TypePad Virtual Book Tour: Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Welcome to the second stop of TypePad's Virtual Book Tour, featuring Brendan Halpin's new novel, Dear Catastrophe Waitress! While my local bookstore has it smack in the middle of the New Arrivals table, you can also get a copy by trying out TypePad. Give that banner up there a tap for the details.
Brendan was kind enough to answer all of my questions -- no matter how long-winded or embarrassing or scatterbrained...
I was struck by the fact that one of your two main characters is British. It seems to me that most pop culture aficionado fiction writers, when they deal with cultures that aren't their own, don't play them nearly that close! Of course, right after I thought that, I noticed that you indicate in your bio that you've lived in Edinburgh and Taipei. Has that experience influenced your writing and if so, how?
I'm
not sure. I mean, I think a lot of this stuff happens on a
subconscious level. I don't even remember making the decision to have
Philippa's song happen in the UK; it just sort of happened. I mean,
since I lived there, I hope I was able to make it a credible setting--I
think I had a decent memory of how the music industry works over there
and stuff like that. I think the best thing that living in different
countries did for me as a person, and I suppose this spills over in to
my writing, was that it gave me an appreciation for other people's
points of view. Just that there are people living happily in other
cultures who don't assume the same things you assume, who don't take
for granted things you take for granted. I think getting this
knowledge really hammered home to you like this helps you be a better
fiction writer. Because at least for me, the biggest challenge is
creating characters who aren't me. So I think being immersed in
different points of view helps with that. At least I hope so.
What was the first album you ever bought?
When
I was in first grade, I was obsessed with "Crocodile Rock", so I made
my parents buy me Elton John's Greatest Hits. I suppose the first
album I actually bought with my own money was probably a Billy Joel
album. I think it was probably 52nd Street. Ugh. I can't believe I
admitted that.
The book makes it seem like two infamous but fictional songs "Two Minute Man" and "Phillippa Cheats," really exist. How did you go about
writing them? How was it the same or different from writing the novel itself? Would you ever consider going into the songwriting industry -- and even if you wouldn't, if you could write a hit song for any musician or group, alive or dead, who would you choose?
I
don't really remember writing them as a separate thing--it was just
that when it was time for the lyrics to come up in the text, there they
were. I don't want to sound too precious, but I think the songs are
probably complete somewhere in my brain, and I only bothered to
transcribe parts of them because I'm lazy. I don't know if I could
ever be a songwriter. I don't think I have the creativity on the
musical side, but maybe I could be a lyricist. The thing is that the
publishing industry, as much as it's changing and consolidating and
everything, is still pretty friendly to the artists, and I don't think
that's true of the music industry. But yeah, I'd love to be able to
hold up a Ramones album and point to a song and say "I wrote that one."
I have a feeling I've left something out, but I count six Brendan Halpin books in four years. That's pretty prolific. What part of the
writing process comes easiest/hardest? Which part do you enjoy the most/least?
The
easiest, most fun part for me is writing first drafts. I usually
discover the plots of my stories as I'm writing them, so I just have a
lot of fun watching the characters develop and the story unfold. It's
so much fun that it doesn't feel like work at all. Of course, revising
is a lot less fun, because then you have to tinker with it and confront
your mistakes and sometimes find a way to make a change you don't even
think you should be making. But even revising is fun compared to copy
editing. This is the only part that is drudgery for me. I'm fine with
all the punctuation stuff, but I'm just so lazy about continuity stuff.
I just write the story and don't pay a lot of attention to stuff like
the timeline. I know some people will be distracted by this stuff and
it has to be fixed, but it's just such a pain for me to go back and fix
all these notes from the copy editors: "If he's 19 in 1990, he really
can't be 21 in 1995," stuff like that. You have to get that right, but
I don't have a good mind for stuff like that.
******
That's it from the middle-of-nowhere stop on the tour...point your van toward the legendary venue After the MFA for Thursday's installment. In the meantime, however, enjoy a childhood memory:
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