Point and Shoot, FL (YU)—
Q: In Bury
My Heart at W. H. Smith’s: A Writing
Life, Brian Aldiss says, “A firmly held belief in the book trade is that collections
of short stories do not sell. On
average, they sell less well than novels, and novels on average sell poorly
enough. Publishing is a hard trade. But Space,
Time, and Nathaniel is still in print, thirty years on, having lived
through four different English imprints.”
A: Bukowski’s Notes
of a Dirty Old Man and Erections,
Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness sold.
It’s
widely held that books of poems don’t sell.
His
books of poems sold.
You
just keep writing until you die.
Your
books might sell, they might not.
Probably
they won’t.
Q: What makes a book sell?
A: I am attracted to a writer’s voice. Once I discover a writer I like I read
everything of his or hers I can find, regardless of genre.
Q: But it’s easier to get published if you stick to one genre.
A: I became a writer to discover things about myself through the writing. You don’t do that writing genre fiction. Or narrative nonfiction. You do it by writing in a variety of forms. Sometimes in the same book.
Think of the Coen Brothers movie A Serious Man, with the extra features about the making of the movie, designing a movie that looks like 1967, and Yiddish for goys.
Also with a cartoon at the front. In Yiddish.
Q: That was a black movie.
A: It started black and just got blacker. It ended with a cut to black. And it was a comedy.
Q: Was it making fun of Jews?
A: The Coen Brothers? Make fun of someone?
Q: You’ve got a nice life.
Watching movies.
If you hear about a book you want to buy, you just buy it, with one click.
A: Steven King says being rich is being able to buy a hardback book when you hear about it.
I’m rich.
I watch a movie when it comes out.
Or when it comes out on DVD.
Q: Why do you talk about movies so much in your books?
A: That’s what people talk about. Movies.
If you talk about books, most people have no idea what you are talking about.
Q: Most people talk about television shows.
A: I do watch movies. But I don’t watch a lot of television.
Also, I use the Internet, for research, and to keep abreast of the biases, but I don’t do social networking, on the Internet.
So, much of that is lost on me.
In
And driving around from titty bar to titty bar.
I don’t see how he got any writing done.