Tag Archives: Travel

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Writer (or, What I Do When I Don’t Have To Write)

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I don’t.

Seriously.

If I don’t have to work I’m not going to work and if I don’t have to write I won’t write. This is as it should be but frequently isn’t. Because writers aren’t supposed to have time off. No, they must always be writing at all times. Holidays and vacations and time off is for less stressful occupations like brain surgeon or construction worker or drivers of trucks laden with dynamite up treacherous mountain roads. 

I prefer roads laden with cafes, preferably French ones

The “you must always be writing” BS is the type of BS you get fed when you’re young, the whole “you’re supposed to be tired and stressed out and miserable 24/7 bullshit” that just allows you to be exploited and abused by the people who engage your services. What’s that? You planned a weekend away at the cottage or cabin? We’ll guess what? Surprise weekend rewrite!

This was the life I lived the first five or so years of my professional career. Like Ponce de Leon I was Constantly On. Weekdays, weekends, holidays. Always. On. I’ll sleep when I’m dead, I told myself; a truly toxic attitude to have in all walks of life. You don’t sleep when you’re dead, you’re dead when you’re dead. And what do you leave behind, honestly? If you were by any small margin considered a success all you did was make other people wealthier than you ever were. 

On that note when the producers of the Mixtape series (whom I’ve known almost thirty years and are one of the rare positive working experiences I’ve had in the last 22) said it would take a bit to get back to me on the latest draft of the pilot and another episode, I said “great, I was hoping to spend next week at the pool anyway” and left it at that. And that’s what I did. 

I’ve come a long way, baby. One show I worked on a while back was based out of LA so they would always call unannounced to give notes when I was sitting down to dinner on the east coast. It got so annoying and predictive that after the first two times I stopped answering. Let them go to voice mail and deal with it the next day. Did they fire me? No. Did they start scheduling calls like normal people do? Yes. 

Now the only times I willingly visit LA is for vacations

“But Brad”, you say. “If you’re not Constantly On you can bet there’s going to be younger, hungrier writers waiting in the wings. If you make yourself unavailable they’ll just hire those young and hungrier writers.” To which I reply; “You’re absolutely right, and with time and experience those hungry young’uns learn the same lessons I did; that being a successful writer is as much about not writing as it is putting butt in chair and hammering the keys. It’s about the books you read, the movies you watch, the museums and art galleries you visit, the travels you take. It’s about hiking mountain trails, getting lost in strange new cities, it’s about surviving a week in a country where English is not the primary language. It’s about experience. Experiences make you a better writer and an all-around better human being.”

So I say eff it, take that holiday. Give yourself the week off. If they have a problem with it, if they threaten to fire you or hire someone to replace you they’re telling you in advance that they value your work so little that they’re already planning to screw you over anyway so eff them first. 

It says a lot that nearly a quarter century into this business I still find it difficult to unplug from work. Finishing a project nevere really means finishing it; there’s a part of it that will rattle about in your brain for weeks, if not months later (I.e. that second draft of the novel I finished writing in early April that I hope I can resume working on in September).

But it’s not as difficult to turn things off now as it used to be. I think fear of losing the plot threads keeps you anxious, and that isn’t always a bad thing. Until it becomes anxiety and you run risk of burning yourself out. I did that once early in my career and once I emerged from that spiral I vowed never again would I sacrifice health and well-being for work. I set a Monday-Friday schedule, I took my weekends off – I didn’t even turn the computer on – and found that not only did my work not suffer, it actually improved.

What also improved my word; getting far, far away from it. Like, Stockholm-far.

In the professional trenches you’re going to find no shortage of people who will engage in some kind of power play with you, just to see how much shit you’ll take from them. In my experience it’s always helped to be friendly and upbeat positive, yet establish boundaries. They want to talk; schedule it. They want work in progress pages; tell them a flat out no. You don’t want to be abrasive, but you don’t want to be a pushover either, pausing your dinner to take notes and have discussions. My computer shuts off at five in the afternoon every weekday. Earlier if I can manage it. I don’t p[ower it up until 8am the next morning. Anything that pops up after business hours can wait until business hours resume. 

The point I’m making here is for all you writers aspiring and otherwise out there in meatspace; you do yourself a greater service by not being available at any waking moment. Not answering the phone or email puts you in a power position. Answer them on their schedule they’ll expect it always. Make them wait they’ll get used to it.

I’m getting older, with hopefully many more healthy, productive years before me. Yet on the day I lie on my deathbed looking back on my life I’ll be really, really pissed off if all I remember is the work, the deadlines, the toxic years of needing to be Constantly On. Nobody goes to the grave wishing they’d worked more or earned more; I don’t need to be at the end of my life to realize that either.

Oslo at dusk: a hell of a lot more beautiful than staring at a screen.

What’s most important in life is to be happy, most would agree. But the things that make you happy can – and should – change. You should never settle for the road more traveled because it’s familiar—especially if something, someone, or a group of someones no longer serve you on that path. I turned a huge corner when I realized I didn’t need to work myself to the bone to be happy. I didn’t need to always produce or Always Be Closing. Hustle is important but at a certain point you reach a place where the return on that hustle diminishes to the degree where you’re just grinding metal. And while I can say, honestly, I don’t work as hard or as much as I used to, I feel I work better overall because of that.

So on that note I’m hopefully getting back into more regular updating this website again. Not because I feel I have to but because I want to and because I like to. We’re moving ever forward with the Mixtape TV series development, I have the aforementioned novel to resume work on, and there’s stil the matter of the week-long vacation coming up at the end of this month. I’ll also be launching my much-delayed newsletter this fall, so keep watching this space.

On The Road (With Apologies to Kerouac)

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On Friday, February 26, 2017, I delivered the final edit of Magicians Impossible to St. Martins Press. It is finally, FINALLY finished, and it has been the most difficult, most lengthy, and most rewarding project I have ever undertaken. The stats on that: I first sat down with editor Brendan Deneen to talk about the book in April of 2014. Now, three years less a month later, the journey is over.

Well, not OVER over. There’s still the the matter of the release of the book on September 12, and all that comes with it. Magicians is going to keep me busy through the fall and probably into next year, especially when the paperback is released. But the writing journey is over. I’m on the next project already, and have pages to deliver to my agent this month so she can run with them, which will be a journey in itself.

Now, with “journey” on your tongue, a pop quiz. What do …

And …

Along with …

And let’s not forget …

And, finally …

All have in common?

They’re all places I’ve been to, and they all feature prominently in Magicians (which you haven’t read yet), but they do figure into the story, some in very significant ways. I bring them all up because they’re all part of what I believe is the key to good writing, or at least the authentic kind.

Joe R. Lansdale, one of my favorite writers, once said (and I paraphrase) that “you can tell when a virgin’s writing a sex scene.”  Likewise, you can tell when someone’s writing a story with no idea what they’re actually writing about. Like they never experienced the place, the feelings, the emotions of what they’re describing. To me, that is one of the most important aspects of writing; the part most writers fail to mention.

Travel. Adventure. The whole “step away from your desk and experience life” thing.

A lot of writers go on about their word counts, or their endless rewrites, or writer’s block. I don’t see many going on about an adventure (or misadventure) they had. Some object d’art that inspired them. Some unexpected journey that gave them an idea they nurtured into a story. Some wrong turn that ended up being the best mistake they ever made.

I first visited Paris in 2011, as part of a post Fresh Meat victory lap. My wife and I spent our Christmas there, renting a charming flat in Montmartre, and spending the entire week in the city. We hit Versailles, the Catacombs, stumbled upon Francois Truffaut’s grave in Montmartre Cemetery, shopped the Galleries du Lafayette, ate lots of cheese and drank an alarming amount of wine … and visited the Louvre, where we fell in love with its beautiful sculpture garden …

And this statue in particular.

Not to spoil anything, but a central portion of Magicians takes place within the walls of the Louvre, and this sculpture garden in particular. Now, it goes without saying I never would have conceived the idea if I hadn’t gone to Paris and to the Louvre. But the idea of staging something in the Louvre was born that day in late 2011 – five years ago, and two years before I began Magicians.

This is another example. All characters need to come from someplace, and when I was developing the backstory of Jason Bishop, Magicians’ protagonist, I knew I wanted him to have grown up in the village of Cold Spring, NY, which is an hour and a bit by train north of NYC. My wife and I spent a wedding anniversary weekend up there back in 2012. We saw the sights, we hiked, we ate very well, and it was on one of those walks that I first glimpsed Storm King Mountain, just across the river and a little further north. Something about the name Storm King just stuck; it made me think of the Night on Bald Mountain sequence in Disney’s Fantasia, and an image of a wizard’s battle on the road that winds along its side popped into my mind. So, when I was trying to find a place for Jason Bishop to have spent his childhood, Cold Spring was a perfect fit. Had I never visited, it would have been someplace else. But over drafts of the novel I realized just how important Cold Spring was to the story. In the end it is probably the most important locale (and I ended up getting my wizard’s battle on Storm King after all).

Ditto Jason’s place of work. The location of The Locksmith bar in the book is just below Dyckman Street on Broadway, a spot occupied currently by the Tryon Public House. But the layout of the place is actually based on a bar further north once called The Piper’s Kilt (now the Tubby Hook), and takes its name from a bar further south that used to be called the Locksmith. I picked the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan to park Jason at his job because it’s a neighborhood I’m familiar with. Any time I needed a refresher on some detail all I needed to do was go for a walk.

There are other real-life places that figure into the book, but those are the major ones. So to me, anyway, travelling is the most important thing I don’t hear a lot of writers talk about. It’s authenticity. The idea of experiencing things off the beaten path, to use a cliché. It doesn’t even have to be an overseas trip; sometimes just walking down a different street in your city or town can give you an idea.

Even if Sci-Fi or Fantasy is your thing, you can still benefit from travelling outside your comfort zone. Go to a place where they speak a language different than your own. Try and sample the local cuisine. Get lost. You don’t even have to go far; even the next town or state over can reveal wonders. It’s amazing how many people rarely venture outside their home town or city or state or province. Only 36% of Americans even own a passport; they’ve never set foot outside of their country.

So, if you’re a writer, aspiring or otherwise, I strongly encourage you to step away from the desk, step outside your life, and see what’s out there. Your next story could be waiting for you as close as the next street over. All you need to do is find it.