Interview
with Nicholas Urfe
(conducted
by Mat Twassel)
MT: The more
I read your story "Call and Response" the more I like
it. It's a wonderful story, deliciously sexy and ardently romantic,
especially the ending, which suggests a couple made for each other,
always renewing themselves in each other. It is as vivid a portrait
of romantic sexual connection as I have ever read. Definitely
this deserved being named the winner in the 2001 Dulcinea Memorial
Writing Festival. I think Dulcinea would have loved it. Congratulations!
You must be very pleased. Were you surprised?
NU: Surprised
isn't the word. Shocked is more like it.
MT: Where
did the idea for "Call & Response" come from?
NU: It's pretty
much autobiographical, actually. A scene very much like that happened
between myself and my wife, and I was struck by how I was at once
overwhelmed with images and yet unable to speak, to articulate
any of them at all. Which is silly, for pretty much precisely
the reasons outlined in the story. But I'm a little slow on the
uptake--I didn't figure out quite how silly it was until afterwards.
(And then I told her. At length.)
MT: It runs
extremely close to the 1100 word limit. Was that a struggle for
you?
NU: Ha. It
was murder. I run on at the mouth. Not to brag--well, okay, I'll
brag a little: I think I might well have the record for longest
story written in a Write Club Duel. --Luckily, I have a feel for
this length--I used to write a lot of magazine columns to 1100
or 1200 words. And pull my hair out every time over trying to
fit what I wanted to say in that teeny-tiny amount of space.
MT: Did you
have to trim a lot out? And if so, do you think the story ended
up better for it?
NU: It's hard
to say what got cut; I was trimming and sculpting a lot at the
end. I decided I would be perverse and turn in a story that was
exactly 1100 words, darn it, and I wanted it to fit precisely.
(Thank God for Word's word count feature--though Rui claims his
count weighed in at 1099.) I do think the brevity helped my focus
a lot--I tend to digress, like a cat chasing a bit of string.
Oh, that thought's interesting, let's follow that. I had to be
ruthless with this piece. If I'd had a little more room, I might
have opened up more about the wife's "dirty little secrets,"
as it were. Gone more into her boywatching, and her boy/boy thing,
to balance the narrator's girl/girl thing. But maybe not.
MT: In the
planning and writing of this story, what particular Dulcinea stories
or story characteristics (if any) influenced you?
NU: Horrible
confession time: I didn't know about Dulcinea before this contest.
Nat sent me some email letting me know it was going on, and inviting
a submission, and I was thinking of passing until I went and skulked
through her archive. I couldn't be more different than her in
approach and focus and technique, but at the heart of all her
pieces is that amazing relationship--that tussle of equals over
who's on top at the moment that never ends and never gets won
once and for all, that give and take that's the ultimate secret
of any long-term relationship. I saw that immediately, and loved
her stories for it. She managed to celebrate the part sex plays
in all that without falling into the usual self-consciously defensive
traps that so many people can fall victim to when writing about
positive, happy, upbeat sex. For me, anyway, it was an enormous
challenge.
Then I thought
of the night my wife had asked me, playfully, what turned me on,
and I knew I had the kernel of an idea that could work.
MT: The use
of old flames and other lovers is rare in Dulcinea stories as
is the attention to detail and the richness of language. Were
you concerned that the judges might 'dross' your story because
of these?
NU: That's
why I'm shocked. When I turned it in I was sure I'd be drossed
out of the running. A good story, maybe, but not quite true to
the letter of Dulcinea. I dickered back and forth over trying
to be more overtly Dulcineaesque, but I was in love with the basic
idea, and I had to do what I did to make the idea work. So I did
it. I told you guys when I turned it in that maybe I hadn't done
a great job at a Dulcinea story per se, but I thought I'd done
a pretty good cover version. The Nick Urfe Band covering the songs
of Dulcinea...
But I'm going
to quibble with you over "attention to detail." She
may not have crammed as many into her stories as I managed in
my stream of consciousness, but her details were always precise
and cannily chosen.
MT: Do you
think that having a story perhaps on the edge of Dulcinesque was
an advantage? In what ways do you think your story is most Dulcinea-like?
NU: Not knowing
what went through the judges' minds, it's hard to say if that
was an advantage. Certainly I'm thrilled and delighted that they
saw past the superficial differences to that core, that relationship.
And maybe it's just the cold medicine making me all goopy, but
I do want to say right now that I really, really, really love
my wife.
But--looking
through the various entries, I was amused and surprised by how
many people had played a little loosely with the basic Dulcinea
form--Alexis's bronze winner, which is a lovely tribute in addition
to being a lovely story. Or Dr Spin's naughty "Reprise."
But you've also got a lot of pitch-perfect mimics in the mix--"Trimming
the Sweetheart" and "His Favorite Day," say. I
don't envy the judges one bit.
MT: I love
the rich yet apt language you use and the spot-on attention to
erotic detail. It's everywhere in your story. Look at what happens
to the guy's zipper.
"What
turns you on?" she said. Her fingers tugged at his zipper,
and his distracted senses were heightened enough that he could
feel the individual teeth disengaging.
NU: That's
just a precise sense memory thingie. Any time you're dealing with
sensory input, but especially when it's dealing with sex, it is
invaluable to be as concrete and specific and precise as possible.
Sex is so intensely coded--we've got all these ways of talking
about it, talking around it, without ever really speaking to it.
It's way too easy to fall into those cliches without realizing
it. But I'm starting to babble. "Keep it real." There.
Let's go with that.
MT: And later:
"Well?"
she said. His fly lapped open, and her fingers peeled his burgeoning
cock up and out of his shorts.
"Lapped"
is just the perfect word. But so are "peeled" and "burgeoning."
Do these words and sentences fly magically into you head, or do
you shake your muse until she gives? How hard is it for you to
write? How long did it take you to do this story?
NU: You're
trying to get at a very dangerous place in most authors, you know.
Where's the magic place in your head that the words come from?
I don't tend to poke at it that much. It just keeps serving up
words, and I write them down; long as it keeps up its end of the
bargain, I'm happy.
So I don't
do much muse-shaking. I do lots of wandering around. Or sitting
down and reading something that has nothing to do with what I'm
supposed to be doing. I surf the web. Check email obsessively.
And then without warning I'm writing. A lot. Fast.
But all of
that is writing time. The time I spent in front of the computer,
punching keys to enter this story in? Maybe three hours. Maybe
four. How long did it take me to write this story? At least a
couple of weeks.
MT: You chose
to skip showing the orgasm itself. Dulcinea, for all her romanticism,
rarely "avoided" putting that moment into words. Here's
a passage from Dulcinea's "Welcome Home" which is typical:
Because
of the difficult angle, she couldn't take him completely in her
mouth. But he felt the back of her throat at the head of his cock,
and, ever so gently, the edge of her teeth as she raised her head.
It wasn't long before his muscles tensed, and he shot wads of
heavy cum into her mouth. He could feel her throat working as
she swallowed, and she didn't raise her head until he was finished.
Were you tempted
to show the climax?
NU: I honestly
hadn't even noticed until now. Um. No, not really; the climax,
in the end--the physical climax--wasn't the climax of the story,
and I didn't have enough room so that it could do metaphorical
duty for the epiphany or realization. Heck, I didn't have enough
room for the orgasm at all. Some pornographer I am. Okay, we're
running long--kill the money shot.
But what I
was saying, about details--that bit with the teeth, and her head.
That specific detail suddenly gives you a very specific image
of the position and the leverage and all that. I've almost got
a memory of that very feeling. Very canny, and an excellent job
of putting herself in the shoes of the opposite sex--something
she else did quite well and doesn't, I think, get a lot of credit
for.
MT: What,
if anything, have you learned from being in this Festival?
NU: That maybe
I should try shorter form pieces more often, while I'm trying
to do justice to my long-winded epic bloviations.
MT: Can we
expect more Dulcinea style stories from you?
NU: Hmm. Interesting.
Certainly I'd like to do more shorter pieces that are happy and
celebratory and optimistic, but there's the flip side--the dark
side--that draws me in, too. The dissolution of the self; the
obsessive, monomaniacal, desperate need or hunger that underlies
all of this happy positive upbeat talk we engage in about sex.
Um. See, it's been well over a year since my last Indigo chapter.
I've got to get back in that mood.
MT: Once again,
thanks so much for particpating in the Festival.
NU: Thanks
to you guys for putting it together. Bang-up job.
==========
Nicholas Urfe
http://www.asstr.org/~nickurfe/
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