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| Exile. 8-18-2006. |
| Apologies for having taken so long to post. I’m at work on a new book, and by the end of the day I’m usually too sapped to write anything else. Yesterday, though, I had a particularly productive session: twenty-one pages. That’s not quite a personal record, but it does give me an excuse to take it easy today. In the lull I thought I’d explain what I’ve been up to recently. I’m writing from the library of a prominent NGO. My wife has taken a summer internship in Switzerland. Our apartment is rather small; the mini-fridge growls aggressively, and somewhere in the building’s plumbing lurks a group of bongo-playing trolls. This library, on the other hand, is silent and soothing and carpeted, which means I can kick off my shoes and get down to business. The book I’m working on is set in Massachusetts, where I lived for six years during college and graduate school. It may seem strange to write about a bleak New England winter while summering in Europe, but I’ve found that I work best at a slight remove. Sunstroke, for example, is set in Los Angeles and Mexico, and is full of oppressive heat; I wrote it during my first fall and winter in New York. My play Things Beyond Our Control, set in Dallas, was conceived on a plane and written in Cambridge. Plenty of writers like to write about someplace they’re not. My friend Eliot Schrefer wrote his first novel (a very funny book about the travails of SAT tutoring; get it here) while living abroad. Physically displacing yourself is one way of gaining perspective; forcing yourself to confront a new place, with new rules and customs, helps awaken you to rules and customs you previously took for granted. (Similarly, editing friends’ writing helps me to see my own more objectively. And, of course, distance from one’s subject in time is not merely helpful but essential.) My forthcoming book, Trouble, is set in New York. And I wrote it in New York. And you know what, I ran into problems: I couldn’t stop adding detail. Every time I walked outside and overheard a crazy conversation or witnessed something bizarre, I wanted to stick it in the book—whether it belonged there or not. And if you’ve ever walked around Manhattan you know that crazy conversations or bizarre happenings occur roughly every ten feet, so the original manuscript was not a pretty sight: bloated, full of irrelevant information, and self-indulgent. (As I’m sure some people will find the final version.) Being away from the place I’m describing requires that I work from memory and imagination; thus only the most salient details end up on the page. Salient because they’ve stayed with me after I’ve gone, or because my mind feels it necessary to create them. I’m going to try and get much of this new book done while away from home. All I have to do when I’m not writing is play Scrabble with my wife or read, and since I’m running out of books, and I really don’t like being whupped at Scrabble, I end up writing for hours a day. I also have a surfeit of time with which to answer e-mails, so write to me and tell me what’s on your mind. Or you can tell me that, knowing I’m out of town, you’ve broken into my apartment and stolen our cookware. Please leave the deep fryer. |
