Lauren Scharhag responds

Lauren Scharhag: I am one of those people that take pictures of food. I am a pop culture junkie, a s’mores connoisseur, an art worshipper, and a dabbler in the occult. I excel at slinging curses in English and Spanish and am able to quote large swathes of movie dialogue in a single bound. A friend to lizards and bugs, a quick-draw with a GIF, and caretaker to two geriatric cats, I am also an exceptionally good sport when someone pelts me with straw wrappers. I live in Kansas City, MO. Read all about my work at: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com

DV: How did you ever get started thinking of yourself as a poet, of all things?

LS: I always wanted to be a writer. For me, there was just nothing else. I grew up in a bilingual family. My father's family were all big readers and artists, very intellectual. My mother's family were all big talkers, and loved to tell stories. Language was just it for me. So I started writing as soon as I could hold a pen. I never thought there was anything unusual about wanting to write everything -- fiction, poetry, essays, screenplays. It all seemed very natural to me, but I guess that's not how all writers see it. For years, I would go through these cycles where I would focus more on prose, then switch and focus more on poetry. They would last for years at a time. In high school is where I went through my first big poetry cycle, which lasted about three years, then it was back to prose. I picked up poetry again in my twenties, and that cycle lasted three years too. Now, I'm striving for a bit more balance, making time in my life for both. I used to think I was better at fiction than poetry, but my track record with publication indicates otherwise.

DV: In terms of process, what is the difference between writing poetry and prose? Do you approach the two genres differently?

LS: I wouldn’t say my process is very different, but I do interact with the two forms very differently. My process is to be inspired by something, or to become interested in a topic. I free write all my thoughts on it, or gather a bunch of research. Then I write the thing. If it’s fiction, I map it out. There are exceptions, of course. Sometimes, pieces or scenes appear fully formed in my brain, and then it’s like being seized, you know, like demonic possession. Otherwise, I think of poetry as a one-night stand. Fiction is anything from a torrid affair to a very long, very tempestuous marriage. I write the poem and it's gone. I carry stories around inside me. A story can live inside me for years. Characters appear and become beloved friends. Sherman Alexie said, “Poems are primal. Poems are like breathing and fiction and non-fiction feel like something you put on. Non-fiction and fiction feel like a shirt you put on and poetry feels like it’s in your DNA.” I get what he means. Poetry is something that happens inside you, it's necessary, like a sneeze or an orgasm. Prose is something you enter into, that you do to yourself. You have to put on garments and become other people. But, underneath it all, I think both are about exploration. You don't just look into the abyss, you strip down and go splashing around in it.

DV: So, let me get this straight. You spent three teenage years promiscuously, then launched into a torrid affair for the next three years until it lost its magic and you resumed the one-night stands until you found the love of your life – but now, despite that, your libido still occasionally lapses back to one-nighters? Or are you currently involved in threesomes with a permanent partner and a series of passing fancies? Does all this coupling lead to romances and love poems or what?

LS: Ha! That's more or less it. My libido hasn't slowed down, and I'm incapable of being totally faithful to either idea or form. Right now, it's a permanent partner and a series of passing fancies. They all knew what they were getting into with me. Oddly, I think I'm more romantic in prose than in poetry. I have a lot of romantic and erotic subplots. Not so many love poems. But, as with everything else, there's still time.

DV: Prose (at least in modern times) permits lengthier digression and explication than poems. That was not always true (i.e., Byron, etc., who were still able to get away with writing long narrative poems that had a large, devoted audience). But literature (art) simultaneously defies and reaffirms contemporary attitudes. What kind of idea or form are you flirting with currently?

LS: Currently, my goal is to finish the sixth and final book of my fantasy series, The Order of the Four Sons. I started writing it with a co-author. We wrote the first four books together, but he wasn't able to continue with the project, so I finished Book V on my own, and am in the home stretch. I'm hoping to complete at least a draft this year-- this series is now 12 years in the making. It's been quite a ride. I love these characters and this universe, but I am looking forward to moving on to other things. But true to my own nature, I am also always working on new poetry. I have two full-length collections and several chapbooks that I'm shopping around -- querying publishers, submitting to chapbook contests, that sort of thing. I am talking with a publisher about one, Requiem for a Robot Dog. So we'll see where that goes. When I'm done with the Order of the Four Sons, I'd like to take a break from novels for a while and focus on short stories. Like I said, novels feel like a marriage. I'm looking forward to being single and ready to mingle again. I'm also very interested in flash fiction. I just set a goal for myself to do at least one flash fiction piece a month.

DV: Broadly speaking, what is The Order of the four about?

LS: The Order of the Four Sons is about two ancient, magical sects duking it out over an artifact known as the Staff of Solomon, and the fate of the universe. 

DV: When you began, did you have the entire 6-book arc planned, or did each volume evolve organically without much thought about future developments?

LS: Both, actually. When we started, we had planned for only four books, but you know what they say -- the story grows in the telling. We knew how the overall storyline was going to go, but left ourselves room for improvisation. Really, when the characters hijack the story and start surprising you is the best part of writing. But we knew who the main characters and villains were, and which ones were going to make it to the end. We're not George R.R. Martin by any means, but not everyone survives. For the most part, though, we've stuck to the plan. 

DV: Mark Twain was clearly no Martin. He once described his process of writing “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson.” He had started with a character named Rowena and some others but had gotten sidetracked en route and, when the book was finished, discovered that he had never completed their part of the story. “There was no possible way of crowding her in, anywhere. I could not leave her there, of course; it would not do. After spreading her out so, and making such a to-do over her affairs, it would be absolutely necessary to account to the reader for her. I thought and thought and studied and studied; but I arrived at nothing. I finally saw plainly that there was really no way but one -- I must simply give her the grand bounce. It grieved me to do it, for after associating with her so much I had come to kind of like her after a fashion, notwithstanding she was such an ass and said such stupid, irritating things and was so nauseatingly sentimental. Still it had to be done. So at the top of Chapter XVII I put a "Calendar" remark concerning July the Fourth, and began the chapter with this statistic: ‘Rowena went out in the backyard after supper to see the fireworks and fell down the well and got drowned.’ It seemed abrupt, but I thought maybe the reader wouldn't notice it, because I changed the subject right away to something else. Anyway it loosened up Rowena from where she was stuck and got her out of the way, and that was the main thing. It seemed a prompt good way of weeding out people that had got stalled, and a plenty good enough way for those others; so I hunted up the two boys and said, ‘They went out back one night to stone the cat and fell down the well and got drowned.’ Next I searched around and found old Aunt Patsy and Aunt Betsy Hale where they were around, and said, ‘They went out back one night to visit the sick and fell down the well and got drowned.’ I was going to drown some others, but I gave up the idea, partly because I believed that if I kept that up it would arouse attention, and perhaps sympathy with those people, and partly because it was not a large well and would not hold any more anyway.” Have you ever thought about writing an epic (by which I mean I long poetic narrative rather than a prose novel)?

LS: It has actually crossed my mind! I am a fan of the classics -- the Iliad and the Odyssey, Beowulf, Paradise Lost, Gilgamesh, and Idylls of the King are my favorites. I don't have a story in mind, but I would love to give it a shot someday. In the meantime, I've tried my hand at staying focused long enough to do a modern take on Eliot's The Wasteland. I succeeded in writing two parts, one of which was published, called, "Memorial Day." The other remains unpublished, but I keep meaning to overhaul it and finish the cycle. Another step I've taken in the direction of doing a longer poetic work is I'm working on a collection with a single, unified theme -- poems about prison. I volunteered for two years at a prison in Florida, and I've had two prison pen pals for almost four years now. The incarceration rate in this country is something I feel very strongly about, and I think the average person doesn't give a lot of thought to people behind bars.

DV: Now that “Hamilton” has become such a sensation, I wonder how a John Kennedy / Lyndon Johnson / Richard Nixon epic would play out. Murder, treachery, glamor, strong characters, vivid plot, ironic poetic justice…. It could even employ distinctive dialects! How long did it take to develop the Four Sons?

LS: Yes, American history would be a rich source for an epic poem. I enjoy history and we've woven a lot into the Order of the Four Sons. The series actually began as a film. I met a director through some mutual friends. He was in search of a screenwriter. I wrote the script and a film was shot in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, but nothing ever came of it. I met my co-author, Coyote Kishpaugh on set. He was an extra. About a year after the movie project fizzled he called me up and asked if I wanted to turn it into a book-- or a series. That was 12 years ago. I don't think either of us knew what we were getting ourselves into. I'd say the development stage, if you count the film, took just over a year. The draft of Book 1 was completed in 2008. And here we are, finally, in the home stretch. 

DV: Twelve years is a long time to bring any project to fruition. Michelangelo only worked on the Sistine Chapel for 4 years. Now that it’s almost done, are you energized to embark on a new one? Or too debilitated?


LS: It is a very long time. I am definitely energized! I have so many things I want to do. It will feel very liberating to complete such a large undertaking.

DV: I don’t want to take up any more of your time. I want to thank you for the time you’ve shared and to wish you bon fortuna on all your future endeavors. 

LS: Thank you very much for interviewing me! I appreciate your time as well, and this has been fun. Take care.