What, Why, How: Patrick Shawn Bagley

What:

I write crime and horror fiction, mostly with a hardscrabble rural setting. My characters tend to be people who are damaged in some way even before I put them through the wringer, and my endings are rarely what you’d call “happy.” I’ve written and published poetry, though not in the last few years. Prose takes up all of my writing time.

Why:

Why do I write, and why do I write what I do? It sure isn’t for the money, though a bit more of that would help keep a roof over my head. I suppose I write because it’s an impulse I’ve had since I was a child. My childhood was dark. I’d always made up stories in my head because I was a shy, scrawny kid, and any reality I created was far better than my actual life, and by the age of nine or ten, it occurred to me to start writing them down. I write what I write because those are the kinds of stories that interest me.

How:

Stories might start out in a notebook or on scraps of paper. I wrote down a line at work the other day, something I think will grow into a short story. Once I get serious about a project, I’ll transfer it to the computer, and go from there. I don’t have a set writing schedule. I know I should. I used to write every morning or late at night because it was quiet and I was the only one up. Now that I live alone, and I can write any time I want, I’ve allowed myself to slide. I need to get back into a routine if I ever want to see another novel published.