Urmas Vadi says writing helps resolve obsessive thoughts

Writer Urmas Vadi told ERR’s Vikerraadio that writing helps him work through obsessive thoughts. Vadi, whose new short story collection “Armastuse hambajäljed” (“The Tooth Marks of Love”) has been published, said he is driven by situations that are both slightly frightening and slightly funny.

“Thoughts start circling in your head and can even become obsessive thoughts that remain a constant theme in your life,” Vadi said. “They do not leave you alone, and at some point you begin to see the thought as a story with a beginning and an end and with certain characters. Then you think you should write the story down. There is something therapeutic about it: you seem to resolve something for yourself by writing it through. Writing things out makes them clearer.”

Vadi said the stories in the collection come from life itself. He acknowledged that short stories are read much less often than novels, but said he needed to write these stories and did so with pleasure and care.

While the figure of the mother played an important role in his novel “Kuu teine pool” (“The Other Side of the Moon”), Vadi said the figure of the father is central to “Armastuse hambajäljed.”

“Lately it seems to me that making jokes does not interest me at all,” he said. “What drives me is a situation where hot and cold air masses meet, where something is slightly frightening and, at the same time, funny. Both sides are important; it is not just about joking.”

Vadi said empathy was one of the most important things in art, allowing people to identify with others and with themselves, and perhaps offering comfort.

He said the collection could also be read as a whole. “A short story is as long as the writer has something to say. Length is not important, because sometimes short texts can also be very powerful,” Vadi said.

Vadi also recorded the audiobook of the new collection himself. He spent a week and a half going to the studio every morning to read it. The idea originally came from his wife, he said.

Vadi described the editor’s role as extremely important, calling the relationship a partnership based on trust. He said editor Triinu Tamm understood what he was doing, while he trusted and understood her work. Their agreement was to treat the texts as open, allowing Tamm to suggest anything from removing a paragraph to refining the wording.