SOME FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS.
Now that I've been done some media and been on tour, I can honestly say that some of these questions have been frequently asked.
(Some haven't. But why do I have to be truthful? I write fiction. And I don't expect a call from Oprah anytime soon, so I'll take my chances.)
Who are some of your favorite writers?
This is a very partial list that follows no particular order.
My parents
Vladimir Nabokov
Stephen King
Evelyn Waugh
Jim Thompson
Ruth Rendell
Elmore Leonard
John Fowles
Kurt Vonnegut
David Mamet
David Ives
Sam Shepard
Graham Greene
Samuel Beckett
Tom Wolfe
Richard Dawkins
Both the Bible and the Babylonian Talmud have impacted my life immeasurably.
What do you do in your spare time?
We now have a TV! This is very exciting news, as I haven't had one in ten years. I’m currently trying to watch the entirety of Mythbusters, my current favorite show. I have also become a great fan of Scrubs, which in my opinion is probably the finest sitcom of the last twenty years.
Music has always been important to me. I play several instruments badly. I enjoy bluegrass and newgrass. Alison Krauss is terrific, as are Nickel Creek, although I'm sad to report that they're taking a hiatus to pursue solo projects (which will undoubtedly be brilliant). Other favorites of mine are Charlie Hunter, Mark Knopfler, Steve Vai, and the late greats Warren Zevon and Jeff Buckley, who I really hope are collaborating in heaven—that would be some beautiful, bizarro stuff.
Finally, I will say that I'm a big games player, especially cards and Scrabble. I've started attending the La Jolla chapter of the
National Scrabble Association.
Have you written any other books?
Aside from the sandcastles of my youth…before SUNSTROKE I wrote two and a half unpublished novels.
The first, written when I was a college sophomore, was a spare, anemic, plotless debacle that taught me a lot about how not to write a book. I shelved it.
The second was a sprawling historical epic that grossly overcompensated for the first book’s flaws; the initial draft was 1000 pages. I submitted it, crushing several editors to death. All the survivors rejected it.
Would you like a heaping bowl of dog food?
Not particularly. But I could really go for a
grotesquely overladen ice cream sundae.
What are some of the differences between writing plays and writing novels?
Much of a play’s flesh is provided by its director, designers, actors, and crew. Theater is collaborative; as such, a playwright is never wholly responsible for the success or failure of any given moment.
But the novelist is. Writing a book is like scripting, directing, lighting, setting, scoring, costuming, acting, and teching a show by yourself. You have to hold several dozen competing concerns in your head at once. While I have an editor, the ratio of her input to mine is pretty small, certainly less than that of a director alone to a playwright.
Moreover, at the risk of stating the obvious, novels tend to be far longer than plays. This has the effect of requiring more of everything, especially more story.
In the wake of those two considerations, I feel that writing a novel is roughly a hundred times harder than writing a play. I’ll probably inflame the wrath of a lot of playwrights by saying that—playwrights being, by nature, a contentious bunch. But it’s true for me, anyway.
Few people have excelled in both media. Thornton Wilder leaps to mind.
Why did you leave playwriting for fiction?
Well, I wouldn't say that I've left playwriting. I'm not writing any new plays, but that's because I have a large backlog that I'd like to see produced before I invest any more time crafting new material.
However. It is true that I've been focusing less and less creative energy on theater over the last three to four years. There's one simple reason for that: money. These days it's not feasible to make a living only writing plays. (I don't know if it was ever possible, but certainly not today.)
It's sad, because in many ways I'm most comfortable working with actors; and nothing compares to the thrill of watching one's work come alive on a stage.
In the past, when I got an idea for a story, I would know--instinctively--whether it was a book-story or play-story (they're different). These days I try and shoehorn every decent story into novel form, because it's most likely that there I'll find an audience. I have too many plays in limbo to feel right casting a single additional page down the gaping well of underbudgeted futility.
What’s your writing schedule like?
Typically I work in the morning. I begin by rewriting the previous day’s material, which helps ensure a sense of continuity, and which has the additional benefit of making the first draft feel more polished.
I write for five to six hours, stopping when my back gives out. In the evening I’ll return to work for another couple of hours. I aim to write at least ten new pages a day.
After I’m done with a complete draft—which takes about five months—I spend several months rewriting. By the time a sentence is deemed fit for publication I’ve probably gone over it thirty times.
So to answer another FAQ: it takes me about a year to write a novel, all told.
Why did you decide to write a crime novel?
It so happened that my first book accepted for publication prominently features a crime. People tend to classify, so I can’t blame anyone for calling me a crime novelist. But it feels weird to me, because much of my writing until now has been stage comedy.
Any good story—no matter the genre—has mysteries at its center. By making one of those mysteries literal, a writer ensures narrative momentum and prevents too much self-indulgence at the reader’s expense. This does not, I believe, prevent a crime novel from tackling the less concrete questions that are often the ostensible focus of so-called literary novels.
Why did you write SUNSTROKE?
The answer to that can be found
here.
Do you plan on writing another book featuring Gloria?
Well, I won't rule it out. I love Gloria, and I'm glad I got to spend time with her. But it seems unlikely that I'll return to her in the near future. I have many stories to share and a lot of new characters I'd like to introduce readers to.
If you want to learn more about my Dad, you can visit his website
here. My Mom's site can be found
here.
