Chinese Gucci: The Interview, Part 1

As I noted at Goodreads, I greatly enjoyed Hosho McCreesh's Chinese Gucci, and I wanted to help the book find more readers. I recalled, then, that I'd been known to conduct an author interview or two, so I sent McCreesh some questions, and he was kind enough to answer them. 

AK: Could you tell us when you began writing this book? Did you write it over years, or months?
HM: I started 5 possible novel projects in 2008, the things I saw as potential long-form fiction. I sketched out what I had of each, and started folders to gather materials.  Over the next 6 or 7 years, whenever I had an idea at work, driving, or as I was about to fall asleep, I would jot it down on scraps of paper, and stick them in the folders.  When I felt like I had all I needed, it was the Chinese Gucci folder that was fat and ready...so I spent the next couple years writing on my lunch break, week nights, and weekends until I had a draft. Then a couple cycles of rewriting and refining, and a final draft polish with Joshua Mohr. I spent a year and change trying for an agent, and the small press I wanted...with no luck. AK: What were some of the most important breakthroughs during this time? HM: Finishing a novel, for one. I had scrapped 5 different tries from 1997 through 2008. I'd get 100 pages in and just be lost, and wouldn't care about it anymore.  The other massive breakthrough was discovering, before my final draft and polish, what the book was "about." Up to then, I was writing instinctually, I KNEW something needed to be there, but not why. . . stuff about name brands, high fashion, fast food, WWII, Indian casinos--this crazy, swirling stew of things. I decided to try some collage, and it visually connected all those dots back to the text for me. I knew at the heart of the story was this stunted kid, but the big, mean, and ugly undercurrent was America, my complicated feelings about the country and our history. . . and the characters are byproducts of the culture and history.  The final breakthrough was deciding to self-publish, and to put the collage I made on the hardback covers, so each copy had an original work of art for a cover. That idea powered me through all the remaining work and transformed the project into something more than just a debut novel. It was a real rush, artistically. I had loads of help of course, but I'm proud as hell at how it all turned out. 
AK: Return here for more of Hosho's detailed responses two to three times each week.