Snapshot: Nicole Jones

by Nicole Jones

Where do you get your news?

I hate to admit this, but most often I look at the Yahoo! headlines. If there is big news going on, then I usually switch over to MSNBC.

What's your order in a coffee shop?

Caramel latte. I have ordered this so many times at the Triple J Cafe in Kirkland that they start making it when I walk in the door. I am not sure if this speaks to their barista's attentiveness or me frequenting the place so often. Most likely it points to the fact that I am stuck in a rut. I tend to stick with things that work, and since I like my coffee not to taste like coffee, caramel lattes are a good choice.

If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?

I would establish a program that ran in all schools—elementary, middle, and high school—for students who were interested in writing. My experience growing up was that you were only considered "talented/gifted" if you solved long equations or liked studying science. Aptitude for the fine arts wasn't rewarded at all. Likewise, I never had English teachers who were writers, so I never had writing mentors or anyone to objectively critique my work until I was in college. My program would provide that.

Where do you get ideas for your writing?

Many of my stories lately have come from the writing exercises I found in the best writing prompt book I've ever used, Room to Write, by Bonni Goldberg. For my story, Promises (published in December 2002 of Uncapped), all I had was an image of a girl digging money out of her driveway, which I had visualized a year beforehand and had done nothing more than share with Wendy Blake. She encouraged me to build a story around that image. Often, especially in my poetry, the themes and images relate back to whatever I am struggling with at the time. Right now I am working on a novel that is the culmination of several year's worth of writing exercises that I realized all revolve around the same coffee shop. I wanted to construct a world where at least some of the characters interacted. I twisted this around a few semi-autobiographical scenes, and before I could stop, I had 40 pages typed.

How did you learn about Writergrrls?

I was surfing the Web one day at work, looking for a writing group and voila! About two weeks later, Emma Marl posted a call for committee members to revamp the zine, so I attended.

Describe your writing routine.

It's a little too haphazard for my taste so I am working on firming it up. In the meantime, I find it's very difficult to write at home because of all the distractions: the Internet, laundry, the television. I have better luck going to coffee shops, like Zokas in Wallingford, or the Triple J in Kirkland. I tend to write in journals, not directly into the laptop, because I like the added editorial layer. When I write poems, often they start out as mini-essays. I don't read them for a few days and when I return to them, I highlight the strongest images and then proceed. My poems tend to hover around 14 lines. I think this is because I once wrote a sonnet that people really reacted to and I am still trying to recapture that feeling. I have a few valued people that I entrust to read my work and help me polish. It's hard to describe how I know when a piece is finished; all I can say is that it's a feeling. Sometimes it's because I am tired of thinking about it, but more often it feels complete.

What are you currently reading?

Right this minute I am reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I never intended to read the series, but I had a friend that enjoyed them. It surprised me that he liked the series so much he actually purchased the hardcover editions. I read the first one and found it entertaining. I felt obligated to finish the rest in the series.

What's your favorite book this week?

My favorite book is Rapture of Canaan, by Sheri Reynolds. It was one of the first books that I read for fun after graduating from college. It was like reading poetry. I highly recommend it to everyone.

What's your best quality?

I am an optimistic person. Some people call it naïveté, but I like to call it optimism. I tend to think people are good until they prove themselves otherwise. Most people I know are the opposite.

What would you change about yourself?

I would change about a billion things! I would procrastinate less. I would definitely get more writing accomplished if I would stop putting it off. I would worry less. I would be more spontaneous, stop contemplating things so much.

Nicole Janeen Jones is a fiction writer and poet when she isn't building Web sites. She's been published in Echoes Magazine, Ebbing Tide, and Liar Liar Literary Review. Her personal Web site is www.nicolejaneenjones.com.