I love it for two reasons. The first is that I am fascinated by the lies people tell themselves. Not the ones they deliberately tell others. The ones they casually toss out there in a self-promoting kind of way. I mean the ones where people say, "I only ever eat protein and fruit" and they believe it so you'll believe it. But you know better because you've seen her scarf down 5/6 of her toddler's chicken nuggets while the little cherub wets himself a story and a half up in the maze of tubes. Just like you know she lied to herself when she giggled and hit his hands with gel sanitizer saying she is a serious mysophobe. If she really was phobic and not simply aware of germs, there is no way in hell she'd have suggested having a meeting at the McDonald's Playland.
Looping back, I find it hard to believe that one can craft a quality work while listening to music. Music demands my attention. I cannot come up with original thoughts when someone else's words are pouring into my ears. Maybe what they want is to be seen as someone who listens to that music. And also probably to be read by people that listen to that type of music. Which is why the writers that give the extensive, eclectic list of names crack me up the most. They want to be read by EVERYONE. Well, who doesn't, I guess? These writers who get interviewed probably do listen to the music on their list. I like to imagine someone keeping an iPod Shuffle in their pocket with their playlist just in case they ever get called on the carpet over their answer. And maybe the ideas do hit them while they listen to that playlist. But each sentence and the studious word choice and the editing? Good god, the EDITING? Are we supposed to think that this novel is something that just spilled out of them after downloading something off iTunes? Send me the link, because I'd one-click buy that thing twice.
Writing is work. It is labor intensive. It is time consuming. It requires a singular focus. I feel it in my own work and I see it in the kids I teach. I have had some of those moments where words come from within and out on to the page and I feel like the lucky little conduit. But it was a hell of a lot of work and practice to get to that space. Even harder to stay there.
Which ties into the second reason I love that interview question. I am truly intrigued by the headiness some writers attach to their craft. The routines and the settings and the exact writing utensil and only a certain font...it gets them in the mood or the zone or some level of zen. Whatever rocks your socks, my friends, but you know what I think? I think that some people need to convince themselves they are writers before they can write. Some of them produce wonderful things. But it amuses me nonetheless.
Maybe it sticks with me because I don't write like that. I need to get something rolling around in my brain for a good, long time before I know how it wants to land on the page. I guess I write to convince myself I am a writer. And I hope to, some day, produce wonderful things.
And when the interviewer asks me what music I listen to when I write I will tell the honest truth: an original composition. It is a complex layering of dishwasher, clothes dryer, barking dogs, video game chirps, and the lilt of my children's pleasure (or growling if the game goes poorly) all muffled through a closed door.
Next question.
Where do I write? Where don't I write. I am writing about you in my head right now, interviewer. About what you wish you were doing and how bummed you were when your editor sent you an email with this assignment and my name on it. (And also, I am writing the part about your interviewing me.)
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