This week's blogger doesn't just work online, though it's an important part of her creative process. In fact, the blog serves as a creative tool for developing her stories. judy b., a local author and journalist, debuted a number of stories from her book, "Stories for Airports," on her blog. She's currently working on a novel, The Toy Box, and posting a new chapter every Friday. It's a rare opportunity to peel back the curtain on the creative process, where you can watch an author develop a story over time and even offer feedback.

Her work, like her process, is post-modern in the sense that it's very conscious of the act of storytelling. In "Stories for Airports," the short stories do not necessarily fall back on easy structural cliches. The moment of epiphany for the characters is often while doing something entirely mundane. The overtly dramatic moments of their lives are expressed in backstory, but those moments aren't the focus. We were personally reminded of "Winesburg, Ohio," but rather than a small country town in the midwest, urbane San Francisco forms the geographical nexus.

This is possible because our communities are no longer strictly bound by geography. Between blogs and jet flight, we're all still involved with far-flung family and friends, and making connections with strangers across the continent is neither impossible nor impractical. judy b., as a fellow non-native San Franciscan, manages to present this reality and state of mind in tightly composed, lyrical prose that resonates with understanding of the new emotional territories that we're all just now exploring.

After the jump, we had a chance to ask judy a few questions about the book, her current project, and how San Francisco relates to her life and work.

The characters in your stories were very richly drawn, and the situations they found themselves in so fitting, that we were always wondering where your personal experience was manifest and what was exploration of your imagination. How did you work with the twin inspirations of experience and imagination in the stories?

That is the smartest way I have ever seen the question "Is this autobiographical?" formed. It is so refreshing to talk (via email) with a really good reader - that is, not someone who likes my work, but someone who thinks about writing, is willing to engage with a piece of art. By phrasing the question that way, you obviously grok that art is not separate from life, and also acknowledge that an artist's life is intrinsic to the artist's art. Artists, to me, are the nervous system of humanity. Our function is to register the pleasure, pain, confusion, euphoria - all the myriad possible physical and other sensations the "body" experiences. I interpret, process, and repackage life for people who are open to looking at things in a new way. The operative word there in terms of your question is "repackage." That is, I am not retelling things that actually happened.

My stories are emotionally autobiographical; I have felt everything I describe. When I feel something deep, it's more important to me that another person feel the feeling than share my exact experience, so I change the facts. I identify with all my characters emotionally - not just the protagonists, all of them. I don't really care *how* people interpret the stories - only that they look for and find something beneath the surface. I want the stories to prompt a reaction: emotional, intellectual, or creative. I am trying to prompt the kind of insight Antoine de Saint-Exupéry spoke of when he said, "One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eyes."

I did not experience any of these events or meet any of these people outside my imagination. Here's one example of how I repurpose the non- into fiction: Eight years ago I had a wicked bout of eczema that covered my face. I tried to write a serious story with the main character being disfigured. I tried to examine the meaning of beauty and the redemptive qualities of suffering - and the story was terrible. It was overwrought, self-conscious, pretentious dreck. So I set it aside. Several months later I scraped my knee and I started thinking about the shape of the wound and I thought "Hey, that looks like Ohio. A story? No. Gotta be something more exciting than that. How about... the Virgin Mary! But on the knee? No - the face!" That little exchange with myself became "Mother Mary Came to Me." Using comedy and irreverence and giving the protagonist an abrasive personality, I was able to illustrate the many facets of suffering: how it can be tragic and oppressive and trite and entertaining. I find that anytime I set out to write A Story With a Specific Message, it sucks. Meaning has to arise from the story, it cannot precede it. That's how life works, right? We realize how that dysfunctional relationship helped us grow - after we leave it. Who starts dating someone thinking, "This person is going to teach me that you can't have a healthy, fulfilling relationship with someone who's addicted to heroin."

The title "Stories for Airports" I kind of pulled out my proverbial you-know-what; I used it because, like an airport, the plane (what else to call it?) on which people meet, where minds and hearts encounter one another, metaphorically speaking, is a place that is no place, like an airport. Also, a lot of the pieces are short enough to read while you're waiting for the food trolly to roll by.

In your acknowledgments you wrote that you originally published a number of these stories on your blog. How did you use blogging as part of your creative process? Also, did it help or hurt your efforts in terms of publishing?

I wanted to try the blog thing, and since I most like to write fiction, it made sense to do a fiction blog, which had the benefit of forcing me to write something every day. I like to have someone to answer to - even if it's just the three random people a day who find my site through Google searches on "toy airports" or whatever. I had a day job at the time, and I had no time for anything other than work and blogging, so I stopped after a month.

One of the things I did with the blog was ask people to send me suggestions. It was a challenge to myself, to see how I could work within parameters. A dear friend of mine told me about a note her boyfriend had left on her car, and how she hadn't been totally sure he'd left it because the handwriting was scrawled and the rain had smeared it and also she was a teacher and she thought maybe one of her students had left it. While we were talking I started to change things around in my mind, and "Food of the Gods" began to take form. The couple in the story is not my friend and her (now) husband, though certain inconsequential details pay tribute to them. By the end of our conversation she was really excited about this whole reader participation thing and she said "Some day I'm going to call you and I'll just yell 'Persimmons!' and you'll have to write a story about it." So I included that in the story, too.

Blogging, like all art, is exhibitionism, but of a kind designed to open a dialog, not just prompt a helpless reaction. Still, one is putting oneself out there to be seen and perhaps criticized. With the fiction blog, I would say I take it one more, because I'm exposing myself by putting stuff out there before it's completely polished, before it's really ready for criticism. It's kind of a performance art project - living in a glass house - I'm kind of showing the uncut stone. (OK, the kind of cut, unpolished stone - I do read the pieces a few times before I post and I make some changes.) I see this exercise as a reminder for me and my five readers that good writing doesn't just happen; it takes work - I don't know of a literary equivalent of Mozart, whose first drafts were flawless. I edited all the blog stories before I put them in the book. At any rate, it is an experiment, and in the end the work that comes from it matters, not whatever idiosyncratic methods I use to draw it forth.

At some point I realized that a number of the stories from the blog were publishable. (A number were not publishable.) The fact that the first drafts had already appeared online didn't hurt me because I published the book myself. I've been trying to sell individual stories to journals for several years, and while I have received very good feedback on them, I've also been told over and over, "This just isn't right for us right now." Being a professional editor for the past 15 years and having had some feedback from friends and other writers I've met at conferences and workshops affords me a certain confidence in the work, and I thought fine, I'll do it myself. I felt that I couldn't move on in my writing, I couldn't leave these stories behind me, until I sent them out into the world. The World Wide Web doesn't count.

I want to acknowledge the two people who made this book look as great as it does: Kai Haley created the cover and Katy German designed the interior pages. Alonzo Printing in Hayward used 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper, soy-based, non-polluting ink and materials. The colophon in the back details how many trees and how much water was saved in the production. The book is only available in independent bookstores and on my website, onzeproductions.com. So, the printing and marketing reflect my sensibilities.

Now you're working on a serial novel that you're publishing on your blog. Again, concerning process, how are you going about it? Have you already finished the novel, or are you writing as you go along? Are you drawing on any other serially published works for reference or inspiration?

I am continuing the blog-it-raw experiment with "The Toy Box," but this time I began with the intention of making the posts form a book, rather than seeing a book arise from my posts. I have never attempted a long work, and writing a serial novel is helping me approach the work piece by piece. Again, I like the structure blogging imposes, the fact that it keeps me to a schedule. A friend pointed out that I started "The Toy Box" on the anniversary of the day Charles Dickens began Great Expectations - that seems to be somewhat auspicious and some kind of reason, however contrived, to continue. I think I can write at least as well as Dickens. I wish I could get paid for it, like he did.

While the stories taken together have a broad scope in terms of settings, San Francisco is still central. Besides the literal and overt references to The City, it seems to appear figuratively as alternately a character of its own and as a state of mind or condition. What does living in San Francisco mean to your work, and how did you want it presented in the stories?

I love this question.

To paraphrase Craig Newmark, I've lived in San Francisco 10 years, but I've been a San Franciscan all my life. When I moved here in 1996, I felt I clicked into place. When I return here from a trip, I feel a stronger sense of coming home than I have ever felt anywhere else. I love walking west through the Sunset until the ocean comes into view at eye level; I love looking up Market Street to the Ferry Building and seeing the East Bay hills behind it; I love riding the 22-Fillmore from one literal and metaphorical end of the city to another; I love riding my bike through the Financial District, into SoMa, over to the Mission, and beyond the Haight all the way to the beach. I love the different people who live here. I moved here particularly because difference, and the courage to express individuality, is prized; since I've lived here, I've found, to my chagrin, that some kinds of diversity are, how to say, more equal than others. This was particularly true from around 1998 to 2002, when newcomers copped quite arrogant attitudes toward people who have lived here their whole lives, who have stronger, deeper connections to the city than stock options. We all still need to work on being more accepting and more respectful of one another.

The stories that are set in San Francisco defined themselves that way to me; I did not think, oh, I'll put this in SF. The story simply had to take place here - just as some stories made more sense when rooted elsewhere. Some of them sprouted from my noticing the smallest local details. "Excursion" was inspired simply by walking across Alamo Square Park, something I used to do regularly. On one particular day I was so acutely aware of how the path curved beneath my feet, I thought to myself, I wonder if I could do this with my eyes closed. I didn't try it, but I kept thinking about it and that story began to unfold in my mind.

I suppose I also have the ulterior motive of fostering an appreciation of San Francisco along the lines of what so many writers do for New York. You don't see San Francisco portrayed as a character the way New York is - in film, maybe, to an extent, but not in literature. San Francisco is not a backdrop in my life - I am fully engaged in life here - so it can't be entirely subconscious that I make the city more than a backdrop in my stories. The short answer is, then, I treat the city as a character both to make it more real as a setting for the reader and to pay tribute to this wonderful place and all the people who make it so. Incidentally, that's why SFist is such a great site: a love for our city and our citizens is palpable in every post, even the pans and complaints.