I have to say I do read partly for escapism. Why can't I escape and learn something?
We lost so many talented artists and writers from the generations before ours that we're really lacking older figureheads.
In a lot of ways, work was my graduate school.
Talking to all those great writers and artists for the magazine was a form of graduate school for me.
The death drive is parasitic. It runs off of other drives, leeching off of them.
There's something about fear and aesthetic that go hand in hand.
I also wonder why is it that so many of the movies and books that are detective stories are also the most aesthetically interesting? From Hollywood noirs to horror movies like The Shining [1980].
As much as I adore Agatha Christie - and I think people make this claim about murder mysteries in general - it's often a very conservative mode of storytelling. Usually it's the greedy, climbing, new-money slimeball who wants to take from the aristocracy.
I'm convinced I was the only kid ever who had a Death on the Nile [1978] movie poster and a Murder on the Orient Express [1974] movie poster on his bedroom walls.
I was obsessed with Agatha Christie in sixth grade.
I also remember when I watched Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer [1990] at, like, age 15. That scared the crap out of me. Because it didn't operate inside the usual conventions of the horror genre in the way that I could accept. I can accept horny teenager counselors being murdered at camp. But I couldn't accept the derangement of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which was that anyone could be murdered at any moment - whole families, with no build-up music and no meaning. It terrified me.
I just think, as writers, especially with a book that takes years to write, you sort of wake up every morning hoping and praying that you can make it work for the day.
Secrets are never secure because they are always at risk of being found out.
There are certain moments where artwork might seem like it's part of someone's career - if you really know the art world - , but I did my best to prevent that overlap.
Safety, reputation, their lives, their friends, and their world. Writers typically try to avoid that because it's not expedient.
People aren't doing whodunits anymore.
There seem to be two ways of generating interest from the reader: withholding information or by telling the reader on the first page exactly what's going to happen.
It's always fun to welcome new people into your life. When dating anyone or becoming friends with anyone who has a different profession, a different life, it opens doors. All my friends here do such different creative things. It's so awesome.
It's really hard to write about art in general. But it's exceptionally hard to fictionalize art and make work that isn't a parody, or is something that could withstand critique and exist in the art world as a valuable object, or a true piece.
