My Brother, The Sisters Brothers
When Writing A Book Becomes Work, and When It Doesn't
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Exactly one week ago, Vulture published my interview with comedian Josh Gondelman, covering his pick for an underrated piece of comedy: The Sisters Brothers.
It was an amazing interview, and a lot of the stuff that didn’t make the cut was about how different works of art can influence your own creative process. Really great stuff, but let’s be honest: that was more about me wanting to know more about how Josh’s brain works, because he is successful in pursuing his creative endeavors and I am, well, freelancing the occasional interview. He’s an absolute delight, and his latest comedy special is really funny. You can watch it here.
In order to interview Josh about the book, I read the book. And the book had some extreme unintended consequences. About midway through, I stood up from my couch, walked into my office, and started writing an entirely new idea for a novel.
I’m about 12,000 words into the draft, I know where about 2/3rds of it is going to go, and I think it’s good! It’s interesting to see how easy sections are getting cranked out, and only working on it for about a week, I can see finishing a 60,000 word draft in about 7-10 weeks total. It’ll be rough, it’ll need a lot of work, but it’ll feel complete.
This, of course, is in contrast to the previous manuscript I wrote, which had become an absolute nightmare for me to try and comprehend. As much as I really enjoyed bits and pieces of it and a lot of the concepts, it just couldn't come together. At 55,000 words it stuttered and shrank, and then I began rewriting entire sections with an entirely different plot. I thought that could save it, the writing group I participate in seemed to enjoy the new sections, but the more I worked on it the more it began to crumble, conceptually.
In the interview with Josh, he mentioned that he often will take inspiration from books or movies when writing his stand up. That makes sense. Inspiration comes from everywhere. But what really clicked was the moment he told me that reading other people’s prose helps him understand all the different ways you could phrase something. That when he’s writing stand up, a lot of the polish happens while you’re delivering a joke on stage and you see how certain phrasing hits with an audience. There’s something truly breathtaking to the idea of telling a story, knowing the ending, and being able to rewrite each sentence in your head night after night to fit the environment.
That requires a lot of trust in your instinct. And working on a manuscript, that was something I needed to hear.
There’s another Josh related to all this, and that’s my brother. He lives in Japan, and is usually going to bed around the time I wake up, so we often text about everyday stuff while we’re both the only ones awake in our houses. He was one of the first people who read my first manuscript, and when I told him I was going to abandon it to pursue this new idea, he had some clear words for me:
“I am not a crook.”
No, that’s just a joke. I can’t remember how he phrased it, actually, but it was something along the lines of how much he enjoyed the first novel I was working on, and how I shouldn’t give up on it completely.
As much as I want to just forget it ever existed, he’s right. There’s a really solid story arc that exists somewhere in there that needs to be teased out. But I also need to be able to trust my instincts.
Inside of every man, there are two Joshes…
But as much as people want to write about the creative writing process, there’s just no substitute for doing. So back to the grindstone. Maybe 30,000 words into this new piece, I’ll have the same instincts to kick it out of a moving car that’s speeding down a freeway the way the other piece did. And when that moment inevitably kicks in, it’ll be time to do this all over again.
Who knows, maybe by then I’ll have had the chance to interview comedian Megan Gailey about a Kurt Vonnegut novel.
Artwork by Ashley Elander Strandquist. You can view her illustration work here and check out her printing business here.
Publish the rest of the Josh interview that didn't make the cut!