AUTHOR PROFILE
Brantley is a writer, bartender, marathon runner, taco lover, boyfriend to a devastatingly talented photographer, and father to a saintly mutt with a brindle coat and a fetch fixation. He studied film and political science in college and while he still loves going to the movies, dwelling too much on the current state of politics makes him anxious at best (and more often than not, outright sad). Brantley is half of The Story in the Frame - a blog where he writes short stories inspired by his girlfriend’s photography.
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Why do you write?
I’ve always fallen in love with stories of all sorts. When I was in pre-K, I rotated identities from day to day, sometimes insisting that I was Edward Scissorhands, other times Robin Hood (from the 90’s Kevin Costner film where he refused to give the title character a British accent). A poorly received portrait of a man being electrocuted (inspired by the critically acclaimed film, Ernest Goes to Jail) shifted my artistic focus from crayons to words and sentences. I’ve written fiction with varying degrees of embarrassment since elementary school - stories that grew with me from a phase where the antagonist is always a mean witch named Misty (loosely inspired by my mean older sister who also happened to be named Misty), to an obligatory Star Wars fan fiction phase, to a phase where I wrote gritty war genre stories about me and my friends playing with water guns, to a particularly prolific middle school phase where I tried to wrap my head around the whole “girls” thing.
Through it all, it has always been about me. Writing helps me make peace with the puzzle pieces of life that will never fit together, no matter how hard you try to jam them into place. Writing helps me imagine how things might have turned out differently and where the many possibilities still before me might lead. It helps me exorcise my demons and work through the bad feelings and reaffirm to myself that dammit, I don’t care, I’m not giving up hope that deep down inside, people are alright.
It’d be great to make some money doing this someday, but maybe I’d settle for being read and an occasional pat on the head.
Through it all, it has always been about me. Writing helps me make peace with the puzzle pieces of life that will never fit together, no matter how hard you try to jam them into place. Writing helps me imagine how things might have turned out differently and where the many possibilities still before me might lead. It helps me exorcise my demons and work through the bad feelings and reaffirm to myself that dammit, I don’t care, I’m not giving up hope that deep down inside, people are alright.
It’d be great to make some money doing this someday, but maybe I’d settle for being read and an occasional pat on the head.
What other creative activities are you involved in?
I actually use my job as a bartender as an additional creative outlet. I love mixing drinks, trying to bring balance to competing strong flavors, trying to find complements amongst things that don’t obviously go together. Most of all, I love creating my own ingredients. Whenever it seems like every combination of liquids has already been sold as a cocktail, I take an unexpected ingredient and sneak it into the mix.
Who is your favorite author and why?
Just as my Pre-K identity changed from day to day, my reading preferences shift with my mood and whatever I’m going through in life.
Lately, I keep coming back to clever clever writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Chuck Palahniuk. Their use of recurring rhetorical devices just makes me smile. It’s a form of rhythm that allows their stories to ramble and go so many unexpected places while still referring back to their central nervous system.
I view cleverness as the root of all surprises. Without anticipating where the reader’s thoughts will be, you can’t pull the rug out from under them. These guys are so devious and manipulative and then casual and disinterested in their own pay offs. “Yeah, I know you didn’t see that coming. It’s not that big of a deal though.”
All of that and a bag of masochistic social commentary that makes you laugh at mankind’s absurdity but then feel terrible and void of empathy for laughing when you probably should have been crying. I guess these guys speak to my dark side so that my writing doesn’t have to.
Lately, I keep coming back to clever clever writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Chuck Palahniuk. Their use of recurring rhetorical devices just makes me smile. It’s a form of rhythm that allows their stories to ramble and go so many unexpected places while still referring back to their central nervous system.
I view cleverness as the root of all surprises. Without anticipating where the reader’s thoughts will be, you can’t pull the rug out from under them. These guys are so devious and manipulative and then casual and disinterested in their own pay offs. “Yeah, I know you didn’t see that coming. It’s not that big of a deal though.”
All of that and a bag of masochistic social commentary that makes you laugh at mankind’s absurdity but then feel terrible and void of empathy for laughing when you probably should have been crying. I guess these guys speak to my dark side so that my writing doesn’t have to.
Tell us about the mechanics of how you write.
My writing process is as follows:
Step 1 - Wake up around 7 AM. Get dressed and go for a run.
Step 2 - Come home from my run, walk the dog.
Step 3 - Play fetch with the dog in the backyard.
Step 4 - Shower.
Step 5 - Make breakfast and pour myself a giant cup of coffee.
Step 6 - Sit down and write.
My creativity comes from the quietness of mundane routines. If I oversleep and wake up thinking about how I need to fix the sprinklers, I can’t bring my thoughts back to my writing. I need those thoughtless hours of running mile after mile and then walking the dog and then throwing the ball for the dog and then showering and then making eggs or cereal or whatever. That’s when my fiction finds me and takes root in my brain.
It takes a long time for me to sit down and write because I like to think things through before typing even the first words. During my run, I plan the overall plot of the story. While I walk the dog, I come up with a few sentences or phrases to be proud of. While I’m showering, I formulate the first paragraph.
When I sit down at my computer, it pours out of me. I’m just a thoroughfare for a stream of creativity that has been dammed up for hours of daily routine and chores. Once the river slows to a trickle, I try to call it a day, or in the rare instance that I’ll get a shot at writing some more later in the afternoon, I try to take a break and resettle my vibrating mind so that fiction can take root for another harvest.
Step 1 - Wake up around 7 AM. Get dressed and go for a run.
Step 2 - Come home from my run, walk the dog.
Step 3 - Play fetch with the dog in the backyard.
Step 4 - Shower.
Step 5 - Make breakfast and pour myself a giant cup of coffee.
Step 6 - Sit down and write.
My creativity comes from the quietness of mundane routines. If I oversleep and wake up thinking about how I need to fix the sprinklers, I can’t bring my thoughts back to my writing. I need those thoughtless hours of running mile after mile and then walking the dog and then throwing the ball for the dog and then showering and then making eggs or cereal or whatever. That’s when my fiction finds me and takes root in my brain.
It takes a long time for me to sit down and write because I like to think things through before typing even the first words. During my run, I plan the overall plot of the story. While I walk the dog, I come up with a few sentences or phrases to be proud of. While I’m showering, I formulate the first paragraph.
When I sit down at my computer, it pours out of me. I’m just a thoroughfare for a stream of creativity that has been dammed up for hours of daily routine and chores. Once the river slows to a trickle, I try to call it a day, or in the rare instance that I’ll get a shot at writing some more later in the afternoon, I try to take a break and resettle my vibrating mind so that fiction can take root for another harvest.
Finally, what do you think about Carp, the fish, not our website?
I can’t get past the carp as a symbol. I even googled pictures of what the fish actually looks like and still, all I can see in my head is a cartoon version on a bulletin board in my elementary school library. For me, CARP means “Council Accelerated Reading Program.” It’s a colorful fish with an inviting smile surrounded by the book covers that make up his pond. He’s a reminder that there are entire buildings packed to the brim with stories and though there are no longer bonus points to be tallied for the number of books that I read, there is still intangible enrichment in every page.