Adam Ross's Reviews > Playworld

Writing this from book tour and, although it isn't normal 카지노싸이트 practice, I thought I'd open up this space for questions, and then respond, via the comments section, when I can. Please bear with me if I'm slow! I'm currently in Portland, OR and appeared at Powell's last night. I got this question, which I thought I'd share. The person asked the following:

Q: Both Mr. Peanut and Playworld took you ten years to write but what, if anything, was different about your process for each? Another way of asking the question is this: Why does it take you so long to write a novel?

A: In both of cases, my process was the same. I tend to begin with what I consider a very propulsive alpha moment (in the case of Mr. Peanut, after getting inspired by a conversation with my father, I wrote the first three chapters in a single sitting; after really struggling with Playworld's beginning, I had a breakthrough and wrote the Prologue by hand straight through and knew I'd found the voice) and this connects to an omega moment about which I feel very clear. I *know* the ending and that is my lodestar, my true north, that's where I'm headed. What I also have are a series of emotional coordinates. These literally consist of a list of events/moments--maybe seven of them--that I intend for the novel to treat. Creating the connective tissue between these events is both the challenge of drafting and what creates the surprise and discovery in the writing--for me and, hopefully, for the reader as well. In Mr. Peanut, the main character, David Pepin, musing on marriage and novel-writing, says, "The middle is long and hard." I agree. Determinedly pressing forward, or, in some cases, writing sections / chapters out of order, is my process of solving this narrative problem.