Tonight, caught once again without a clear focus for writing, I thought it was a good time to try and get to know the guy behind the guy asking the questions- who happens to also be the guy getting questioned. Sometimes when the words won’t come, you have to take drastic measures. Let’s get to know myself.

Tell us about yourself. Where are you from, and why do you want to be a writer?

My name is Bruce, and I am from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I suppose I want to be a writer because I like words, and I like stories. Not only do I like stories, but I love stories, and I think I just want to know how to tell them, and how to tell them well.

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

That is a good question. I think there is a little bit of a “yes” in there, but for much of my life it has been an automatic “no” because I thought writers have to be brilliant and scintillating and always on and uber creative. I am not someone who feels uber creative much of the time. I struggle to think more broadly than seeing a series of logical gates, which, in the case of story construction, is not a bad skill to have, but you have to be able to share more than bones in storytelling. You have to have more than five logical jumps which get the reader from the beginning of a story to the end. You have to have color and action and characters and descriptions that enable people to relate to a story. And I struggle to see those things beyond the bones.

I think the “no” has won out more oft than not because I never expected much of my life. I never believed that I could write anything earth-shaking or spellbinding, which I think most creative writers hope to do, and if I couldn’t do that, I just couldn’t be a writer. But I have a tendency to take myself out of most races before they start.

You are a sad case.

Lay off, or I will walk out of this interview.

You can’t. You are me, and I am you, and I will keep bugging you with questions anyways.

You have a point there. Dang it.

Well, I’ll back off a bit. You don’t need the extra hardship.

Thank you. And don’t forget- when I answer questions about myself- I am also describing you to a tee. So railroad me, and you are railroading yourself.

Touché. Ok then- that’s fair. Well, why do you think you love stories so much? Where does that come from?

That is a good question. A good question indeed.

I guess I see storytelling- and storyhearing- as part of being human, and experiencing humanness.

As human beings, we are all born one day on this planet, and we have this gift of an undetermined number of years and days to breathe, and to develop, and to do. And over the course of these days, individuals go off and see and do and experience so many amazing things- and no one person can see a single minute fraction of all of these incredible moments that have bubbled up in the sea of humanity. But amidst all of these individual remarkable moments, we each come to know some distinct and profound universal things about life. Hardships happen. Beauty can be found in even the muddiest of moments and humor in the darkest of days. People share similar hopes and longings and fears and doubts and struggles, and we see someone else go through something similar to what we do and make choices that affect them, we can understand why they might do that, or we can learn from them, and somehow, we can also join them as they walk through victories or fallout.

So I guess stories, to me, let us stand in another person’s shoes for a while, whether that person is imaginary or real, and experience a little more of what it means to live than we might be able to simply on our own. I’m not married, but seeing a couple struggle through unending conflict in a story makes me consider how conflict impacts relationships. I’ve never been a whaler, but a story on 17th century whaling lets me see and hear and feel what it might be like to do that work through the attitudes and actions of its characters.

For what it’s worth, my father grew up as the son of a career theater manager. My grandfather ran a number of classic film-and-stage theaters in a few towns in Kansas during a span of time that saw a lot of the big classic Hollywood stars come and go, and he was serious about it. And he was serious about making his movie houses give his customers a happy, entertaining experience, like he believed a trip to the theater was supposed to do. I think my dad, coming out of that background as a kid, growing up hanging around theaters, understood his father’s draw to the cinema, and he developed his own. His dad loved movies, he loved movies- it’s no surprise that his kids would grow up around movies and enjoy them. And, unsurprisingly, I, my older sister, and my younger each ended up working in movie theaters while we were in college.

Some people might suggest that life is meant to be lived, and not necessarily observed through the pages of a book or the frames of a film. How do you deal with the idea that storysmithing itself might be just another escape from life?

It’s a fair question- and particularly in relation to America and American culture.

Hollywood is such an immense institution in this country, and as one of the centers of America’s entertainment industry, it is a polarizing institution. Some people view it as a fount of creativity, inspiration and education, while others view it as a peddler of shiny salacious cultural crap. Despite how it is viewed, people spend lots of money to watch movies- in theaters and at home. And people buy lots of books and read lots of TMZ and People and news stories on the web. So I have to think that part of the reason people do this is an inborn desire to know, and to see, and to experience aspects of life that are beyond the opportunities or possibilities their circumstances allow.

People are hungry to live, even if it comes through the eyes or ideas or pictures or words of someone else.

So, yeah, there is escapism potential buried in trying to find one’s life in stories- but their is escapism potential in any object that helps us to escape ourselves. I guess the real question is how we deal with the stories we take in, just as we also have to ask how we deal with the life events we experience. We can eat, run, fly, drink, climb or make with the intention of becoming a more solid, more whole person, or with the intention of distracting us from living our lives.

In the end, I think anything can either help us to become a better, more whole person, or lead us down the road to perdition.

And stories- good stories- can certainly enable people to change in radical ways for the better.

Did you have to bring up TMZ?

No, I didn’t, but I can’t help to think that you also had something to do with that.

Do you think there will ever really be someone who shrinks their kids, or wears the oversized Dark Helmet helmet Rick Moranis wore in Spaceballs?

That’s a stupid question. What does that have to do with anything?

Well, you agreed to this interview, and I brought the questions.

Yeah, but that question also came out of MY head.

You are messed up, man.

I never denied that. But you are the jerk who asked it.

Who is your favorite- your father or your mother?

Really? REALLY?

What about between your sister and your brother- who do you like more?

What is your problem? Are you kidding me? You are a horrible interviewer.

If you had to rename Albuquerque, what would you change its name to?

I’m done. This is nonsense.

Well, you thought of it.

How often do you cry about your life when it is dark and you are awake in the wee hours of the morning?

Why do you cuss so much when you drive?

It’s okay. I do that too.