Interview with Thomas Kohnstamm: Celebrating the Release of SUPERSONIC
Congratulations to Thomas Kohnstamm for the release of his adult fiction novel SUPERSONIC. To celebrate, we asked Thomas a few questions about his writing craft, his inspirations, the industry, and more.
What is your creative process?
I am a night owl. In an ideal world, I would write at night from about 10pm to 2am. However, I have school-age kids and need to be up on weekdays by 6am to manage their morning routines and get them out the door. I’m a bit slow to achieve my deeper creative focus in the first part of the day, so I tend to do correspondence and commercial writing work in the morning. When possible, I start writing after lunch and go well into the afternoon. But it’s hit and miss. I essentially write when I can. I try to make up for the erratic nature of my writing schedule by thinking about my projects all the time and therefore being ready to write when the opportunity arises.
Is there anything special that you need in order to be productive?
Caffeine and quiet (or near quiet) – that’s about it.
What are your favorite songs for writing in general? Did you have a theme song for this book?
I can’t listen to music while writing. I wish I could, but I am easily distracted.
What does your working space look like?
I find it very helpful to write with two screens. I tend to research on one screen while keeping my manuscript open on the other screen. It can be hard to get into a writing mindset… and it’s important to find a workflow that helps you stay in that mindset for as long as possible.
How did you initially get into writing?
I was always a dedicated student and very academically ambitious, but I didn’t know the first thing about careers. I’m not sure that I even really understood that I could become a writer (and I definitely didn’t know any professional writers or successful artists of any stripe). I think that I thought I’d be a professor of some sort. I was always interested in people and human behavior, but I could never tie myself to a single academic discipline. In graduate school, I became disillusioned with how even the humanities were increasingly driven toward quantitative analysis. I had no interest in creating surveys and learning statistics. I realized that I wanted to understand life in more qualitative, artistic fashions. That lead me to writing and then on to fiction as a way to edge toward deeper truths.
Could you tell us about authors who have inspired you?
When I first got serious about fiction, I was reading a lot of autofiction. Now I am more of an omnivore. I’m currently into expansive, braided novels and alternative histories. But I really like anything where the writer tried to do something original. I like the feeling that the author really cared about creating a work of art.
I have also benefited from mentorship. My friend and mentor, Jonathan Evison, has been indispensable for my career.
At what moment did you have that confirmation to feel you truly are a writer?
I am sure that the external validation of getting published comes into play here. But really, for me, there was a tipping point of total percentage of my life dedicated to a craft (see, now I’m being quantitative). Eventually, you’ve just done it so much that you are a person who writes more than a person who, say, plays golf or a person who quilts or whatever. Aristotle said something along the lines of, “We’re not who we think we are… We are what we repeatedly do.” Of course, then there’s the question of professional writer vs. more of a hobbyist writer … but the core is much the same. I think that a writer is someone who is compelled to write and does it all the time.
What are your thoughts about the agent-author alliance?
It is an essential partnership as you need to be focused on the creative side and must collaborate with someone who can bridge from the creative to the industry side. Obviously, the writer must know something about the industry and the agent should have a good grip on creative/editorial – but both have their relative areas of expertise and are able to accomplish much more together.
What has it been like working with Dunham Literary?
Jennie is a wise and patient agent. She is not beholden to fleeting trends or chasing one-off advances. She sees the big picture, cares about quality and is focused on building sustainable and successful careers.
What advice for do you have for aspiring authors?
Much of a creative career is about not giving up. You have to keep at it, keep evolving, keep learning, keep pushing, keep trying harder – until you break through. And once you break through, you have to redouble your efforts to breakthrough to the next level and so on. Along with that comes the relatively boring-sounding need for what might be called lifestyle-design. In order to be in a place where you don’t have to give up or back-burner your writing, you must find ways to have sustainable income, balance writing with personal and familial relationships etc. Few to no people have ever made it saying, “OK, I’m going to try to write this one book over the next few months, and – if it doesn’t work – I will do something else.” That is dilletante bullshit. You have to be in it for life. And (unless you have a trust fund or a very understanding + wealthy spouse) you have to find a meaningful-enough, flexible-enough and painless-enough day job to sustain a long and significant investment of time and emotion.
SUPERSONIC is available online and in bookstores everywhere! Don’t miss this thought-provoking saga.
