Q: C-SPAN2 had an interview with Kevin Phillips about his work habits.
A: Yes, I saw that.
Q: What is your routine?
A: I get up at 4:00 and write until 6:30. Then I fix breakfast for me
and Brenda and we eat together in the living room, watching television.
She
goes to work.
I write until 9:00, when the public library opens.
I drive to the library, the post office, and the grocery store. I buy something
to fix for supper.
I may eat lunch out. I may come home and fix lunch.
I write until 4:00. Then I load the dishwasher and fix supper. I watch television
while I'm cooking. When Brenda comes home I have a meal fixed.
After supper,
we watch a rented video, or something she taped off the TV.
I may write some
more. In my room.
Then I read and go to bed.
I go to bed early.
Q: Do you outline a book before you write it?
A: It depends on what it is.
The current book, I just follow the
map, and write about Gulf Coast towns and cities I have lived and worked in.
Last book, I wrote about working. Combining writing, work, and family.
That
book, I left for work at 7:00 and got home at 4:00.
I didn't write at work.
Q: When did you get your writing done?
A: Before and after work.
Q: What do you do when you finish a book.
A: Start the next book.
Usually, I have been thinking about what
I'll write next, and know what I am going to write.
Q: I mean, do you send it to anyone.
A: Usually, I have been sending query letters to agents and editors.
Usually, no one has asked to see it.
Q: Kevin Phillips was asked about editors interfering and he said he sold
an outline before he wrote the book. If they approved the outline, how he wrote
it was up to him.
No one was going to tell him, "This doesn't go in
Chapter 8, it goes in Chapter 3."
He said nowadays editors figured writers
were capable of writing because they had done it before.
Writers who had
not already been published, successfully, did not get book contracts.
A: How would he have sold his first book now?
Q: He didn't hazard a guess.
Are the weekends the same?
A: I spend more time with Brenda, who is home from work.
But by
and large, yes.
Holidays, when the library and the post office are closed,
are inconvenient.
Q: Do you take any time off?
A: Once you establish your rhythm, you're like a cow that wants to be milked
at the same time every day.
You don't take days off.
Q: Ever?
A: Not very often.
It never lets up.
Coltrane used to practice
when he wasn't playing.
That's how he got to be Coltrane.
He wasn't
even trying to be Coltrane.
If you are Coltrane, that's how it works out.
If you aren't, you aren't.
Most people aren't.
Q: How does Brenda feel about what you're doing?
A: I told her that story about Kevin Phillips saying writers who weren't already published not getting published and she said, "If I were you I wouldn't worry about ever getting published. Just write something good. Don't complain about not getting published."
Q: What did you say?
A: "Thank you for your input."
Q: A little sensitive to the charge, are we?
A: It's like Barbara Ehrenreich says, me thinking positive thoughts isn't
going to change things. That's not what's holding me back. My failure to be optimistic.
I see her point. I am aware of her concerns. I feel like she's piling on sometimes.
I try not to complain. Nobody wants to listen to a whiner.
On the other
hand, a writer's conditions of production are an important part of what he works
with, and he should look at his situation clearly.
Maybe I am incapable of
doing that. I'm too close to it. I have too much invested.
Q: So does she.
She's only trying to help.
A: It doesn't help to tell me I'm a whiner and I'm ruining my work with complaint. If I'd just stop doing that I would succeed. If I wasn't so pigheaded. If I didn't want to be a martyr.
Q: Good idea. Let's change the subject.
A: Kevin Phillips wasn't gloating. He was stating it as a fact.
I'm not pissing and moaning. I'm stating it as a fact.
Q: You can't. He can.
You stand in different relation to the fact.
A: I agree.
I should keep my mouth shut.
Because of my
relation to the fact.