Q&A With Writer Julia Diana Robertson
“As a child there was always music playing in my house and in the car. It made me dream and took me places—it still does—those are the places I write about now.”
1. Why do words matter?
Words, when you use them in a certain order and with a certain rhythm, can be very powerful.
I feel compelled to tell stories. I have a very active imagination. Although it’s fiction and I haven’t necessarily lived in the towns or the time period, I like to sneak the things I’ve felt and seen onto the pages. It’s cheap therapy.
2. What do you find most challenging about writing?
Having discipline. If something changes in my world I have to be careful to follow my one rule: I must sit at my writing desk with a cup of tea and I must type. Doesn’t matter if it’s fifteen minutes or seven hours. Sometime I fall off the writing wagon… It happens when I don’t follow my one rule.
3. What do you listen to while you write?
The sound of words being typed. I like the rhythm of it—speeding up and slowing down. Birds. The tea kettle. It whistles several times throughout the day but I only actually make myself one or two cups. I often put it on when I have no intention of drinking tea at all. Something about the whistling—it’s reassuring.
When I’m doing my day-to-day tasks there’s always some music playing in the background (except for when I write). It would compete too much with the voices of my characters that are speaking and narrating in my head. As a child there was always music playing in my house and in the car. It made me dream and took me places—it still does—those are the places I write about now.
4. What’s your writing process or routine like?
It’s the same every time. I’m a creature of habit. I make myself a cup of English Breakfast tea with three sugars and milk. I toast a bagel—my deli has bagels from Arthur Avenue in the Bronx delivered fresh daily. And then I sit at my writing desk. My dog always follows me in. She has a big fluffy bed in the room but prefers to lie on the floor right beside me. Then (hopefully) I type.
When I revise, I read aloud in different accents. It helps me catch all the mistakes and reorganize the words so they flow better. I don’t know why. My favorites are British and Southern.
5. Where do you look for inspiration when you’re having trouble getting started with your writing?
I hop on the subway. I take a long drive. I read a magazine in my bathtub and rip out pages if they inspire me—‘Country Living’ is perfect for period pieces. I recently tore out page 20 of the June 2016 issue because I liked Carrie Underwood’s dog’s name: Penny Jean. I also tore out a page with a bunch of antique transistor radios: the Regency TR-1 made its way in Into the Hollow Crook.
About Julia Diana Robertson
Julia Diana Robertson, a New York native, grew up wanting to be a dance teacher and a writer. Second of three children, she was raised by a Beatlemaniac mother and an immigrant Lebanese father. The soundtrack of her life was diverse—her childhood memories steeped in culture and tradition. Julia started teaching dance at age sixteen and graduated from SUNY Purchase with a degree in literature. She publishes music, under an alter ego, that can be heard on Showtime, Logo, MTV music, and VH1. She currently runs a bicoastal dance company from New York and is working Into the Hollow Crook—the sequel to Beyond the Screen Door.
