” But once I started trying to submit places, I realized there were all these different definitions, genres, expectations etc. mostly to do with publishing, marketing and all that. Learning that not many people read literary fiction and that most literary fiction writers don’t make their living from it—they teach, judge contests, edit, work other jobs, burn up their trust funds etc.—was liberating for me. Sometimes the term “literary fiction” just feels like a consolation prize for no one reading your work, pretentious lipstick on a boring pig. Now I just write. Maybe some of it is literary or genre, realist or fabulist, serious or comic. I don’t know and don’t think it matters. That said, if an agent ever calls me up with a book deal and wants me to call my work literary or upmarket or romantasy, I’d probably click my heels and dance to whatever tune they told me to. It’d be great to make a few bucks. My dog has a weird, ugly growth on her tail that the vet said would cost over a grand to remove and I’d love to get that done and then have her prance around my girlfriend so I could say “see that beautiful, sleek, healthy tail? My writing did that.”
4. I wonder, then, what you see as the point or reason for fiction? Why do you write and read fiction? Why should others? Should they?
For me, reading and writing is basically just me following the pleasure principle. I like it. It’s fun. I like creating stories, experimenting with different ways to tell them, putting a voice on the page and seeing what it says, exploring a thought or feeling or memory via writing. I don’t think people should read necessarily. Life’s short and there are a million ways to spend it. Some people play flag football, some people play video games, some people write. I wish I liked writing less and found the same pleasure and satisfaction in a less sedentary and more social hobby but here we are.
5. What do you hope readers take away from the stories that you write? What would you hope they take away from “The Mango Cart”?
I harbor no hopes for readers. Once I’ve written something, my job is done, and readers are free to take away whatever they want from it. It’s the same for me when I read. I take away what I want and don’t care what the author wants or expects of me.
6. What does your writing process look like? What sparks an idea for a story?
I write a lot early in the morning before work. But I don’t keep a schedule. It’s more or less when the mood strikes. Sometimes a story starts with an image, a sound, a flash of memory, or a feeling. Sometimes I get a full first sentence in my head and see where it takes me.
7. What authors influence your work or give you inspiration?
I get inspiration all over the place. Sometimes from a story I stumble across online or a random book I pick up at a free little library or a snippet of song I hear on the radio. I was on a Dickens kick a couple of years ago and Dostoevsky before that. I haven’t read a lot of the classics so I’m catching up. This year I got a lot out of Berlin Alexanderplatz. I’d love to write a big, multivoiced thing like that. I’m reading Krasznahorkai’s latest novel now. Over the last few years, I’ve been reading a lot of stuff in translation, Tsushima, Hjorth, Hrabal, Fosse, and others.
8. Who are you currently reading?
I’m trying to reading more contemporary stuff by people publishing in the mags I submit to. This winter I’ll probably dig into Lips by Colin Gee, Lizard Brain put out by tragickal, Incurable Graphomania by Anna Krivolapova, and The Calendar Factory by Jesse Hilson.
9. What are you currently working on?
I’ve got a short story collection tentatively titled Word Vomit that’s around 75,000 words and growing and includes “The Mango Cart.” It’s all stuff I’ve written in the last year-and-a-half or so, but short story collections are a hard/impossible sell. I’ve written a few novels too, but they’re not very good and I’ve already submitted them to most places that accept unagented submissions and had no luck. I’d like to sit down and write something longer this winter so I can sit with one story longer. I’ve got a comic bungling buddy art heist novel sketched out and some chapters on a fever dream deathbed novel but who knows? If I ever muster the motivation and figure out self-publishing via Amazon, I’ll probably publish all of the above in one go and pay for a few print-on-demand copies for my three or so friends who read.
