After the MFA

Welcome to After the MFA’s leg of TypePad’s Virtual Book Tour with Brendan Halpin. Brendan, the author of five books, is promoting his new novel “Dear Catastrophe Waitress.” If you’ve come from Rarely Likable, TypePad’s network, or Brendan’s existing readers — welcome to all.

Before we launch into this interview, I want to throw a couple thoughts into a small stew pot that seems to have heated up since this virtual book tour began over on Syntax of Things.

Some folks in the “lit blog” world think TypePad’s promo tour may be exploiting the blogs on its networks. I can’t comment on what detractors are saying, what they may have at stake, or even about any conflicts of interest there may be in TypePad asking its network blogs to promote books. I’m not on the TypePad network. And I don’t particularly consider this site a lit blog — I don’t typically review books, talk about readings, or follow all the juicy tidbits in literary criticism, publishing, etc. I like to stick to the learning and doing of writing: the nuts and bolts.

Nevertheless, the debate got me thinking about this whole project.

I haven’t read Brendan’s new book — nor any of his previous books. And, I admit, I don’t often pick up novels of the kind that “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” appears to be. Brendan says he owes a lot to the work of Nick Hornby, and I haven’t been compelled to read Hornby since “High Fidelity” came out. I guess I prefer a different cup of tea. So, why agree to interview Brendan?

In the course of our email correspondence, Brendan said something that really stood out to me: “‘High Fidelity’ is the book that made me think writers weren’t necessarily some different kind of creature from me.” This is why I am taking part in this interview.

Fundamentally, Brendan’s words have everything to do with why I spend time on my web site. Writers aren’t necessarily a different kind of creature from me — or any of us. We can learn this art. We can carve out our own little slice of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, and whatever else is made with words. And once you begin to learn how, you have to start producing, start putting your words, ideas, and feelings on center-stage. Brendan Halpin is doing that and I’m glad we had an opportunity to sit down and talk about writing.

Whether or not this is exploitative or shilling for books… I can’t say. From my frame of reference, we’re talking about writing, like I’ve done here, here, and here. All different writers, different subjects, different styles. But in all of the cases, I’ve come out thinking a little bit more about my writing and my goals, which makes me feel like I’ve gotten the better deal out of it.

Enough of me. Let’s do that interview…

In your podcast interview with Harold Check, you mentioned that you have made the leap into full-time writing. When did that happen and how did you know it was the right time?

It was a bizarre confluence of events. I sold my first novel, “Donorboy, within a week of finding out that my wife Kirsten had about six weeks to live. I figured that the advance was enough for me to live on for a year, and once Kirsten died, it would have been very difficult to return to teaching because I would have had to put my daughter into before- and after-school programs, but, more importantly, teaching well takes a big emotional investment, and I had nothing in the tank to give to my students. All other considerations aside, I didn’t think it would have been fair to my students to just mail it in. So I started staying home and making up stories to make myself feel better.

You also mentioned that the discipline of writing is nothing like the discipline of teaching. Still, how do you stay on track?

I have a pretty rigid routine that helps me. I take the kids to school, I walk the dog, I exercise, and I sit down to write. And on the days when I don’t feel like writing, I do it anyway. I have the luxury to be able to do this as a job and not have to work my writing into time stolen from other responsibilities. So that makes it relatively easy. My personality is such that I’d feel guilty if I just sat on the couch and watched movies all day. And, of course, I have bills to pay. So I just sit down every day and do it.

How do you think teaching writing would compare with teaching high school?

Well, I always taught writing in my high school classes–I taught writing electives, but even in the “regular” English classes, I always made kids write personal essays, poetry and fiction in addition to the dreaded “English Paper.” For me, teaching writing was always the most fun because there’s a clear end product, and I guess I felt like I was good at helping my students to write better. So, for me, that was always the fun part. When I taught writing electives, it was really fun for me. Having said that, I don’t know how it works in college. I took one fiction workshop class in college and it was prickly and uncomfortable as all these kids with big egos, low self esteem and pretty undeveloped talent sat around and ripped each other’s stories to shreds. So I guess it’s really important for the instructor to set a supportive tone. I don’t know if that’s easier to do in high school, or if my instructor just wasn’t very good at that. She did introduce me to Raymond Carver, though, so that was good.

Where has your writing education or training or learning come from the most?

This is going to sound hopelessly corny, but I think I learned the most about writing from being a teacher. I learned a great deal just from teaching kids how to be better writers. And as far as the literature goes, I had to reread a lot of great literature, and I’m normally not a rereader. So on my fourth or fifth reading of something, I was able to stop just reading for the entertainment value and really pay attention to how those writers were making their books work. I guess it was like the difference between being a driver and being a mechanic. After a while I really got under the hood and saw how things were working.

You’ve talked about how important music is to you. Can you finish this sentence: Writing about music is like …?

…writing about food, or sex, or anything else that fundamentally hits you in a non-verbal part of your brain. I think that verbalizing experiences that come to us non-verbally is one of the biggest challenges of writing. And it’s also easy to do badly.

What other writers do you read, appreciate, feel a kinship toward?

I’m such a sponge that I have to read stuff that bears no resemblance to what I’m writing, or else I find myself unconsciously copying it. So, I mean, I obviously owe a tremendous debt to Nick Hornby, but I don’t read him anymore because I don’t want to steal from him. But I think “High Fidelity” is the book that made me think writers weren’t necessarily some different kind of creature from me.

I am in total awe of China Mieville. His imaginary worlds are more keenly observed than my real ones. And he’s a very good writer. So much science fiction/fantasy/horror/whatever you want to call it is strong on the ideas and cringe-worthy on the writing and dialogue, and Mieville is just so good at everything I can’t even be jealous of him.

I really like Christopher Moore‘s work, and a lot of Stephen King’s. I grew up reading Stephen King, and I really admire him. I think he’s just a really gifted observer of how people’s minds work. I think he’s able to sell all the supernatural stuff so convincingly because the workings of his characters’ minds feel so real. Charlie Huston is great. I’m a huge Philip K. Dick fan. I like Jonathan Lethem and Bradley Denton. Max Brooks’ “World War Z” is probably the best book I’ve read in 2007, and Frank Portman’s “King Dork” is the best book I read in 2006.

You have five books out now and another coming soon — what’s the secret of your prolific-ness?

Well, the longest one is 308 pages. So I don’t know that I’m writing more pages than anybody else — I just happen to write short books. But I think a lot about the advice I used to give my students, which is just that you have to be fearless about writing crap. I sit down every work day and make myself write at least a thousand words. Later on I worry about if they suck, but I think it’s just so important to turn the internal editor off when you’re writing a first draft. I find it much easier to tinker with a whole lot of stuff I’ve already written than to agonize over each word before I type it.

If you were invited to become a screenwriter, what would be your first project?

I’m dying for somebody to ask me to write a sequel to the Breakfast Club. John! Molly! Emilio! Somebody, call me!

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With that, I send you off to the next stage of the virtual book tour, over at Drive Like Hell. I hope you got something out of your time here and may I see you back again.