A Quote by Chris Abani
Like most writers, I find the Web is a wonderful distraction. Who doesn't need that last minute research before writing?
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I think all writers are mainly writing for themselves because I believe that most writers are writing based on a need to write. But at the same time, I feel that writers are, of course, writing for their readers, too.
I do all my shopping on the Web. I do much of my research online. I have a blog, too. It is definitely a distraction. It is definitely a blessing. What blessing isn't a distraction, though?
I find writing a book a slow, intricate process, a kind of obstacle course punctuated with great rewards. But research is always thrilling, and I tend to incorporate newfound material up to the very last minute.
I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. [...] The other problem I have is fear of writing. The act of writing puts you in confrontation with yourself, which is why I think writers assiduously avoid writing. [...] Not writing is more of a psychological problem than a writing problem. All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. [...] It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Especially when it goes on for years. It's much more relaxing actually to work.
I typically don't adopt the ascetic approach. In part, that's because I do use the Net for research even as I'm writing (to check facts, or so on). But I think it's also because I find the possibility of distraction comforting.
When I find the right information, the Web is a blessing; when I don't, it's a distraction.
I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.
I find research fascinating and always conduct some before I begin writing, and then fill in the rest as needed. I read stacks of books and also had the opportunity to travel to England to do more research.
Writing wasn't easy to start. After I finally did it, I realized it was the most direct contact possible with the part of myself I thought I had lost, and which I constantly find new things from. Writing also includes the possibility of living many lives as well as living in any time or world possible. I can satisfy my enthusiasm for research, but jump like a calf outside the strict boundaries of science. I can speak about things that are important to me and somebody listens. It's wonderful!
One of my favorite pieces of advice about being a writer came from a very formative teacher I had as an undergraduate, named John Hersey. On our last day of class together, which was also John Hersey last day before retirement, he said, "Remember, the world doesn't need any new writers." Which at first didn't seem like great advice, but when you unpacked it, it was really that it's not enough to be confident in what you do; be conscious of bringing something to the world of readers and writers that it hasn't seen before. Something idiosyncratic.
My ritual it's kind of an involuntary ritual. I lie awake the night before, worrying about award ceremony. Try and think of something to write in case I actually get up there. I write it at the very last minute like either in the car on the way to the ceremony or, you know, in the bathroom before the show starts. It's all of jumbled mess written on a napkin or a piece of toilet paper. That's my good luck ritual. It's just like being in college waiting for the last minute to do everything.
Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say.
I definitely think of myself still as a writer first, and feel like - with the lucky exception of this - any acting opportunity I've gotten is usually because I was writing on it. This is like a wonderful vacation. If you've ever sat in a writers' room it's the most disgusting, tortuous place, so it's a treat to be treated like a movie actor.
When you're on the set, and sometimes, because it's been so complex and the writers have been really writing, sometimes up until the last minute... And you kind of sit back; you separate yourself from your brain, and you say, let me see if you can do this. And that's the kind of challenge I like.
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
This distraction is what one wants, which is very, very bad for the muse, because the muse hates not being in the line of sight. It's no longer an external conflict, like, oh, I have all these demands and I don't like them. The split is in the self.?This may explain why, when I was in Santa Barbara before I went to Singapore and then now to Hong Kong, there was a writing moment when I was writing a poem a day. I had never done that before.
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