Last night, I saw Nick Hornby read at the Coolidge Corner Theater. He read from Juliet, Naked and then answered questions,and signed books at the Booksmith. He was AMAZING, adorable, very British, and just hilarious in everything he talked about. He answered lots of questions about the book, music, working with filmmakers, but most of the questions were about writing.
Someone asked him if he ever gets stuck switching from one character's voice to another (like in A Long Way Down) or in writing about a place he doesn't live, or doesn't know very well, and what he does when he gets stuck. He said most of the time he plays solitaire and eats biscuits and watches YouTube when he’s stuck on something. And that he always gets stuck on something. I wish I had a recording of the whole night, but... he said something like “books are long” and that that leaves a lot of room for those days when things suck. You obviously can't just plow through one so quickly that you don't have time to stop and think, "oh shit, I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm a totally worthless human being..." etc.
But someone had asked specifically about if he gets stuck on those certain things (which must have seemed hard and confusing to the person). And he said well, yeah. But he also gets stuck on everything else. He'd rather pin the being stuck on things like being unfamiliar with the location or the characters voices. It makes him feel better to pin the stuck days on those things, he said, but in reality, he could (and has) written about things he knows very very well and he still gets stuck like that. Because everyone gets stuck, feels insecure and like they've totally lost anything they had before. Even though most of his books are movies and everything.
People asked how he gets unstuck. He said he didn’t know; he kept eating stuff and playing solitare, listening to music, watching YouTube. “But there’s a book. And I’m not dead."
So basically, I guess, you get through.
Lots of people asked him about A Long Way Down. Apparently some suicide support group passed it out to all its members, and he was flattered and surprised. He said he got the idea just from living near places people jumped, and wondering if, on those days that statistically lots of people would kill themselves, if people bumped into each other on these bridges or cliffs. And then he invented a place and put as many people as he “thought [he] could get away with” on top. He also said that community is what suicidal people need. “Any community will do” he said. I've been thinking a lot about having a sense of community--about having people around who understand the things that drive you crazy and can relate. Which is probably why that book is so awesome, and why it seems so psychologically true.
Everything he said was just so polished, like the way a friend of mine can sometimes crank out something smooth just during a writing group exercise, because he's worked as a journalist for a few years and has had a lot of practice. Nick Hornby has just practiced talking about what he does and who he is so much that it comes out just right, almost like he prepared it to be funny and clever and sad all at once. And he didn't. It was really spontaneous.
There was also this girl in front of us in line at the signing, about my age. Her name is Amy. I know this because the Booksmith worker was handing everyone post-its with their names so the signing would go faster, but when the worker saw that Amy had a copy of an older book, she told her the publicist might not let her get it signed. They wanted to stick strictly to the new book.
Amy said, “I’m unemployed. I can’t buy the new one,” and started to get out of line, but the worker said it was worth a try anyway. So Amy stayed.
And the whole time through the line, which snaked around the whole store, I thought about talking to her. I guess I thought I’d say, “hey! I’m unemployed too! Let’s...be unemployed together?” So... I didn’t say anything. Except I could have said, “hey, you’re unemployed and also alone at this book signing, so maybe you’re new to the area TOO and might not mind that I’m talking to you.” Which would have been a more perceptive and less awkward thing to say, but I didn’t really think of it until after. And so, I still have not made any friends.
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