Kenneth Atchity's Blog, page 145

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Success lessons from Paulo Coelho – “The Alchemist”

1. Rejection doesn’t matter

Paulo believed in himself. He believed that he was a good poet and that his poems were not suitable for small magazines. So he sent his poems to the ‘Escritores e Livros,’ a reputable literary column in a newspaper called Correio da Manha. But the newspaper humiliated him.

Like any normal person, he took it personally, but managed to regain his confidence and write his own version of Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “If…”. In the case of Paulo, his self-belief won and this is because of a certain obsession of his.

 2. Always take action

“There is only one way to learn. It’s through action.”

You can study, read, and listen until you turn blue in the face, but the full experience is when you take action, and let the rubber meet the road. Once you’re done aiming, pull the trigger.

3. Be obsessed with your dream

Paulo was obsessed with the idea of becoming a famous writer. Yet, it was funny that the obsession only bore fruit in his later years. This is because he was always changing his art: from poetry to acting, directing, writing about the occult, and lyric writing.

Although he gained success in some of his ventures, he kept reminding himself that he wanted to be a famous writer. That obsession made him what he is today.

4. Good things come to those who persevere

In The Alchemist, Coelho’s most popular novel, a young Spanish shepherd named Santiago has a prophetic dream that treasure awaits him in some distant land. After consulting with a gypsy who tells him the treasure lies under the Pyramids of Giza and Egypt, he embarks upon a long and arduous journey across Africa. The obstacles he encounters in the desert—he struggles to secure food and shelter, crosses paths with armies, and even falls in love—make him second-guess his dubious quest.

But for every hurdle discouraging him, there’s a signpost reminding him to keep his faith alive. Early in his journey an old king tells Santiago: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

5. If you have a weakness, learn to compensate for it with your strength

Paulo was weak physically. According to his biography he was “very thin, frail and short.” He had a nickname – Pele – which means ‘skin. It was given only to those who were always being bullied by their classmates.

Considering his physical weakness, it was hard for Paulo to gain the respect of his peers. Yet he found out that despite his weakness, he managed to gain their respect.By knowing things no one else knew and reading stories none of his peers had read was one way of gaining respect.

6. Your past doesn’t make the future

Paulo failed in his studies, almost killed a boy because of his driving, was forced to stay in a psychiatry clinic because of his escalating problems, took drugs, was kidnapped by a secret organization and embraced Satanism.

The problem with most of us is we focus on things we can’t change. It is true that our past can influence our future, but we don’t want to let that influence spread too much and work of its own accord.

7. Listen to your heart

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” —The Alchemist

8. Your success has a ripple-effect

“That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”

Growth, change, and evolution are weaved into the fabric of reality. Becoming a better version of yourself creates a ripple effect that benefits everything around you: your lifestyle, your family, your friends, your community.

9. Don’t be afraid to be different

“You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that, in my view, is a serious illness. God chose you to be different. Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude?” —Veronika Decides to Die

10. You don’t have to work in a corporate job

It’s not safe anyway, despite what they tell you. There’s much more fun and money to be had if you can handle a little uncertainty (warning — most people would choose misery over uncertainty, but you don’t have to be one of them). Doing work that you truly love is the best gift you will ever give yourself.

A WRITER’S TIME: MAKING THE TIME TO WRITE – KEN ATCHITY REVIEW

As a self-published author, you know you need to make a necessary split between the pragmatic publishing side of your mind and the artistic side from which true satisfaction derives. This book by Ken Atchity will show you how and so much more.

For nearly a decade, thousands of writers―aspiring and professional―have relied on this book, the first to apply time-management principles to the specific needs of writers of fiction, nonfiction, and drama.
Expanding his focus now, Kenneth Atchity adds a substantial new chapter, “Breaking into Show Business,” and new material about recapturing the “high” of creativity and maintaining confidence despite setbacks. He shows you how to transform anxiety into “productive elation,” how to separate vision from revision, and how to develop your own writing agenda.

This book, based on his writing seminars, research into dreams and creativity, and film development, is, as the New York Times states, “crammed with the sort of useful advice that it seems to take some people years to learn.” It also shows you how to make the necessary

About the author: Dr. Ken Atchity is a writer, producer, teacher, career coach, and literary manager, responsible for launching hundreds of books and films. His life’s passion is finding great stories and storytellers and turning them into bestselling authors and screenwriters–and making films which send their stories around the world.

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Rat Pack Party Girl: From Prostitute to Women’s Advocate by Jane McCormick

From her 1960s sexcapades with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, and Vic Damone, to sex-trade survivor and women's advocate the former Rat Pack high-roller tells a wrenching story of endurance!

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How I Became My Father ... A Drunk!

This deeply personal story was written--to show alcoholics and their families touched by the painful disease of addictions that hope does spring eternal to encourage and guide them to reach out and seek the path to recovery.

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The Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity

To what lengths would the Vatican go to suppress the secret origins of its power?

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Why Hollywood is turning to books for its biggest productions

Adaptations of novels are better than ever

Graphic by James Bareham / The Verge


For decades, readers repeated the same phrase when Hollywood adapted a beloved novel for the screen: “The book is better than the movie.”

The line became a critical reflex in reaction to one mediocre screen version after the other. From old adaptations like Total Recall to more recent ones like I Am Legend, The Golden Compass, or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Hollywood kept making the same mistake. They trimmed locations to save money, cut characters to shave time, and often misunderstood the emotional core of the source material.

But use of that phrase has gradually faded, replaced by enthusiastic shouts on social media when Hollywood grabs the rights to a classic work of science fiction or a modern twist on fantasy. Book adaptations have simply, swiftly improved. Beginning with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, filmmakers have been paying more attention to their source material. Jackson’s trilogy, in particular, helped demonstrate that a sprawling, complicated novel could be filmed, and it helped lead to shows like HBO’s Game of Thrones, Syfy’s The Expanse, Amazon’s Man in the High Castle, and Starz’s Outlander, which are earning critical acclaim and legions of fans.

We appear to be in the midst of a high-profile book-adaptation boom. This year, we will see shows and films based on Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon (coming to Netflix), Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (coming to Starz), and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (coming to Hulu), while Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation is set to hit theaters at some point this year. Other books potentially coming to a screen near you? Frank Herbert’s Dune, V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings, Allen M. Steele’s Coyote, Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, Robert Zelazny’s The Amber Chronicles, and many, many more.

Adapting a hit book isn’t a guarantee of success — just look at 2016’s The Shannara Chronicles on MTV — but Hollywood is, more than ever, perusing bookshelves for inspiration for the next big show or Oscar-friendly movie.

So what changed in the last decade? When did books become a foundation for popular film and television? And what does it mean for the future of Hollywood and book publishers alike?

Managing risk

Established popular books are a comparably faster and data-supported way for studios to develop film and TV plots. As more studios compete to have the next Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead, it’s easier to turn to a completed work and fully envisioned (and beloved) world than to develop a story in-house.

“It’s all about managing risk for the studios,” Hawk Otsby, co-writer of Children of Men and producer on Syfy’s The Expanse, explained in an email to The Verge. “It’s extremely difficult to sell a blockbuster original script today if isn’t based on some popular or recognizable material… Audiences know the story, so they’re sort of pre-sold on it. In other words, it has a recognizable [intellectual property] and can rise above the noise [and] competition from the internet, video games, and Netflix.”

"Less risky"

Michelle Lovretta, who created Syfy’s Killjoys and Lost Girl, agreed: as audiences demand more from films, costs climb for studios. They want more explosions and more realistic CGI, which makes for bigger budgets. “Adaptations can offer decision-makers the security of a presumed built-in audience.”

The important decision on the studio’s part is selecting the right book for the right medium. “Certain books lend themselves better to TV,” Otsby cautioned. “[The] Expanse as a movie would be terrible, because time constraints would force us to cut so much of the world and character development out. Shutter Island, to name another, would not be a great TV series. You wouldn’t want to live in that world for more than two hours.”

The advantages of on-demand

In a 2011 New York Times interview, George R.R. Martin explained why he decided to write his Song of Ice and Fire series. He was frustrated with the constraints being put on his screenplays — too big, too expensive — and wanted to write a story free of production limitations.

Yet A Song of Ice and Fire found a home at HBO in the form of Game of Thrones, one of the most popular (and sprawling, and expensive) television shows airing right now. The series — a relatively loyal adaptation of the source material — proves there is now a place on television for complicated, massive stories, and that adaptations don’t necessarily need to be dumbed down or simplified.

The way we watch, and the way studios distribute, television in 2017 makes it easier for producers and writers to transition a novel from the page to the screen. For decades, network television was virtually all episodic, so audiences could drop in on a show at any point, without knowing the story of prior episodes. This also allowed networks to syndicate shows like Law & Order, Seinfeld, or The Simpsons, which play on cable most evenings, hoping to nab channel-surfers.

With the advent of VCRs, DVD boxed sets, DVRs, and streaming services, there’s been a rise in more rigorously serialized stories, with shows like The Sopranos, Babylon 5, Lost, The Wire, and Battlestar Galactica asking viewers to follow their long, complicated stories from beginning to end.

Novels also provide variety in a crowded television landscape. Shows such as The Man in the High Castle or Game of Thrones have introduced new types of stories to television. Working with the greater diversity of literary stories has allowed showrunners to differentiate themselves from an increasingly crowded field of prestige-television options, and to seek out specific sectors of a splintered viewing audience.

"viewing habits have changed as technology has changed"

As it’s become easier and more appealing for viewers to consume seasons of television at their convenience; storytellers have been given a larger canvas. The days of discrete 22- or 44-minute episodes have been replaced with episodes with a variety of lengths, often bleeding into each other.

These serialized shows create lived-in worlds, spend more developing characters, and plant dramatic clues that pay off episodes or even seasons later. This environment helps make television — and some films — an ideal medium for adapting book series, which have long benefited from a depth and length that film and TV couldn’t match.

These lived-in worlds are also attractive for another reason: viewers want to get to the end of the story, and when they succeed, these shows can have considerable staying power, running for years on end. Developing a loyal following can be a force-multiplying effect for a studio. An active, enthusiastic fan base helps audiences grow through word of mouth, even leading to spinoffs, as we’ve seen with The Walking Dead, and possibly even Game of Thrones.

All these factors — speed, risk-management, and fan appeal — are appealing to subscription services like Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Starz, which hope a rich, ongoing story will lock in subscribers. But cable channels like Syfy, which have long had a relationship with science fiction, are also leveraging the strategy to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing market.


A bonus for books

There’s also a downstream effect. Publishing operates on thin margins: most books don’t turn much profit for their publishers, a problem balanced out by the sales of a few exceptionally successful authors. Every time a George R.R. Martin, J.K. Rowling, or Stephenie Meyer sells a book that spends weeks on the best-seller list, that helps hundreds of other authors at the same publisher in a number of smaller ways.

“[Adaptations have] expanded our reach for our authors,” said Scott Shannon, the publisher of Penguin Random House’s Del Rey imprint. “We are selling more of the books that we now publish: we sell substantially more copies than we were five years ago. We’re publishing about the same [number of books], but we’re reaching more people.”

"Having good adaptations matters in many ways to readers"

Good adaptations become ambassadors to fiction and the genre as a whole. People who enjoyed Game of Thrones went out and picked up books by Brian Staveley or Patrick Rothfuss, while The Martian introduced people to authors like Kim Stanley Robinson or Neal Stephenson.

The publisher of Hachette’s Orbit imprint, Tim Holman, said that there is “no doubt that a huge success can raise hopes and expectations for new books in the same category, and The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey is a great example of that.”


“There’s lots of really great stuff on the horizon, which is great for us and our authors,” said Shannon. “I think Hollywood in general has recognized that books are a great way to bring compelling content to a large audience, and the book experience, in a lot of cases, it really enriches watching the show.”

In the rush to find new stories, Hollywood has recognized what science fiction and fantasy fans have known for years: there’s plenty of beloved material ripe for adaptation, sitting on shelves. While grumbling about crummy adaptations can still be heard here and there, there’s more enthusiasm and excitement among fans for seeing their favorite book turned into a television show or blockbuster film. While not every book will be the next Game of Thrones-sized hit, it gets the novel out to a larger audience, who will hopefully turn out to their local bookstore to read it first.

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Charlie Rose Show

"A story does not make a good movie. A good script does."

~ Kevin Costner

Guest Post: We Label People at Our Peril by Dennis Palumbo

It wasn’t until 1987 that homosexuality ceased being categorized as a disease in the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Used as the premiere diagnostic bible by mental health professionals and insurance companies worldwide, the DSM has been predominately responsible for the labeling of an individual’s behavior as regards whether it falls within the range of agreed-upon norms. As such, it’s been both praised and reviled over the years. Praised because of its concise descriptions and categorizations of behavioral symptoms, and reviled because of its reinforcement of stigmatizing attitudes towards those whose behavioral is deemed “abnormal.”
In fact, there’s an old joke about how clinicians use diagnostic labels to interpret their patients’ behavior. If the patient arrives early for his therapy appointment, he’s anxious. If he’s late, he’s resistant. And if he’s on time, he’s compulsive.
Nowadays, however, it’s becoming clear that the joke may be on us. Due to the influence of both broadcast media and the Internet, diagnostic labels are thrown around quite casually by people who ought to know better (shrinks on TV news programs) as well as by people who usually don’t (hosts of TV talk shows, Internet podcasts and innumerable blogs). Moreover, like many cultural phenomena, the ascribing of diagnostic labels follows the dictates of trends.

Remember how every other child was diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)? Now the “hot” new label is bipolar disorder (what used to be called manic-depression). Lately, you’re not cool if you’re not bipolar.
To be fair, there’s some good that has resulted from this expanding conversation about diagnostic labels. Case in point: I was recently on a panel with a successful businesswoman who claimed that until she’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she didn’t have a frame of reference for her inexplicably erratic and self-destructive behaviors. Further, she felt that having the diagnosis, and receiving the appropriate treatment to address it, was what saved her life.
I completely understand her position. I myself have patients who are calmed and even reassured by a diagnosis that aligns them with others suffering the same symptoms. They feel less alone, less alienated from how “normal” people behave. In other words, they have a “handle” on it.
However, my concern is not with how these patients see themselves. It’s with how clinicians see their patients. How so many mental health professionals use diagnostic labels to both distance themselves from patients and reduce them to a set of conventionally agreed-upon symptoms. (At a clinical conference years ago, a colleague, describing his practice, said, “It’s a nice balance. I have three bipolars, a number of major depressives, and only one borderline. Thank God.”) Obviously he didn’t see these folks as patients. Hell, he didn’t see them as people. He saw them solely in terms of their clinical diagnoses.
Now I suspect (and greatly hope) that this particular therapist’s attitude isn’t shared by most of his colleagues. Yet his comment goes directly to my point. Namely, that while I don’t exactly revile the DSM, I view its contents (and the thinking behind it) with a great deal of skepticism. Not that there’s anything wrong, per se, with labels. Nor with the idea of a common vocabulary so that all us clinical geniuses can communicate with each other. It’s just that, if we’re speaking honestly, diagnostic labels exist for the convenience of the labelers. Which is fine, as far as it goes. But how far is too far?
In my opinion, “too far” is when labeling ventures into the arena of individual freedom; i.e., when it threatens the concept of equality. How does it do this? By giving clinicians the language to reinforce the views of the dominant culture.
To me, equality means just that: all people are equal under the law, and in relation to each other. Regardless—-as the saying goes—-of race, creed, or color. To which I’d add sexual orientation, political beliefs, gender identification, and choice of living singly or with a partner. (This last point is crucial. One of the dominant culture’s norms is that healthy people are in a relationship, or, if not, yearn to be. And that preferring to live alone, or under the same roof with others but without romantic attachment, is a sign of psychological disturbance.)
Equality means the right to be what the British lovingly refer to as “eccentric.”

Equality means that thinking and living differently than how most others do is not a manifestation of anti-social behavior. Nor is it a silent condemnation of those living a more conventional life. In simplest terms, I’m saying that true equality means that a hermit living in a cabin in the woods is not necessarily suffering from a mental disorder (i.e., schizoid personality, with paranoid features). I’m not claiming he or she is not burdened by psychological distress. I’m just saying that such a lifestyle choice doesn’t in and of itself indicate a disorder. No more than it would a long-distance trucker who prefers his or her own company for weeks at a time.
If we’re to truly support and encourage equality, then we have to be skeptical of our inclination to label. And it’s not just mental health professionals who fall prey to this. We all do, to some extent. If a family member isn’t as ambitious as we think he or she should be, we label it laziness. If a friend finds the holidays so disturbing and anxiety-producing he spends each Christmas season in a tent out in the desert, we label him weird. I’ve even heard couples who choose not to have children labeled as selfish.
As a therapist in private practice for over 25 years, I’ve grown to appreciate the vast differences in temperament, relationship choices, communication styles and even prejudices of my patients. Which means I’ve been forced many times to challenge the orthodoxy of my own profession, and to pay attention to the potential inequality underlying certain therapeutic assumptions.
In the world outside my consulting room, it seems that the more lip-service is given to the notion of equality, the less actual practice of it there is. As a nation and as a global community, we’re more divided than ever. Our politics have become almost nothing but labeling, a divisiveness that strikes at the heart of equality. Sectarian violence around the world is a tangible result of one group of people denying the equality of another group. Rather than a reaffirmation of Buber’s “I and Thou”—-a relationship that can only exist in a context of equality—-people from all walks of life are asserting that their rights, opinions and beliefs have ascendance over those of others.
Put bluntly, to label is to divide. To divide is to upend equality. And without a basic sense of equality, there can never be the kind of social and cultural adhesion that ensures what our Founding Fathers called “domestic tranquility.” This is not to posit some Utopian love-fest among all peoples. That will never occur. But I’m thinking more in line with something that the late Martin Luther King said: “Peace is not the absence of conflict; it’s the presence of justice.”
If we as a people are to maintain the presence of justice in our society, then we have to view our differences through the lens of equality rather than that of labels. To label this individual as “bad” and some other individual as “good,” based on their respective beliefs, sexual orientation or lifestyles, is to render the former a non-person. And it is much easier to abuse, threaten, even kill a non-person than someone you feel has an equal right to exist.Of course, reaffirming that all people are equal isn’t to say that all behaviors are equal. As a society, we have a right to label certain harmful or exploitive behaviors as unacceptable. Just as we have a right as a society to determine how to bring to justice those who exhibit those behaviors.
But what I’m referring to is something else. It’s the temptation each of us has to judge another, merely against the standards of conventional society or measured against our own idiosyncratic standards. To deny others’ equality as an existential right because we dislike their religious faith (or lack thereof), are offended by their choice of sexual partners, or reject their own stated gender identity.
As human beings with prejudices and insecurities (conscious or unconscious), we may be made uncomfortable by one or another of these life choices. We may even find them a sign that civilization is crumbling, or that every diverse or otherwise unconventional choice is an assault on “traditional values.” But that still does not rationalize inequality. Nothing does. Especially not knee-jerk appeals to religious freedom, patriotism and xenophobia.
Which brings me back to the DSM, and how stunningly reductionist it can be when it comes to providing diagnostic labels. The general public may be unaware of the fact that, prior to the publication of each new addition to the manual, mental health professionals can suggest new diagnostic categories to be added to the list. One of my recent favorite suggestions is quite in line with the constraints on freedom and equality that I’ve been addressing.
Called “Political Apathy Disorder,” this new diagnostic label was to be given to individuals lacking an appropriate sense of social justice. Among the criteria to be used when giving a patient this diagnosis are whether he or she lives in a gated community, fails to take into account the impact on the environment of a purchase, and refuses to vote in local elections. Believe me, I’m generally not a fan of people who exhibit these traits, but I’d never go so far as to label them evidence of a psychological disorder. To me, this is just labeling—-or in this case, social engineering—-to a disturbing degree.
In fact, a colleague of mine, Dr. David Levy, once wrote a satiric essay in which he proposed a new diagnostic category especially for mental health professionals. It was called “Pervasive Labeling Disorder.” I can think of at least a few fellow therapists who seem to suffer from it.The sad fact is, I think we’re all guilty at times of “Pervasive Labeling Disorder.” As I mentioned above, it might even be woven into our very natures as humans. Regardless, labeling is a potential enemy of equality. And we do so at our peril.
As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Liberty is the one thing you cannot have without giving it to everyone else.”(This essay appears in a new collection called EQUALITY, from Vine Leaf Press)
——————————————————————————————————
Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), Dennis Palumbo is now a licensed psychotherapist and author of Writing From the Inside Out (John Wiley). His work has been profiled in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, GQ and other publications, as well as on CNN, NPR and PBS.His mystery fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Strand and elsewhere, and is collected in From Crime to Crime (Tallfellow Press). His acclaimed series of crime novels (Mirror Image, Fever Dream, Night Terrors and the latest, Phantom Limb) feature psychologist Daniel Rinaldi, a trauma expert who consults with the Pittsburgh Police. All are from Poisoned Pen Press.

David Lynch on Cinema

Cinema is a language. It can say things—big, abstract things. And I love that about it.

I’m not always good with words. Some people are poets and have a beautiful way of saying things with words. But cinema is its own language. And with it you can say so many things, because you’ve got time and sequences. You’ve got dialogue. You’ve got music. You’ve got sound effects. You have so many tools. And so you can express a feeling and a thought that can’t be conveyed any other way. It’s a magical medium.

For me, it’s so beautiful to think about these pictures and sounds flowing together in time and in sequence, making something that can be done only through cinema. It’s not just words or music—it’s a whole range of elements coming together and making something that didn’t exist before. It’s telling stories. It’s devising a world, an experience, that people cannot have unless they see that film.

When I catch an idea for a film, I fall in love with the way cinema can express it. I like a story that holds abstractions, and that’s what cinema can do.—David Lynch, from Catching the Big Fish

Transcript: President Obama on What Books Mean to Him

President Obama in the Oval Office during an interview with Michiko Kakutani, the chief book critic for The New York Times.Doug Mills / The New York Times
Michiko Kakutani, the chief book critic for The New York Times, interviewed President Obama about literature on Friday at the White House. Here are excerpts from the conversation, which have been edited and condensed. 
These books that you gave to your daughter Malia on the Kindle, what were they? Some of your favorites? I think some of them were sort of the usual suspects, so “The Naked and the Dead” or “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” I think she hadn’t read yet.Then there were some books I think that are not on everybody’s reading list these days, but I remembered as being interesting, like “The Golden Notebook” by Doris Lessing, for example. Or “The Woman Warrior,” by Maxine [Hong Kingston].Part of what was interesting was me pulling back books that I thought were really powerful, but that might not surface when she goes to college.
Have you had a chance to discuss them with her?I’ve had the chance to discuss some. And she’s interested in being a filmmaker, so storytelling is of great interest to her. She had just read “A Moveable Feast.” I hadn’t included that, and she was just captivated by the idea that Hemingway described his goal of writing one true thing every day.
What made you want to become a writer?I loved reading when I was a kid, partly because I was traveling so much, and there were times where I’d be displaced, I’d be the outsider. When I first moved to Indonesia, I’m this big, dark-skinned kid that kind of stood out. And then when I moved back from Indonesia to Hawaii, I had the manners and habits probably of an Indonesian kid.
And so the idea of having these worlds that were portable, that were yours, that you could enter into, was appealing to me. And then I became a teenager and wasn’t reading that much other than what was assigned in school, and playing basketball and chasing girls, and imbibing things that weren’t very healthy.
I think all of us did.Yeah. And then I think rediscovered writing and reading and thinking in my first or second year of college and used that as a way to rebuild myself, a process I write about in “Dreams From My Father.”
That period in New York, where you were intensely reading.I was hermetic — it really is true. I had one plate, one towel, and I’d buy clothes from thrift shops. And I was very intense, and sort of humorless. But it reintroduced me to the power of words as a way to figure out who you are and what you think, and what you believe, and what’s important, and to sort through and interpret this swirl of events that is happening around you every minute.And so even though by the time I graduated I knew I wanted to be involved in public policy, or I had these vague notions of organizing, the idea of continuing to write and tell stories as part of that was valuable to me. And so I would come home from work, and I would write in my journal or write a story or two.The great thing was that it was useful in my organizing work. Because when I got there, the guy who had hired me said that the thing that brings people together to have the courage to take action on behalf of their lives is not just that they care about the same issue, it’s that they have shared stories. And he told me that if you learn how to listen to people’s stories and can find what’s sacred in other people’s stories, then you’ll be able to forge a relationship that lasts.But my interest in public service and politics then merged with the idea of storytelling.
What were your short stories like?It’s interesting, when I read them, a lot of them had to do with older people.I think part of the reason was because I was working in communities with people who were significantly older than me. We were going into churches, and probably the average age of these folks was 55, 60. A lot of them had scratched and clawed their way into the middle class, but just barely. They were seeing the communities in which they had invested their hopes and dreams and raised their kids starting to decay — steel mills had closed, and there had been a lot of racial turnover in these communities. And so there was also this sense of loss and disappointment.
And so a bunch of the short stories I wrote had to do with that sense, that atmosphere. One story is about an old black pastor who seems to be about to lose his church, his lease is running out and he’s got this loyal woman deacon who is trying to buck him up. Another is about an elderly couple — a white couple in L.A., — and he’s like in advertising, wrote jingles. And he’s just retired and has gotten cranky. And his wife is trying to convince him that his life is not over.
So when I think back on what’s interesting to me, there is not a lot of Jack Kerouac, open-road, young kid on the make discovering stuff. It’s more melancholy and reflective.
Was writing partly a way to figure out your identity?Yes, I think so. For me, particularly at that time, writing was the way I sorted through a lot of crosscurrents in my life — race, class, family. And I genuinely believe that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces of myself into something relatively whole.
People now remark on this notion of me being very cool, or composed. And what is true is that I generally have a pretty good sense of place and who I am, and what’s important to me. And I trace a lot of that back to that process of writing.
Has that continued to be so in the presidency?Not as much as I would have liked. I just didn’t have time.
But you keep some form of a journal?I’ve kept some, but not with the sort of discipline that I would have hoped for. The main writing that I’ve done during the presidency has been my speeches, the ones at least that were important to me.
How has the speechwriting and being at the center of history and dealing with crises affected you as a writer?I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to see when I start writing the next book. Some of the craft of writing a good speech is identical to any other good writing: Is that word necessary? Is it the right word? Is there a rhythm to it that feels good? How does it sound aloud?
I actually think that one of the useful things about speechwriting is reminding yourself that the original words are spoken, and that there is a sound, a feel to words that, even if you’re reading silently, transmits itself.
So in that sense, I think there will be some consistency.
But this is part of why it was important to pick up the occasional novel during the presidency, because most of my reading every day was briefing books and memos and proposals. And so working that very analytical side of the brain all the time sometimes meant you lost track of not just the poetry of fiction, but also the depth of fiction.
Fiction was useful as a reminder of the truths under the surface of what we argue about every day and was a way of seeing and hearing the voices, the multitudes of this country.
Are there examples of specific novels or writers?Well, the last novel I read was Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad.” And the reminder of the ways in which the pain of slavery transmits itself across generations, not just in overt ways, but how it changes minds and hearts.
It’s what you said in your farewell address about Atticus Finch, where you said people are so isolated in their little bubbles. Fiction can leap —It bridges them. I struck up a friendship with [the novelist] Marilynne Robinson, who has become a good friend. And we’ve become sort of pen pals. I started reading her in Iowa, where “Gilead” and some of her best novels are set. And I loved her writing in part because I saw those people every day. And the interior life she was describing that connected them — the people I was shaking hands with and making speeches to — it connected them with my grandparents, who were from Kansas and ended up journeying all the way to Hawaii, but whose foundation had been set in a very similar setting.
And so I think that I found myself better able to imagine what’s going on in the lives of people throughout my presidency because of not just a specific novel but the act of reading fiction. It exercises those muscles, and I think that has been helpful.
And then there’s been the occasion where I just want to get out of my own head. [Laughter] Sometimes you read fiction just because you want to be someplace else.
What are some of those books?It’s interesting, the stuff I read just to escape ends up being a mix of things — some science fiction. For a while, there was a three-volume science-fiction novel, the “Three-Body Problem” series —
Oh, Liu Cixin, who won the Hugo Award.— which was just wildly imaginative, really interesting. It wasn’t so much sort of character studies as it was just this sweeping —
It’s really about the fate of the universe.Exactly. The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade. [Laughter]There were books that would blend, I think, really good writing with thriller genres. I mean, I thought “Gone Girl” was a well-constructed, well-written book.
I loved that structure.Yeah, and it was really well executed. And a similar structure, that I thought was a really powerful novel: “Fates and Furies,” by Lauren Groff.
I like those structures where you actually see different points of view.Which I have to do for this job, too. [Laughter]
Have there been certain books that have been touchstones for you in these eight years?I would say Shakespeare continues to be a touchstone. Like most teenagers in high school, when we were assigned, I don’t know, “The Tempest” or something, I thought, ‘My God, this is boring.’ And I took this wonderful Shakespeare class in college where I just started to read the tragedies and dig into them. And that, I think, is foundational for me in understanding how certain patterns repeat themselves and play themselves out between human beings.
Is that sort of comforting?It gives me a sense of perspective. I think Toni Morrison’s writings — particularly “Song of Solomon” is a book I think of when I imagine people going through hardship. That it’s not just pain, but there’s joy and glory and mystery.I think that there are writers who I don’t necessarily agree with in terms of their politics, but whose writings are sort of a baseline for how to think about certain things — V. S. Naipaul, for example. His “A Bend in the River,” which starts with the line, “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.” And I always think about that line, and I think about his novels when I’m thinking about the hardness of the world sometimes, particularly in foreign policy, and I resist and fight against sometimes that very cynical, more realistic view of the world. And yet, there are times where it feels as if that may be true.
So in that sense, I’m using writing like that as a foil or something to debate against.
I’ve read that Lincoln loved Shakespeare his whole life, but when he was dealing with the Civil War, reading the history plays helped give him solace and perspective.Lincoln’s own writings do that. He is a very fine writer.I’d put the Second Inaugural up against any piece of American writing — as good as anything. One of the great treats of being president is, in the Lincoln Bedroom, there’s a copy of the Gettysburg Address handwritten by him, one of five copies he did for charity. And there have been times in the evening when I’d just walk over, because it’s right next to my office, my home office, and I just read it.
And perspective is exactly what is wanted. At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted, the ability to slow down and get perspective, along with the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes — those two things have been invaluable to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president, I can’t say. But what I can say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up.
Is there some poem or any writing or author that you would turn to, say, after the mass killings in Newtown, Conn., or during the financial crisis?I think that during those periods, Lincoln’s writings, King’s writings, Gandhi’s writings, Mandela’s writings — I found those particularly helpful, because what you wanted was a sense of solidarity. During very difficult moments, this job can be very isolating. So sometimes you have to hop across history to find folks who have been similarly feeling isolated. Churchill’s a good writer. And I loved reading Teddy Roosevelt’s writing. He’s this big, outsize character.
Have you read a lot of presidential biographies? The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult. And it just serves you well to think about Roosevelt trying to navigate World War II or Lincoln trying to figure out whether he’s going to fire [George B.] McClellan when Rebel troops are 20, 30, 40 miles away.
I watched some of the civil-rights-movement documentary mini-series “Eyes on the Prize” after the election. It was useful.
You do see how far we’ve come, and in the space of my lifetime.And that’s why seeing my daughters now picking up books that I read 30 years ago or 40 years ago is gratifying, because I want them to have perspective — not for purposes of complacency, but rather to give them confidence that people with a sense of determination and courage and pluck can reshape things. It’s empowering for them.
What books would you recommend at this moment in time, that captures this sense of turmoil?I should probably ask you or some people who have had time to catch up on reading. I’ll confess that since the election, I’ve been busier than I expected. So one of the things I’m really looking forward to is to dig into a whole bunch of literature.
But one of the things I’m confident about is that, out of this moment, there are a whole bunch of writers, a lot of them young, who are probably writing the book I need to read. [Laughter] They’re ahead of me right now. And so in my post-presidency, in addition to training the next generation of leaders to work on issues like climate change or gun violence or criminal justice reform, my hope is to link them up with their peers who see fiction or nonfiction as an important part of that process.
When so much of our politics is trying to manage this clash of cultures brought about by globalization and technology and migration, the role of stories to unify — as opposed to divide, to engage rather than to marginalize — is more important than ever.
There’s something particular about quieting yourself and having a sustained stretch of time that is different from music or television or even the greatest movies.And part of what we’re all having to deal with right now is just a lot of information overload and a lack of time to process things. So we make quick judgments and assign stereotypes to things, block certain things out, because our brain is just trying to get through the day.
We’re bombarded with information. Technology is moving so rapidly.Look, I don’t worry about the survival of the novel. We’re a storytelling species.I think that what one of the jobs of political leaders going forward is, is to tell a better story about what binds us together as a people. And America is unique in having to stitch together all these disparate elements — we’re not one race, we’re not one tribe, folks didn’t all arrive here at the same time.
What holds us together is an idea, and it’s a story about who we are and what’s important to us. And I want to make sure that we continue that.
I know you like Junot Díaz’s and Jhumpa Lahiri’s books, and they speak to immigration or the American Dream.I think Lahiri’s books, I think Díaz’s books, do speak to a very particular contemporary immigration experience. But also this combination of — that I think is universal — longing for this better place, but also feeling displaced and looking backwards at the same time. I think in that sense, their novels are directly connected to a lot of American literature.
Some of the great books by Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you’re giving up — what you’re willing to give up and what you’re not willing to give up. So that particular aspect of American fiction I think is still of great relevance today.
Follow Michiko Kakutani on Twitter: @michikokakutani

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Ken Atchity, on the set of "Angels in the Snow"
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