Friday Five with Benjamin Carr

I got this tacky, R-rated sentence stuck in my head. A variation on it is on the first page of the book. The initial idea was that someone married was cheating with their dentist.

But then I realized that I couldn’t get into the mind of a female narrator, for that is not an experience I can easily write about. Besides, there’s a book called Compromising Positions that uses that angle.

When I realized that I could write the story of a young gay man stressed by too many secrets, for that is a life I have known, Impacted came together.

It’s a mix of brainstorming, self-doubt and procrastination that eventually leads to sentences on a page.

With Impacted, I had a daily word goal, a tracking spreadsheet, a distraction-free writing tool, a bulletin board full of index cards and a table at the 24-hour Dunkin Donuts where I wrote most nights.

As I finished every chapter with a cliffhanger, I would send it to friends of mine, but I said not to give me any notes or feedback – because I didn’t want outside comments given too soon to dissuade me. I instructed them to please just tell me to ‘Keep going.’ And they were great about doing that.

So that’s the best advice I’ve ever received on writing a novel. ‘Keep going.’

Jim Thompson’s ‘Pop. 1,280’ and Raymond Chandler’s ‘The Big Sleep’ probably influenced my book the most. I wanted to write a noir from the perspective of the dumb floozy who keeps making boneheaded mistakes, trying to stay one step ahead of the law. My floozy character is a guy named Wade Harrell. He’s in a murder mystery where the detective never shows up.

I like the blunt language of old pulp novels. I also like reading stories and novels from reclusive authors who were maybe unpleasant jerks: J.D. Salinger, Richard Yates, Patricia Highsmith and John Cheever. I love Michael McDowell’s ‘Blackwater’ series. And my friend Brian Panowich has three books out that are rollicking good Southern thrillers, beginning with ‘Bull Mountain.’

As modern novels go, no one beats Jennifer Egan’s ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ and Elizabeth Strout’s ‘Olive Kitteridge.’

Being an extrovert served me by connecting me to the writing and storytelling community in Atlanta. It caused me to never let stage fright or embarrassment stop me from sharing a story, finding a way to connect.

There’s a sort of brazen audacity in anyone who dares to share their experiences – the good, the bad, the raw. Every voice has value. The most vulnerable stories, the ones that dwell in dark truths that polite societies refuse to discuss, intrigue me the most.