Not being much for gossip, I found it strange that I wanted to talk with my endodontist and his assistant yesterday morning. But, while the two of them worked on my root canal, they discussed a certain type of dog that I know a thing or two about (Springer Spaniel — I own one) and I kept trying to add to their conversation. Alas, as I was unable to speak, I was left to my own thoughts, which led me to thinking about thinkers. What does a philosopher look like? (good question) How well is Don DeLillo’s book of short stories doing? (Story Prize finalist) How abusive was Ernest Hemingway? (gin soaked) Who is the next author to be published by Amazon? (a librarian)  And what’s up with the Obamas? (why not?)

One Time All I Wanted is Dark Sky’s first ebook-only title. I sat down with One Time‘s author Nicolle Elizabeth over a series of emails to talk about Interpol, brake stands in front of crowded porches, and holding grudges.

Could you introduce me to One Time All I Wanted?

I wanted to say as much as I could, in as direct and economically simplistic a way for each piece included. I looked at each piece as its own separate short story.

Is there a particular order to the recollections in the book?

Yes and no. When I was writing it, I wonder if one memory or story led to another linearly but then later, as is sometimes the way with sentences in my longer pieces, I’ll be like, in the middle of something else, and look up and think, “Oh wait I forgot to add something,” and then another sentence will come. I often write short stories only after knowing the first sentence. I then will think on that one sentence for like, a really, really long time. A year maybe. It’s like meditating on something in a way. Then I build and write or deconstruct and edit from there. From an ordering standpoint, some of the pieces were moved around a bit from the Dark Sky editors, and I trusted them entirely, and am glad that I did because I feel like they treated me like I was this really fragile thin glass snowglobe in transit, like, they respected and cared and tried to help me harvest drafts which could be as could as they could be.

What made you choose to write this book?

Actually, I didn’t. I was in the middle of this moving process involving selling my house, and I was relocating down south for a semester and starting this new job and completely alone and I kept getting lost while driving and sometimes I would go back to my apartment, and I would write these first person memory perspective posts on my Facebook page. Some were true some were complete exaggerations. I have this really odd way of processing things, I always have, and sometimes I have to re-work them out while writing. Not always, sometimes it’s not essay, it’s straight fiction. But for example like let’s say I was carrying home a tray of water bottles from the grocery store, maybe the way I would express this would come out in my head something like, “Walked for centuries, melting snow in water jugs. Neck carries the weight,” or something. So I was posting these things, I think because of what I was going through, as a way to comfort myself in memory, and honestly as a way to amuse myself. Then like, a hundred people a day would like these mini stories. I got notes from four different publishers asking if I would submit some of them individually or as a series and I was like, “Sheesh guys, I dunno.” really it was comforting in a way to hear that other people were taking comfort in my misery or something. Then Brian Carr from Dark Sky messaged me and he asked, “What are these?” and I answered him, “They’re Facebook posts,” and he said, “These are more than that. Write me one hundred of these.” I then went through the process of archiving them over the three months I had been writing them out, and then began to write them out deeper, and go in and edit some, and what I started to realize was, “Wow if this is actually my life, what a sad girl I am.” I told him yes I would, for him I would, and then when I got to one hundred I sent them to him as a book, and we all began to edit.

Have you done this style of writing before?

Sort of. When I was in 8th grade I wrote a short fiction story, which was around six sentences or so, about each of my friends and then distributed them at the lunch table to each friend. They were “my artistic vision through observation.” Nobody talked to me for a week. I went through this repetition phase of linked flash pieces while working on a chapbook in 2006 and this writer I was working under said to me, “Oh you have got to read Joe Brainard.” She was right, I totally was writing like him and didn’t even know he existed. Then I participated in this. Then I wrote this, and here we are. I mean I wrote other stuff too but these are the similar ones I guess.

“i spent an entire year skateboarding to work across the Williamsburg bridge while listening to Interpol’s “Turn On the Bright Lights” on my head- phones because even though bro dude preppy sports types seem to love that album, it was a really good album.” This really is a good album – favorite song?

Right? It is such a great album. It got all this attention from the strangest pop amalgamation but who cares it was a great album. What this piece is about, really, is that I had moved to New York to go to school for more writing and to be a writer in New York instead of in my random notebooks, and you know what, a lot of it was a really tough experience for me. I wasn’t happy. I was broke, I didn’t really fit in, I was working three jobs and taking two hour long subway rides from the ghetto in Brooklyn to get to campus, which was in basically a different state. Everything in my life was a disaster. I felt like I was losing parts of myself instead of learning them. So, I would skate over the bridge, and listen to sad melodramatic music and feel terrible for myself. I love the entire album and I think I was listening to it in a way I found particularly miserable and humorous because to me when someone says the words “Turn On The Bright Lights” I think of someone waiting for something to happen, asking for change. “She swears, I must pray for the female,” etc.

One entertaining aspect of the book is the mix of fiction and reality and wondering which is which as you read. What made you decide to include both?

Well thanks Seth, that is so nice to hear that you believe all of these. I’m told fiction is best if people are actually buying it.

“one time i learned how to say, “build a bridge and get over yourself,” in ten languages. i then spent time thinking about the architectural integrity of different bridges. there were things to take into account, such as materials used, such as climate, such as landscape, such as tradition. some bridges have water running under them and some don’t.” Is the water under these bridges standing or nonexistent?

Oh no, I’m a grudge holder. I’m working on that though, more water for all. More forgiveness.

What about the two bridges you walked across to tell someone to leave you alone?

I am the queen of making an asshole out of myself to tell someone to stop making an asshole out of me.

There’s an honesty in what I imagine to be some of the fictional “recollections” that makes me wonder if, on some level, everything in the book is true. Is this accurate?

I’m really moved that you’re thinking that.

“one time i thought i’d impress a guy by doing a brake stand on my bike when riding up to the party house because he was out on the front porch but i ended up falling over and his girlfriend came running out to help me. she looked really beautiful in the streetlight. her hair smelled like coconuts.” How was the party?

It was awful I ended up drinking too much and getting carried by my friend back to his apartment where I then puked in his stairwell while his roommate tried to make out with me and then when I went back to the party house in the morning to get my bike from the front fence it was locked up to, someone had stolen only my fender. Who does that?

If the “i” in each of these stories is you, is the “you” in them the same person? Is the “you” even a person?

The “i” for sure is me, and i have been in a lot of these situations, by the way, in one way or another, to clarify your question about truths earlier. The “you” is a lot of different people. I think each you is a different person, maybe.

Tell me about the town square and the fiery torches.

Oh honey one time I was on this treadmill and this scary lady I’ve never met before goes I’ve read your writing I know everything about you then she was levitating above me on the treadmill and making the buttons go faster and I was like I am falling someone please help me and then all these people were like we hope you die.

I had the pleasure of publishing Part 1 of Jonathan Callahan’s terrific 3-part novella, Notes from a Burning Underground, in Keyhole 11 last year. Now the whole novella is available online! Block out some time and dive in:

Part One – Keyhole (PDF)

Part Two – Used Furniture Review

Part Three – Quarterly West

Callahan’s first book, The Consumation of Dirk, is coming out with Starcherone in a year or so.

“A lot of contemporary fiction basically takes place unabashedly in somebody’s head. Then it’s a head to head exchange, which it is already, so why not be explicit about that? So goes the logic, which I understand. But I don’t really want to be trapped in this rainy day head exchange the whole time. I’d rather something sort of carry me, Tinkerbell-like, or in its talons, over a larger vision. There is something very claustrophobic about being stuck in someone’s “imagination project.” It’s like, Jesus, do you ever leave your bathroom? Do you leave your headphones on all the time? I do honestly have a good time reading a lot of that stuff, but it makes me anxious. Maybe you have all this dream logic you want to showcase, which is great, but there is also this whole category of other things, which is the eavesdropped, which is the observed, which to me is very mystical because it’s made up of the active byproducts of other peoples’ imaginations.” – Mike Young interview in Hobart