Thank you for organizing,
wheat!
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Starting out as a writer:
College is busy. People say you have a lot of time but your really don't; you're busy doing things. I started out writing poetry because that was what I had time for. My poetry kept getting longer and longer and more narrative and one day a kind professor took me aside and said, “I think you’re writing prose.” He added, “But there’s good news because more people read prose.”
I was going to take a class with a famous writer at the university. And you were supposed to take your writing and meet with this writer in her office. She said my credentials were unimpressive. I thought that was mean, and now that I’m an adult I think that’s even more mean. What credentials are you supposed to have at eighteen years old? Oh yeah, here's the seven novels I've published? On the first day of class, she said, we’re all going to meet in a "field full of leaves." (I remember the phrase because it’s disgusting.) And we’re all going to recite the poem we’ve memorized. (She assigned each of us a poem to memorize.) It felt like on the first day of medical school you discovered you’re afraid of blood. I didn’t want to do it. So I didn’t take her class. And then at a college conference by total coincidence I sat next to Kit Reed - that’s who Kit Snicket is named after - and she said she's teaching a class and the whole class only meets three times and the rest of the time you write ten pages per week and you give it to me and you sit in my kitchen individually and we go over it. So I did it and took it twice and I did something sneaky, which was I signed up for the last 15-minute time slot which meant I could stay in her kitchen and maybe be invited to dinner, which is a very exciting thing when you’re in college. It didn't happen all the time, but it did happen a few times. She was a big instructor for me in terms of the philosophy I’ve passed on to you. She would say “I think you’re trying to do something like Murial Spark, go read Murial Spark.” You should write like the writer you want to be and she was very good at finding the writers that you wrote like.
Who is Lemony Snicket and how do you know him?
There are many answers to that question. When I was researching my first novel,
The Basic Eight … [usual story]. I would also sometimes tell people I was a yacht lawyer. And I would say when there’s a fight over a yacht I would represent the interests of the yacht. Not the people, but the boat. So the name Lemony Snicket became the name for a man who reminded myself of me and was trapped in a world in even more ridiculous and full of despair and gloom than I was in. When I started to write this book it seemed like it would be more like him writing it than for me.
What’s the hold up for Mr. Snicket today?
He’s the last person I’d expect to see on Zoom. At a time of viral fear and rising fascism, those are not things Mr. Snicket enjoys. I would be stunned if he showed up to something like this.
What are your personal impressions of ASOUE?
When I was a child, I felt I was in a world completely out of my control. I felt like people a lot taller than me who were paying only pretty good attention were making decisions on my behalf. I also found a lot of solace and triumph in literature when I was a child. It reminded me of my own childhood.
How do you think the Netflix series captures the energy of the original series?
Working on a television show was exciting, exhausting, and difficult. And when it’s done, you can’t tell what the work is like. I got to work with some really interesting people, including other writers, which is not something I normally do. I would make them lunch and then we’d work until cocktail hour and I’d make them cocktails. And the cocktails would help us solve whatever problem we were working on. Recommending alcohol to a bunch of young people is kind of irresponsible. Don’t get caught. I mean, don’t have any alcohol. It’s terrible. The experience of watching is kind of like looking at old photographs of yourself. But it seems like some people liked it.
What was the message ASOUE was supposed to say to audiences?
It’s what it means to you. I know many people have written me about all kinds of things it meant to them and that makes me happy. I was just talking to a man today who grew up with same sex parents at a time when people were not okay with that. And there’s a same sex couple in TMM and that was the only same sex couple that he had seen in books and that conveyed a message that he was not alone. Personally, I don’t see how a same sex relationship in a lumbermill that’s not going well at all would be comforting, but I guess he found it so.
Did you expect the series would gain as much traction as it did?
No. The first place I went after the first two books were published was in Lansing, Michigan. [story about first presentation at a bookstore].
What kept you going even though it had a negative reception in the public?
I liked them. I was interested in it. I had initially a contract for four books (and enough money to pay my rent for a while and buy sardines for myself and my wife). I liked writing and I wrote for myself.
Poison for Breakfast?
It will finally be out next year. It was delayed for various boring reasons. It will be out less than a year from now. In the summer of 2021.
Why did you choose to write ATWQ?
I got interested in thinking about Lemony Snicket’s childhood. And ASOUE owes a lot to gothic literature that’s very important to me, and ATWQ owes itself to a tradition of noir literature. There’s a small town called Inverness[?] across the bridge in San Francisco. It was raining badly. There was something about staring at the town that made me imagine Lemony Snicket being on an early assignment in a miserable town, so that’s where I got the idea. On the cover of Poetry Magazine, the artist Seth drew a melancholy landscape that was the mood of what I was doing, and I asked him to do it and he said yes.
Was your creative process for the series different?
I hope that I got better.
One thing I do is have a pile of books that have something to do with what I’m doing. Then I keep clipped index cards organized by what I’m doing and I keep them in this wooden box that I stole from the library. Which, as with alcohol, you should never do. Even if the library is terrible and you know they’ll never use the beautiful wooden box and they’ll never miss it, you shouldn’t do it. And if you do, carry it out under your coat.
There’s something about writing on a legal pad that makes it legal. Not like in those other notebooks - they’ll lock you up. But not with a legal pad!
Values in literature?
I think all good literature reflects certain values that are good. But values are abstract. If you said to someone, “hey would you like to read a book about generosity?” you would say no. But if you said “This is a book about a man and he gets bit by a snake wherever he goes” you say “yeah I want to read that!”
Sometimes when I sit down to write I don’t know what I’m going to write yet.
There’s a part of writing that’s subconscious and you don’t know what you’re doing. The writers who know exactly what they’re doing are all terrible.
Did the wildfires in California influence your interest in fires?
Once my parents said if you ever think there’s a fire in the middle of the night, you might have to climb out the attic window. (They don’t like that I call it an attic, but it was a room in the upper part of the house.) That made a huge impression on me when I was young.
How do you choose a collaborating illustrator or does the publisher choose?
Usually in children’s literature the publisher will choose them for you. But after twentysomething years in this industry I like to pretend that I don’t know that’s true. My wife is an illustrator, and I’ve collaborated with her a bunch. She is part of the illustrator mafia. They get together and talk about whose good, what kind of ink they’re using, what kind of paper they’re using.
So I find one [an illustrator] and tell the publisher and pretend that I don’t know that the publisher was supposed to choose. It’s like making plans with friends. If you make the plan, you have the advantage. If you tell your friend “let’s go to this waterfall and eat dumplings” and they say “ehhh…” and you say “well, what were you planning to do?” and they don’t have an answer, so your plan has the advantage. I tell the publisher “I found this great illustrator and here’s the work they’ve done and here’s why they’d be great for the series” and then they say “well, maybe” and I say “well who were you thinking of?” and they stutter and have no answer.
Do you usually start with character or plot?
I don’t usually start with plot but with an incident. And then I think “who would it be interesting to happen to?” and that gives me a character.
I like to give someone a draft to ask them “am I crazy?” I used to give them to Kit, and I miss doing that. Usually now I give my wife an “am I crazy?” read. You have to give it to the right person. Most people will say “well, I liked this part and didn’t like that part” and that’s not what I’m looking for. I want to know, am I crazy?
Have you ever done stand up comedy?
No. I have a lot of admiration of the bravery of people who can do stand up comedy and the skill. I’m very funny for a writer but not for a comedian at all.
For the Netflix show, they said it wasn’t a comedy or drama. So they settled on “Family.” Which was very funny to me. And when we decided on the Family category, we won a bunch of prizes. Which made Netflix very happy.
Did Esme and Carmelita survive the fire in the Hotel? Did they die?
That’s a difficult question to answer in the world of literature.
(A confrontation ensues.)
Why is Why We Broke Up so heavy?I convinced Maira Kalman to work with me by taking her to lunch at a restaurant in San Francisco. Maira Kalman was very particular about the type of paper it was printed on, so that's why the book is heavy. I would hand it to people and they would give me a dirty look [because it was so heavy].
What do you find special about a career in writing?
I’ve never really done anything else, so I don’t know the satisfactions of being a fireman or weightlifter or harpist.
Being an accordion player is a kind of satisfaction.
I can’t wait to tell one of my friends that someone told me that being an accordion player is a kind of satisfaction. It will settle a long bet.
Literature has been happening for so long. I have with me a
A Pillow Book, which is a piece of lit from a thousand years ago. And that’s not at all the oldest book in the world. I think participating in a tradition that has brought joy to people and is the transcription of human consciousness; that all over the world people have been thinking and writing it down, and in that way we’re all connected. And I don’t know if there are other professions in which that happens, but for me that is the really beautiful thing about literature. You can be part of that as a reader, a writer, an editor, a librarian, a publisher, a book editor.
Is there anything you would like to shout out? I will shout out that I spent today reading the poetry of Morgan Parker. Morgan Parker made me feel good today and she might make you feel good.