Braydon Beaulieu: Your upcoming collection of short fiction is called The Big Dream (Biblioasis, 2011). But you already knew that. What, for you, is the Big Dream?

Rebecca Rosenblum: I think the big dream for me is just what you want out of life, the situation that will make you happy. It's different for everyone, of course, but there is a very stock image of that in our society, and it includes a successful career at something both fascinating and lucrative. Many people—most people?—don't get exactly that, and then they have to either personalize the stock dream to suit themselves, their values and limitations, or they have to resign themselves to unhappiness. I'd say the book is about that negotiation.

BB: And for your characters?

RR: They don't always know what they want, often because so much of their focus is getting sucked into the here-and-now, getting by, getting through, not screwing up either work or personal stuff, and then surviving when they do screw up. And it depends on what story we're talking about, too. Some of the characters are mainly bound up in their work, and some are really looking at work as just a thing to fund their real lives elsewhere—with their family, or with their art, or whatever they think of next. Their dreams are really various, which I suppose is my point.

BB: Seems like your characters are very preoccupied with their work lives.

RR: I don't write about my life per se—no story in this collection is even close to autobiography. However, I have worked a lot, at a lot of jobs, all my life, and that definitely makes me interested in how work works. When I'd never had an office job, concepts like "water-coooler banter" were just joke setups or a vague lame idea in my head. When I started working in an office for the first time, I was like, "Whoa, there are no more of those big upside-down water-bottles; the water is just filtered out of the plumbing." But after you've been in these environments a few years, you realize that those little bits of chatter are a really important part of how people connect with their colleagues, or don't, and a lot more gets said than you'd think. So yes, I'm writing of what I know of working, but no, I'm not writing about my jobs.

BB: Have you ever had a job that's made wonderful story fodder? Given the choice, would you write books for a living, or continue to work alongside your writing?

RR: This is apropos, because I just had a few months away from work just to write—the first time in my life that happened. Even in grad school, I always worked, usually at multiple jobs. I liked being "just a writer" for a while, but I also found it very overwhelming—no structure, no social interaction, no short-term ego-gratifying successes. I know lot of writers would be horrified, but I found it hard to go without working, and was happy enough to go back to the office. Of course I wrote tonnes in the time off and it's really hard to scale back and say, I'll be happy with a couple paragraphs on a Tuesday evening before I pass out for the night. Ideally, if things got a little less financially strained, I'd work less, but from where I sit now, I'd be ok with having some kind of job for a good while in the future.

BB: While we're on the topic, "writing as labour." Go.

RR: Seriously? I don't think of it that way. Writing's really hard, of course, and sometimes when I write a first draft and realize it's going to take twice as long again to edit it into something coherent, I feel a little ennui. But I am very conscious of writing as something I choose to do—no one is demanding that next story, no one but me. I only work on projects that interest me, that I enjoy writing, and I go at my own pace. I choose to do challenging things, but only when I want to be challenged, to make myself better. I'm not saying there are no financial or ego-gratifying rewards in writing short fiction, but there are simply not enough of them to keep writing if you aren't having fun. At least, not for me. So I always try to have fun, at least a little.

BB: You recently put together a tiny movie on Xtranormal. On your blog, you say, "A major criticism of my work might be that there's too much of people standing around talking to each other, so I thought this site would be perfect for me." It seems as though you used the Xtranormal movie-maker to complement The Big Dream. Why is it useful for writers to delve into other art forms, like film-making or painting or collaging?

RR: It's good to get out of your own head, and certain other art forms make visual and concrete what is only words for us writers. That's fun, and a reminder we're not doing the only thing—it's humbling to realize the scope of movie-making, even the simplest form of it.

BB: I saw you reading live from your first collection of short fiction, Once (Biblioasis, 2008), back in the winter of 2008. The way you read your story was what convinced me to read your book in the first place. In your experience, how can hearing a writer read his or her prose or poetry influence your perception of the work?

RR: Well, thanks, Braydon! I did my first "professional" reading (ie., not part of a school class) in December 2006, and I was scared witless. I practiced for days and my voice still shook. Doing decent readings is something I've really worked towards, and I think I am decent at it now, except for the occasional off night, though I am never actually calm beforehand. I have about 15 readings coming up this fall (including one in Windsor, October 3!) and I am intimidated but excited. I have noticed that when I see a band live, the excitement of being right there, sharing the moment with the performers and tonnes of other fans, makes me like the music about 20% better than I would if I'd just listened to the album--so it's a great enticement to buy an album I would not necessarily have wanted just from cruising iTunes clips. I want that to be true of readings, too—that the author's voice and character interpretations and just enthusiasm makes the experience 20% better than just reading all alone in your head. I know a lot of writers that's true of, at least for me—you need that 20% to make it worth coming out to listen.

BB: Any inspirational words you'd like to send out to fadedpaperproject readers?

RR: If they are writers, for them to just enjoy themselves and their writing. The first test of a good project is if you enjoy telling yourself the story in your own head, if you are interested/shocked/saddened/thrilled at the right moments. Because we are all our own best readers.

Just kidding. Click here to visit Rebecca's blog, Rose Coloured, instead.