M.W: My name is Molara Wood, I am the author of Indigo, I am a writer and journalist.
T.K: Why do you consider yourself a writer?
M.W: I have a writer’s sensibility, I believe. Even when I am not at my desk writing, I operate in whatever environment I find myself, consciously or unconsciously as a writer. I am always processing, on some level, however vague, something I think I might work on. I pay attention to the world as I pass through it, in a sensitive way that I think is typical to most writers.
T.K: So, when did you realize that you wanted to be a writer?
M.W: I woiuld say from my teenage years, then I may not have known exactly or contextualized it the way I know writing to be today but I always thought that I might write stories, things, but knowing what the journey would be like at that time, was vague.
T.K: So, say you want to write a short story or a novel, what is the trigger for the story? Is it a sound, an idea, a conversation, or what usually makes you want to write a story?
M.W: There are some things that I would have experienced or seen at some time or another that will just keep coming back to me. It could be something someone said in passing, then 6 years later it comes back to me and resonates with me. Then, I might start to think what if I develop this? What they said might have been something so innocent but the way my imagination works with it, has dramatic potential. Sometimes, it is a smell from long ago but things that people say feature prominently as an idea of what a story might be.
T.K: When this idea comes, how do you write? Do you write morning, afternoon or night? Do you have a set target for yourself every day?
M.W: I think I would have produced more if I had a more regimented approach to writing, if there was a time of day, I get up to do so. With me, there is really no formula and I probably need to adopt one because I feel I should have written more.
T.K: When you say written more are you referring to fiction or non-fiction or in terms of journalism?
M.W: Yes, when you think about the journalism I have written, it scares me sometimes, the sheer volume I have been able to write in over a decade. It is astounding. But I guess I am always hard on myself because I am not writing fiction as much as I should, because the time one spends on journalism or event coverage takes away from what could have been used on fiction. You will understand this to a certain extent because you are someone who writes about other people’s writing also. There’s a kind of generosity about pushing the works of other people, even when there is no reward, and I actually find that many writers only push when it concerns them. And maybe that’s how some people need to be to produce more but fortunately or unfortunately my own trajectory is different. But ultimately, we have to realize that the time one is giving to writing reviews is time that could be devoted to personal work but I am reconciled to it.
T.K: Yeah, because if you write a 1,500 article over two days, you don’t have those two days to save and that is where the problem is for writers that write on so many levels. How do you find time to put into fiction because it’s the same laptop, the same fingers, the same seat, the same back ache.
M.W: And it’s not just the 1,500 words that you have found time to write or back ache, it’s the time you went to gather that story, went to the event, interviewed somebody, read a 400-paged book, in order to write a review of 1,000 words. The time taken to produce it is so far greater. I also know that once I sit down, there are some forces that are compelling me to get up. I don’t have set periods but most of my writings is done at night. I am not a morning person. I may start at night and stay up until 4am to write but I do not get up in the morning to write. I am a night person.
T.K: Thank you very much.
