Tom Perrotta
/How did you become a writer?
I started identifying myself as a writer way back in high school, so the path was pretty straightforward for me. I majored in English in college, went to a Creative Writing program for grad school, and taught writing as an adjunct instructor to support myself while I wrote my first short stories and an unpublished novel. I also worked as an advertising copywriter for a little while and did some ghost writing for a teen horror series, which helped me to learn discipline and to treat writing as a job, which is really important for a novelist. Looking back now, it seems like I spent about fifteen years learning the craft of writing and finding a voice that worked for me.
Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
I’m always reading and finding new inspirations, but some writers have influenced me for decades—Raymond Carver, Philip Roth, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Kafka, Balzac, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, among others. I was lucky enough to have some great teachers over the years—Thomas Berger, Tobias Wolff, and Douglas Unger are at the top of that list. And music has also been an influence—songwriters like Bob Dylan, John Prine, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, and Sufjan Stevens have taught me a lot about storytelling and poetic compression.
When and where do you write?
I write at home, in a small room on the top floor of my house. I’m a morning writer for the most part—that’s when my head is clear and I can concentrate the way I need to. I’ll write for a few hours and then break for lunch. If I still have some good energy after that, I’ll head back upstairs for another session. If not, I try to get outside and do something physical. Sometimes not being at the desk can lead to fresh thinking about the work in progress.
What are you working on now?
I’m between novels, and working on some short stories. That’s my routine—I’ll work on a novel for a year or two, then decompress for a while by working on stories or screenplays. It helps to have a break in the rhythm. Novels are such a huge commitment. It’s good to have a little break between finishing one and starting the next.
Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
It happened a lot when I was younger and working on short stories. If I didn’t have an idea, there wasn’t anything to write, so I spent a lot of time and anxious energy searching for new ideas. One of the advantages of being a novelist is that one good idea can keep you occupied for years. And I know it sounds simplistic, but it’s true that the best cure for writer's block is to simply start writing—something, anything. Once you get some words on the page, you start creating problems for yourself that can only be cured by more words on the page. It’s a virtuous cycle...
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
I’ve always been fascinated by the mind games writers play to keep themselves writing. Trollope broke his daily three-hour writing session into twelve fifteen minute increments—he kept a watch on his desk—and required himself to write 250 words in each increment (I’m lucky to write 250 words on a good day). Graham Greene set himself a quota of five hundred words a day, and stopped when he reached it, even if he was in the middle of a sentence. I’ve never been able to write consistently at that kind of clip, so my own rule is more modest—when I’m working on a novel, I do my best to write something new every day. I’ll often start by revising some work I’ve already drafted, but I won’t end my writing day until I’ve broken some new ground. You have to keep moving forward, adding to the pile, even if it’s just a little bit every day.
What’s your advice to new writers?
Read, read, read. That’s the best fuel for inspiration. Every time I start to doubt myself or feel like I’m at a loss for words, all I need is to dive into a good book. It reminds me of why I wanted to be a writer in the first place, and refreshes my desire to do good work.
Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of ten works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into critically acclaimed movies, and The Leftovers and Mrs. Fletcher, which were both adapted into HBO series. His new book, Tracy Flick Can’t Win, revisits the iconic protagonist from Election, Tracy Flick. www. tomperrotta.com.
