Shteyngart spoke at Ballard’s Sunset Tavern about his impressive third book, “Super Sad True Love Story.” (His confession: after modest sales of “Absurdistan,” featuring an obese “holy fool” suffering a botched bris, he was proud to get “love story” in the title of his new book, which is selling well). I was glad to catch Shteyngart with a few questions beforehand – the Sunset was packed by showtime. He was joined musically by Orkestar Zirkonium. The event was sponsored by Elliott Bay Books. For a fun and raunchy look at part 2 of Shteyngart’s gig at the Sunset – an R-rated Q&A with The Stranger’s book editor, Paul Constant - visit vimeo.com/nealthompson
I met Seattle author/freelancer Bruce Barcott in early 2009, following his reading at the Seattle Public Library, where he discussed his most recent book, “The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw.” The story of Belize Zoo director Sharon Matola’s efforts to stop a dam project that would destroy Belize’s last macaw habitat, “Last Flight” was a finalist for the 2009 Washington State Book Award.
Afterward, we sat and talked about his writing life, and I’ve finally gotten around to piecing together this video Q&A…
Finally, a brief plug in support of the Seattle Public Library… Book readings and author lectures have become a regular part of my work life. I’ve found it enormously helpful to hear other writers explain how they work, and many are happy to chat with strangers about their craft. Seattle’s central library hosts regular events, often free, with some of the world’s best writers. The program is a gift to writers and readers. Here’s an interview I did with Colum McCann (National Book Award winner), following his visit to the library, and in a few weeks I’ll post an interview I did last fall with Jonathan Evison (winner of the Washinton State Book Award, the reception for which was held at the library).
I met Laura years ago when we were both working at The Baltimore Sun. At the time (late 1990s), the Sun was an impressive newspaper, dedicated to the best kind of storytelling. It attracted a diverse squad of talented journalists and, despite a narrow-minded editor who discouraged writing as a hobby, many were so devoted to their craft they spent countless off-hours writing books. Laura was the most prolific of that subset, having just published her first two Tess Monaghan novels before my 1997 arrival. Longtime Sun reporter David Simon (now Lippman’s spouse) had left the Sun just before I arrived, but had already written “Homicide” and “The Corner.” (Other colleagues who were published, or eventually would be, included Raphael Alvarez, Dan Fesperman, Jim Haner, and Scott Higham).
A few months ago, I was driving west toward Seattle after a mountain biking trip to North Dakota. I had listened to two books during the lengthy drive: Walter Mosley’s “Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned” and Laura’s “Life Sentences.” I stopped for coffee in Missoula, Montana, and in the local arts paper read about Laura’s upcoming appearance on an all-star panel at the Montana Festival of the Book, along with two favorite writers, Denis Lehane and George Pelecanos (whom I’d interviewed last summer, and whose too-short video is coming soon). She and Pelecanos gave special readings, and Pelecanos joined David Simon for a discussion of the HBO series, “The Wire” – an impressive showing by the DC-Baltimore crew out west. I decided to reach out to Laura and ask a few questions about her daily writing habits, which have resulted in fifteen books over thirteen years, the latest of which will be published later this year. [Simon, featured in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, will soon launch his new HBO series, "Treme," about post-Katrina New Orleans. More on Simon in The New Yorker (2007) and The Atlantic (2008).]
Where do you work?
-I can work anywhere. A plane, a train, my dining room table, a hotel room. I prefer to work at Spoons, a coffee house in South Baltimore.
Do you have a set time of day you start? finish? Do you set a goal (either hours or words)?
-I have a word quota (1,000 minimum and I don’t really feel about about myself unless I top 1,500.) I prefer to start no later than 8, although DST really is hell for a morning person. My brain shuts down at noon and doesn’t reboot until 4 p.m. I don’t know how I held down a job.
Computer or longhand? Mac or PC?
-I am mad for Macs. I wrote my first three novels on a Mac Classic II, the fourth one on a used Mac laptop, then I got the clamshell, and then I sort of lost track.
Any specific word-processing program (or writing implement) you prefer?
-I work in Word. I so want to love Scrivener — so many cool people do — but I can’t make it work for me.
Do you listen to music while writing? who? how? – via iPod?
-If at home, I might turn on the Broadway Channel on the satellite radio, but within five seconds, it’s all white noise. That’s why I like Spoons: It has the white noise of a newsroom, conversation and machines and doors and clattering things.
Do you (like Cassandra in “Life Sentences”) sometimes need to escape to write? If not, any tricks you rely on to jumpstart a slow day?
-Unlike Cassandra, I have never gone away to write. I like the idea, but I know myself: I would go stark-raving bonkers. I have a very fast metabolism as a writer; I work in short, intense bursts, so a get-away is wasted on me. Unless the television set has Bravo … As for jump starting: If I’m really stuck, I have a character write me a letter that begins: “Here’s what you don’t know about me.” I have a feeling I’m going to be doing this tomorrow.
What’s your biggest distraction or counter-productive vice?
-The Internet is bad, said the woman who is on Facebook at 8:45 in the evening. I try to avoid it. I often fail. Although, I want to say: I think Facebook is glorious.
Finally, is there a “who” for whom you write? any ideal reader you have in mind while pounding away?
-I once dedicated a book to two specific readers: Sally Fellows, a retired teacher and a formidable online critic, and Doris Ann Norris, an allegedly retired librarian who was one of my first true fans. They’re both super-smart, they read four-to-six books a week, they’re not easy to fool. To me, they represent the mainstream of crime fiction readers, so I always have them in mind when I write.
Unless you’re brilliant or incredibly lucky or stupidly wealthy, you’ve got to learn from others. I have a few pet writers whose style I admire and whose progress I’ve followed over the years. I first discovered William Langewiesche while researching my first book, Light This Candle. I wanted to know what it felt like to be in the cockpit with my subject, naval aviator/astronaut Alan Shepard. My father, a pilot, helped some, and he also referred me to a couple books about flight, including the 1944 classic, Stick and Rudder, written by Langewiesche’s father, Wolfgang. That led me to Langewiesche’s own book on flying, Inside the Sky: A Meditation on Flight. I’ve swapped emails with him over the years, and when the Vanity Fair writer came to Seattle in late 2009 to read from his new book, Fly By Wire, about the landing of a commercial jet on the Hudson River, we met at a coffee shop. Unfortunately, my video interview failed – the audio got mangled (by a bad mic). So I’ve transcribed portions of our Q&A…
First, some background info: Langewiesche grew up admiring the work of such legendary non-fiction masters as John McPhee, and from an early age knew he wanted to be a writer. He flew airplanes to pay for college and kept writing, “but failing, for years.” He never wanted to write for newspapers, or to pursue fiction, and instead was always interested in long-form literary non-fiction. He tried a novel and that failed. He picked up flying jobs over the years, but never wanted to become full-time professional pilot. He felt “driven forward by no other alternatives – keep writing, keep writing, keep writing.” Finally, he submitted a story to the Atlantic, which was rejected but attracted the interest of an editor that led to his seventeen-year stint there. He left in 2006 to become the international correspondent at Vanity Fair. He’s the author of eight books.
Q. Where do you write?
A. “It could be almost anywhere. I try not to write in hotels. That’s pretty grim. But I do it if I have to. Usually I find someplace to park myself … I’ve done a lot of work in coffee shops but it’s not the best environment. It’s nice to have some peace and quiet. I do not like music playing, normally. Sometimes, if it’s really late at night, I’ll put on some music and slouch in a chair and keep working. Sometimes that’s effective. Usually not. Usually that’s a sign that it’s time to take a break.”
Q. When do you write?
A. “I write when I’m ready to write, when I know what I want to say… I write from morning until late at night. Seven days a week… I don’t know if the sun is shining. I don’t know if its cold or hot. I don’t know who anybody else is in the world except for the occasional interruption of phone calls or emails … I wake up in the morning and work until I can’t work anymore, and that’s usually fairly late at night… Get up and hit it again. Just keep going. I don’t know any other way to write.”
(He added that he often works one to three hours at a time, takes a break to walk or read or daydream, and then gets back at it “full on.”)
Q. How do you write?
A. He started with IBM selectric but switched to computer as soon as possible, and found his writing improved thanks to the word processor. He currently writes on a Mac, “but that’s totally irrelevant. Whatever screen is available.” He previously would write on the screen, print a draft, make corrections by hand, then revise. Now he writes and edits right on the screen, and believes the power of word processing has eliminated barriers to writing. No longer is the process broken into first and second drafts. “Hell, there are, like, a hundred drafts, and they’re constantly flowing at all times, this very informal relationship between work and the revision of that work.” The result of the constant editing is: “When I’m done I’m done. What I turn in is extremely clean copy … Every comma has been thought through, every sound, the rhythm, everything.”
(He added that he’s had the benefit of working closely with a longtime trusted editor, Cullen Murphy, at the Atlantic, at Vanity fair, and on his books.)
Q. How do you keep going?
A. “It’s not so much stamina as paranoia, fear of failure. The problem with writing is: if you don’t do it, nobody does it for you … You have to know that every time you take a break, it stops. It’s absolutely a one-on-one relationship with the work. There’s no team involved. So it’s quite unlike other forms of labor.”
(He added that coffee helps, but for him, not alcohol.)
Q. What role does self-discipline play?
A. “It’s very lonely work, as you know. I mean, it’s hard to think of lonelier work. I don’t know about discipline. That question comes up occasionally and it seems alien to me. I mean, it’s not an issue. Discipline compared to what? Compared to living on the street? Compared to failure? What choice do you have but to do the work?”
Although my video interview was damaged, I managed to film and edit portions of his talk that night at Town Hall.
Six months before Katrina, the Patriots of John Curtis Christian School had lost the state championship game. In the Superdome locker room after the game, head coach J.T. Curtis gave a speech that epitomized his decades-long philosophy on football and on life, and sums up the message of Hurricane Season – a message that applies as well to the Saints.
He said, “Any time you set a goal in your life, you don’t always know if you’re gonna make that goal, but what you have to do is give it your best shot every day…If you give that commitment from now ’til the day you die, you’ll be a successful person, no matter what you do.” J.T. often reminds his kids that “things in your life aren’t always gonna go well. You’re gonna have to learn to get up, dust yourself off, and go again.” Today, the dusted-off Saints have a chance today to make their still-wounded city proud.
[footnote: One of the main characters in Hurricane Season was Joe McKnight, who went on to play for USC. Joe’s coach at USC, Pete Carroll, recently became coach of my beleaguered backup team, the Seahawks. (I’ll always be an NY Giants fan.) And Joe recently declared for NFL draft. I’m hoping the winds that blew Joe west from NO to LA will blow him to the Pacific Northwest and to Pete's Carroll's Seahawks. Here's a story I did about Joe, excerpted from Hurricane Season, for Sports Illustrated.]
While catching up on the New Yorker stack composting beside the bed, I read a profile of Neil Gaiman, the prolific and versatile author of spooky kid and adult books, comics, graphic novels, screenplays, and more, who described himself as having the good fortune of being a “facile” writer. The Londoner lives in rural Wisconsin, working in a cabin behind his house. “Facile” provoked in me visions of a ballet of writing, this man in black flitting and spinning from one project to another with ease and grace. A less-crazy Jackson Pollock spewing ink from a pen. A Vivaldi soundtrack. Facile would be among the last words I’d use for my own writing, especially now, as I wrestle with the final chapters of the latest draft of my two-year-old biography of Robert Ripley. Lumbering. Cloddish. Plodding. Less a ballet than a slo-mo wrestling match. Or a marathon. But in my case, someone keeps moving the finish line. I’ve had the end in sight for a month, and can see the tape, so I know I’m in the home stretch, the last hundred yards. But each day the finish line seems just a foot or two closer. I’m almost a month past my deadline, and desperate for something resembling facility. Occasionally I find moments of clarity and the words come easier (often after an end-of-day beer and a whiskey), but it’s all too brief, at least with this book. Which only confirms what I’ve always known: writing is a bitch, a grind, a chore, a job. Yet so is running a marathon, climbing a mountain, building a house. I’ve embarked on three similar adventures, and each journey had its dark moments, but each ended with a row of shiny-fresh books on Barnes and Noble’s shelves. And I know the day will come when I read “Thompson” and “Ripley” on the spine of this next book, that I’ll visit the new Elliot Bay Book store in Capital Hill the first day it goes on sale, just to touch them. But I need to try not to picture that scene too soon. There’s much work to be done, and it’s a bitch.
From a New York Times story about Cormac McCarthy auctioning his old portable Olivetti typewriter – a Lettera 32 – which he bought at a Tennessee pawnshop for $50 around 1963. “I tried to find the smallest, lightest typewriter I could find,” McCarthy told the Times.
“I have typed on this typewriter every book I have written including three not published,” McCarthy said. “Including all drafts and correspondence I would put this at about five million words over a period of 50 years.”
He remembers one summer when some graduate students were visiting the Santa Fe Institute. “I was in my office clacking away,” he said. “One student peered in and said: ‘Excuse me. What is that?’ ”
“I don’t have some method of working,” he said, adding that he often works on different projects simultaneously. A few years ago, when he was in Ireland, “I worked all day on four different projects,” he said. “I worked two hours on each. I got a lot done, but that’s not usual.”
When Colum McCann won the National Book Award last week, for his wonderful novel, “Let the Great World Spin,” he became the first Irish author to win the award (and dedicated it to his fellow Irish-American, Frank McCourt, who recently died). In July, Colum came to Seattle to read at the Seattle Public Library. Afterward, I shared a couple pints with him and his brother, Ronan, at the Irish pub, Fado, where I asked Colum about the mechanics of his writing life.
Like most non-fiction writers, I’ve spent untold hours in libraries and archives all over the country. I love these places, homes to the printed words that help bring my subjects to life – old court cases, manuscript collections, century-old books, and microfilmed newspapers. I’ve been fortunate to have lived in two cities with spectacular libraries – New York, and now Seattle, which opened its funky-mod new glass-and-steel central library in 2004. (See photos here and here) I’m fortunate to be able to work any time I wish in the Seattle library’s writer’s room, though I still miss the cavernous public space of the New York Public Library’s historic Rose Reading Room. When I lived in New York and worked in that famous room, I loved knowing that I was sharing a space where John Updike and Normal Mailer and others often worked. In the years since my wife and left New York, I’ve always managed to visit the library during biannual trips to the city (and am grateful that my agent’s office is a block from the NYPL).
My current book project – a biography of the eccentric, world-traveling cartoonist Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley – has a nice link to the New York Public Library. That’s where a brainiac named Norbert Pearlroth worked most days as Ripley’s researcher and linguist, starting in the 1920s and continuing well after Ripley’s death in 1949. (Here’s a story about Norbert at NYPL.) I’ve visited a few times in the course of my current research into Ripley’s life, and earlier this year met a smart, helpful librarian named Dave Smith. Dave is featured in the first third of this cool video, along with Annie Proulx and Ian Frazier.
"The writer doesn't need economic freedom," William Faulkner once said. "All he needs is a pencil and some paper." Nice idea, elegant and simple. But today's writers are rarely financially free, and our tools have become less analogue, more digital. On this site I explore the evolving craft of writing, in my work and the work of others, as well as the tools and mechanics of the trade - including, as Faulkner put it, "a little whiskey."
“(A) colorful, meticulously detailed history” — Time
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