Dissonant Incongruities of a TV Robot

There's this fantastic interview with Dave Eggers over at Salon.com... you know, if you like Dave Eggers that is.

If not, here is a story about animals advertising the quality of their sperm.

Anyway, Dave Eggers talks about the angry and angsty autobiographical first book syndrome, which can certainly apply to my book. It's not necessarily a bad thing. He sold a few million copies and a nomination for the Pulitzer after all.

Then they go into the one page stories throughout How We Are Hungry, which freaked my absolute shit out when I bought that book. Here I had been writing the Ribcage site for nearly half a year and then one of my favorite writers writes something so similar as to give me goosebumps. If you are a fan of Ribcage and near or in a bookstore anytime soon, find Dave Eggers' How We Are Hungry and read the story on page 55 and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I started reading that book the week Ostentatious With Ice Skates On was posted, by the way... You can see plain and simple that that was the week that the stories stepped up a notch. That was also the week that the exclamation points started. I apologize for the exclamation points!

Ten Things That Happened All At Once was written on a night that I read bits and pieces of everything that Amy Hempel has ever done. Ten Things, The Color Yellow and Circles were all because of her. She has a new book out this week... The Dog of the Mairrage... I'm seething to get my hands on it. It's a Simon and Schuster, so I'm hoping they'll send it my way because they're wonderful and nice.

But back to Dave Eggers for a moment... the interviewer said this about his one page stories... "I guess maybe that's why I like a lot of the shorter pieces in "How We Are Hungry," which I want to talk about. Maybe I'll sound like an ass saying this, but they were quick and fun, which I think is kind of rare."

Then Dave Eggers goes into the perception that short stories aren't supposed to be fun.

Which is something that I've been bitching and complaining about in bookstores recently. Nobody is writing anything fun. There is plenty of uplifting garbage, but there is nothing that is both uplifting and well written.

I started my stories having no idea what they would become. Scared shitless by the fact that they were so damn short... that there wasn't any real drama in these people's lives. And then I thought, this could be just the thing that people are looking for. A book that they could pick up and open at any time. Read any page and close and feel good afterward. That maybe this really isn't the place for "real" drama.

Anyway, that interview was nice and assuring.

He also goes into his need to work on multiple projects at once and how he keeps them all open on his computer... switching back and forth when he gets stuck on something. Blames it on television. Says that the more projects he has, the bigger procrastinator he feels like, the more it motivates him to get to writing.

I am exactly that same way. With the full time writing of the weight loss book, the back and forth between writing that and a new Ribcage story every Tuesday, the trips into the city to take photographs for the Ribcage prequel novel and now a screenplay kicking around in my head.

Finally, Dave Eggers went into his script for the feature film version of Where the Wild Things Are... yes... it's going into production. Where the Wild Things Are... directed by Spike fucking Jonze. And I thought I was excited when I heard about Tim Burton and the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!