Matt Burriesci
For me, the best part of being a writer is when you're plodding along writing at a certain level and suddenly your shovel hits the pipe and you get a gusher. Those are the times you know it's working, because it's not like anything else. You're not mucking around with exposition, your'e not explaining anything, or setting some obstacle up. You're taking dictation and your job is just to keep up. It's probably your subconscious doing the talking, but I like to think it's something more cosmic than that, like you've tapped into the universal well. It's a rare event, and it's never lasted a whole book for me. Usually it's a chapter or just a scene-- you know it when you see it. There's a couple of sequences in Nonprofit like that (not chapters, but stretches of text, parts of scenes). I'm not tooting my own horn, because honestly it feels like I had nothing to do with them. I just did the typing. I believe the whole rest of the book hangs on those two sequences. The first one's in the "Benefit" chapter. You can actually see my clumsiness as a writer set against a gusher, and it's glaring. First you get that really great bit about the attendees, the duck, and the "delightful black children signing you songs," and it's followed immediately by a clunky (but mercifully short) sequence of the main character exchanging expository jibber jabber with his dinner partner. Every time I see it, I cringe. "Okay, you're really onto something here, Burriesci...you got it, you got it...aaaand here's where you convey essential background information." But that first part of that chapter (to me anyway) is pure magic. Those are the moments you write for.
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Rickvilla
asked
Matt Burriesci:
Mr. Burriesci: I had to write you after I read your chapter "Punch the Bully in the Face" of Dead White Guys. I even signed up for "goodreads" so that I could write you. However, my single page email was too long for me to be able to share the similar story I had when I was a teen. Is there another email address I can send that to, or will this truncated version do? I know you've got to be really busy.
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