© 2007 - G.G. Vandagriff
All rights reserved.

Photograph by William Whitaker

Where do you get your ideas?

I believe that the right brain (the creative portion of your brain) is like a sponge. What you put into it is what you will eventually tap when you do creative writing. If you pour mysteries, genealogy, scriptures, testimony, family dysfunctions, triumphs over weaknesses, inspirational messages, essays on writing, personal dilemmas, details of "characters" you have known, you come out with a genealogical mystery! I think it is impossible for you to write about things that you do not know in some way, either intuitively or actually. During the writing process, ideas come into your head, culled from years of reading, observing, and experiencing. You may actually remember, subconsciously, things you have forgotten.

How do you tap into your right brain?

I think I really began to learn the secret of tapping into my right brain when I read Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. She gave me the invaluable idea of writing exercises. Just like a musician, writers need to exercise their right brains so that when they need to, they can access them. The way you do this is simple. You get a spiral notebook and a pen. You find a starting point. I love to use the Rembrandt reproduction I have when I teach writing workshops. It is of a lady with a distinctly knowing and mischievous look (that's my interpretation) leaning over the bottom half of a Dutch door, looking at something you cannot see. I tell my students to look at the painting hard and then begin writing without stopping for twenty minutes about what the painting is saying to them. When I did this I came out with an elaborate story concerning the woman's family, her background, and a diabolical scheme she was planning. Everyone who sees it comes up with her own story. We share stories and learn a lot about ourselves and our innermost thoughts this way.

For writing exercises you can use pictures, music, a line of poetry, a line of a novel, a line of a play, anything to jumpstart your imagination. And writing exercises can grow into short pieces or even novels. Cankered Roots started out as a writing exercise. Voices In Your Blood was one long writing exercise.

How do you deal with your faith in your writing?

What goes in comes out. It is no use trying to give a Sunday School lesson or write an essay in the middle of a novel. It simply does not work. It is pedantic and rings false. If your faith is true and deep, it will emerge no matter what you write, in metaphors, allegories, choice of genre, choice of characters, reactions of characters to stressful situations. This is something that true masters such as Tolstoy, Dostoyesvky, Sigrid Undset, Victor Hugo, and in the genre field, Earlene Fowler, have perfected to a marvel. But you have to be willing to be truly vulnerable. Only a sincere connection to your character and his deepest feelings and motivations will allow it. It is the very most difficult thing to do. I am not sure that I have been successful, but it is my deepest desire to communicate through my art the well of my commitment to the atonement of Jesus Christ. As Earlene Fowler says, the greatest writing is born in pain. If we don't allow true pain into our writing, we can not write about redemption.

How much of yourself do you put into your characters?

In many ways, all my characters have facets of my own personality. They have to, to be real. You have to be able to get into the heads of your characters. But I am not nearly as brave as Alex, though I have been known to be reckless. There is a lot of me in Daniel and Briggie, too. Richard is loosely based on my father. In Tangled Roots, I would like to believe that I could be as brave as Amelia. Maren, in The Arthurian Omen is reckless to a fault, and I think I may have behaved just as irresponsibly on occasion. Amalia, in The Last Waltz, has my all or nothing thinking which leads to a lot of the problems in her life. Fortunately, she conquers it. I am trying to do so, as well. I don't think there is much of me in Eberhard, except his love for the violin. Andrzej, to begin with, represents many of the men I dated, but in the end is much like my husband. I shared Rudolf's dark periods for twenty-five years of my life, and happily, both of us recovered.

Do you have any more books planned?

At present count, I have five books planned, all in various stages of production. It is very interesting that nearly all of them had their genesis in the most painful periods of my life. Pain is a great teacher.

What medicines are you on for depression?

My medicines are the inspired combination for me revealed through the Lord to a family doctor who was close to the Lord and had an open mind. I have been told that a psychiatrist never would have prescribed them. (This is nothing against psychiatrists, just that my body was a mystery to everyone who treated me). We really don't know how they work, just that they do. I take Cymbalta for depression and Zyprexa as a magical mood stabilizer.

How has the atonement helped you in your recovery?

Read Chapters Two and Three of Deliverance from Depression: Finding Hope and Healing Through the Atonement.