This week’s creative is young, talented, a writer to watch, and she happens to be my niece.  Amanda has been published in several literary magazines along with a study gig writing for Courthouse News and Westword. Her talents extend beyond the writer into translating and editing. Here is her creative process:

“If you haven’t written a word since your last school assignment, you probably think writing is a magical thing that happens to a few gifted people with great grammar. Truth is, I would be lost without spell check and muses are a lot like lightening, if you’re waiting to be struck, you’re probably still waiting.

My process is slow and tedious and involves countless hours of going back and crossing out whatever I finally managed to write down.

On a good day, I’ll wake up a good hour or two before everyone else in the house, make a French press, and get to it. On a bad day, I sleep in and spend the afternoon lying to myself about how I will make up for it later then inevitably go to bed early.

For me, the two most important parts of the story are the ending and the twist. Without those, my character is all dressed up with nowhere to go. In the case of “Two Soups for Table Eight,” I began with the idea that I wanted to write something that might be seen differently on the second reading—either Jean’s a bored waiter with a big imagination or he really is a reporter. I also wanted to capture that angst of being stuck at a day job, when you (feel like you) have more important things to do.

I try to put some truth in every story and challenge myself to experiments with new techniques.

I figure if I keep grinding away like this, the muse just might strike day and I will be ready for it with a kite and a key.”

“Two Soups for Table Eight” is in the August issue of ArtPost. Amanda also has had fiction on the Write Launch and Menacing Hedge. She writes true stories for Courthouse News and Westword.