Meet At The Gate - Article - Talking with Tao Lin

Chris Killen spoke to Tao Lin about his writing process and techniques.

Tao Lin is the author of two e-books, two poetry collections, a collection of short stories, and a novel. In 2009, Melville House Publishing will publish his novella Shoplifting From American Apparel and in 2010, his second novel, Richard Yates. His work has also featured in Vice, Noon, and Nerve amongst other places. Tao is 26 years old, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. This interview was conducted by email.

C: Could you write something about your ‘writing process’?

T: I will describe specific editing processes I have used.

“Printing single pages repeatedly” - I print a paragraph or small scene and read it and write little changes and implement the changes on the computer then print it again. I remember doing this with many passages in Bed (2007). When I do this I print each passage maybe 10-30 times. I feel this method is effective and satisfying.

“Printing the entire ms. repeatedly” - I print the entire book (when I have a late draft of it) and write changes while reading it beginning to end and implement the changes on the computer then print it again. I did this maybe 15 times with Richard Yates (2010, ~55,000 words), maybe 25 times with Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009, ~18,000 words). I remember doing this “just” 2-5 times with Eeeee Eee Eeee (2007, ~28,000 words). At this stage of editing I feel 85-100% unable to discern if my edits are making the book “better,” according to me. This is perhaps the most excruciating method I have used. It is one of “diminishing returns.” While using this method I do not anticipate a time when the book will be “100%,” but only a time when I will “give up,” when the book seems to be improving by something like .03% for every ten hours of editing. It seems very uneffective in terms of time spent. But I feel I will keep using this method because I do not know of another way to “enact” the tiny percentages of improvement “that I so crave” at this late stage of editing.

“Deleting things recklessly” - I do this when I am feeling severely depressed to the point that I reach “a new level of not caring” and “gain the power to recklessly delete things that I have already edited intensely”. I have specific memories of feeling this way and then reading from the beginning of Richard Yates (2010) and deleting maybe 5-10% of it (intending, though, to delete maybe 30% of it). I feel very productive after having used this method. I look at the things I deleted and think things like, “I feel no uncertainty in the deletion of that”. I feel this is an effective method but that it is rare for me to be in the mood to do it, especially at later stages of editing, and especially for longer things like novels.

C: Does it differ when you are working on a poem or a story or a novel?

T: No, I think, except in obvious ways, like that it takes less time to read something shorter.

C: Do you have certain techniques, or ‘tricks’ or things that you find yourself using again and again?

T: Yes. If there is a situation where I want to denote that time is passing I will describe something, like a noise, or something else, instead of saying, “Ten seconds passed.” I think this is not a “rule” I have, just something I specifically remember having felt smart about after doing it.

There is a technique Lorrie Moore and, I have noticed, Mazie Louise Montgomery, use, which is to start consecutive sentences in the same way and do that two or three times, then move without transition to something else. For example: “Later he would go to school. Later he would hug his pillow.” I do that sometimes. I feel it is readable to do that. I feel it is effective to do that. (I just did it.) I feel it is effective in part because it sort of is how I feel my brain works, especially if I am feeling “detached” or “weird” or something, which causes me to feel an amount of connection with the author. I think Ann Beattie does it sometimes in Distortions.

C: Please describe a 'giant elderly online seahorse'.

T: It has been known to go into children's playgrounds on national holidays at 3 pm and stand in dark areas staring at the ground, inevitably being featured on local news channels as “creepy” and “potentially dangerous”, though “nothing can be done, as it hasn't broken any laws”.

C: Do you have a clear idea of what you would like to achieve in the future? I guess I mean, do you think a lot about an overall ‘career arc’, or do you just focus on one book or project at a time?

(If the answer is ‘career arc’, what sort of things do you hope to do in the future?)

T: I think about my career arc a lot maybe. I’m not sure because when I think “my career arc” I maybe almost always immediately feel an amount of irony or sarcasm, and have an image of me looking dramatically out a window, at a river or field, and then either don’t think anything or only think really vague things like “career arcs are funny,” so I am not sure how many “actual thoughts” occur about my career arc.

Currently I feel unable to specifically think beyond Richard Yates (my second novel which is finished and comes out in 2010) in terms of what to publish. I feel I would need to publish an iconic book of poetry (6-12 months later) or an iconic story-collection (like 4-8 years later) for my career arc to remain exciting and “artistically acceptable” to me, but I feel neither of those options is “really strong.” I feel that if after Richard Yates I published any length or quality of third novel, or any non-iconic book of poetry or stories, it would “signal” to many people, or maybe just myself mostly, that I have “given up” artistically, to some degree.

I think if after Richard Yates I published 10 remixes of Shoplifting from American Apparel (which comes out before Richard Yates), or published something “equally retarded” like 3-5 consecutive books of drawings, over a period of 3-8 years, it would be “giving up” in a way that is exciting to me, and so would be an “artistically acceptable” development in my career arc, encompassing both “giving up” and “not giving up.” It would be a sort of non-sequitur in my career arc. It would sort of “mark,” or “crystallize,” the period before it, up to Richard Yates, as a “self-contained thing,” “freeing me,” after the 3-8 year “aberration,” to publish novels or story-collections or poetry-collections in a “normal” way without it also making me feel like my career arc is boring. I’m not sure though. I currently am satisfied with my career arc up to now.

Ideally I maybe want everything in my life to be “structured” and “decided” the same way, a way I can describe as “artistically acceptable.” While describing my career arc options I felt that the thoughts were similar to thoughts I have while writing my books (thinking about the sentences and paragraphs and things or thinking about the order of stories or poems), thinking about my blog, or thinking about options in my life.

C: How involved are you in the BEAR PARADE site?

T: Currently I think Gene Morgan does everything. Throughout Bear Parade’s history Gene has always designed everything and done all the website things. I have helped with certain things in the past. I have read things Gene liked and said things to him, recommended things to Gene, talked to Gene in Gmail chats to discuss whether or not certain books would be published or who could be solicited, written 2-10 rejection letters, read through books for typos, talked to Gene about various promotional things, and paid half the money to contributors. (Bear Parade paid $500 for each book but I think that went up, I am not sure about the current status of that; currently Gene pays it all I think.)

C: Please describe the ‘giant elderly online seahorse’ ‘attempting to rent a movie’ and then later ‘moving through a supermarket’.

T: He goes to Kim’s Video. He walks around confused. He walks to the register. “Does Kim’s do rentals anymore anywhere,” he says. “Like at another location or something?” he thinks. “No,” says the register person. The seahorse walks away. The seahorse walks to the register with “Paranoid Park.” “8.65,” says the register person. About four seconds pass. “Oh, um,” says the seahorse. “I got it from the 5.95 section.” “There is no 5.95 section, per se,” says the register person. “Oh, that’s okay, that’s fine,” says the seahorse.

Later the seahorse is at Lifethyme. “I want to look at a coconut cream pie, just look at it a little,” he thinks. He walks to the pies. There are only pecan pies. The seahorse screams. It sounds like a clarinet. “Is there a jazz band here?” someone says. “Yes,” says the seahorse with a neutral facial expression. He buys eight avocados and organic olive oil. Outside a “hybrid” bus hits the seahorse and the seahorse disintegrates. A 60-year-old Asian homeless woman gathering cans picks up the organic olive oil and eight avocados and puts them in her cart. Today the seahorse is forgotten in many, if not all, circles in which he once moved freely and with constant acclaim for his highly creative use of similes. His collected poems, however, will be published by FSG in two volumes, in 2012 and 2013, and a revival for this wonderful seahorse, of which fate has so cruelly denied the National Book Award, and other awards, can be expected internationally.

C: Please provide some links to things or people that you like on the internet (if you want).