Hi.
Thanks for being here, both of you.
This is just a technical question for Charles.
In the beginning of the story, I felt
like it was in sort of a shifting
close third between the two kids,
and then there was this very delicate shift into the father,
and then we stayed there.
Am I hearing right?
Is that--
Yes.
OK, thanks.
Good question.
I mean, my editor, among other things,
was very confused by that.
And as you're reading it, it gets confusing.
There's some element of intentionality in that,
and there's some element of just clumsiness.
But the idea of that point of view
is, it bleeds into each other, that there's a kind of--
something about this moment that, before they fall away
from each other, they're still kind of entwined.
But also, if I workshop that, I think
it would be a disaster, probably.
Thank you both for being here.
Also, this one's for Kristen.
I was wondering, also kind of a technical question,
at what point did you start incorporating
visual imagery as a part of a narrative, and why?
And also, do you draw it yourself?
Yeah, I do draw it myself.
I started writing this as prose, and then it
sort of morphed into--
I tried some of it in illustrations,
but for a while in workshop in grad school,
I would draw something in the corner of my Microsoft Word
page.
And then the entire workshop would
be about why I drew something in the corner of the Microsoft
Word page.
And then, slowly I came around to drawing it as a comic.
But now, when I [AUDIO OUT] and then sort of,
I taught myself how to draw the comics as I went along.
But now it's a much more organic process,
where I move back and forth between text and image.
I just found six earplugs in my pocket, also.
I just thought I'd share that with you guys.
Why do you have so many--
I have no-- I get-- on airplanes,
I guess, I hate hearing the announcements.
Thanks for that question, sorry about the earplugs.
This is kind of a related question, but for both of you.
So you both incorporate things that are maybe not always--
I think more so, but sometimes have not been super welcome,
in kind of the institutional writings here with graphic work
and science fiction.
Was that something that was difficult for you to start
doing?
Have you always been doing it?
How did you end up where you are now with that?
I've always been doing it.
I've been writing fiction since--
since I graduated from law school.
And so I was very much autodidact, and it shows,
I think.
But I think I don't have a whole lot of knowledge about things.
So I draw upon what I know, which
tends to be the stuff I grew up reading and watching.
And for better or worse, it's become a thing
that I find my way into stories usually
through some kind of weird sort of genre twist or layer.
Comics is a really-- like, literary comics
is a really interesting space, because some people are really
excited about it, and then some people write it off right away.
I remember when Roz Chast was a finalist for the National Book
Award, people were furious.
It was just like this joke that that
could be considered nonfiction.
Which I thought was really exciting,
because every other book of nonfiction
always has, like, a colon in it.
You know, it's a title and then it's
like seven words about some boring topic.
There's been great books.
There's been great books, and I--
but I'm just saying it was a really creative book.
That was a really different, creative book,
and it was, I thought, a really interesting choice.
I think she was the second graphic book
to ever be a finalist, because the first one was
Radioactive by Lauren Redniss, which
is also awesome and doesn't have a colon.
I don't think.
Maybe it does.
But, I don't know, I also think that's a really interesting,
fun space to be working from.
When you're writing in a form or drawing in a form
that a lot of people are going to write off right away, you--
I don't know, you maybe have something to prove,
or you don't.
And that makes it more interesting,
too, at least for me.
Another question?
Now I want to write a book called Colon, colon,
a Cultural History of--
The colon?
The colon.
I have a question.
Two questions, actually, for Kristen.
So your book, Imagine Wanting Only This,
was it based on your experience?
Yeah.
And sort of cultural history.
There's also one more question.
Did you ever think that the pictures that you picked up--
did you ever think that it belonged to somebody else?
Yeah, it did belong to somebody else.
And that was a discovery that I made.
Yeah.
But before that, did you ever really think that--
No, it was an abandoned place that
had been empty for like 20 years, so it was just--
most everything from that building had been looted.
So it just seemed like something that had been--
had just showed up there, or had just been left.
And in sort of an accidental way.
All right, thank you.
OK, We have time for one more.
Sorry, I'm like in a difficult place.
My question is actually for Charles.
And as somebody myself who wants to transfer from fiction
to screenwriting, did you find the technicalities
of screenwriting this story difficult to transfer to, or--
I think the overlap is big enough that it can help.
I think there's probably--
I'm sure everybody has a different experience with this,
but I sort of sometimes feel like it's
like training for a marathon, and then
somebody asks you to play basketball, you know?
It's like, OK, I mean, I guess it helps.
But also, not really.
I mean, you could be terrible at either or good at one
without being good at the other, so--
But that said, it couldn't hurt to be in, I think--
I feel like the stamina and the attention
to detail that it takes to write fiction and nonfiction
is a different skill than typically
is required in TV writing.
Probably takes some measure of stamina, but it also is--
there's just less words.
You know what I mean?
A medium size short story has more words
than your average episode of TV, so in that sense,
it's kind of--
it requires a different kind of discipline and economy.
But it's not--
I mean, just at the risk of offending any TV writers
or fans, it's not as demanding in other ways,
I think emotionally and psychologically.
It feels much more like you develop a certain set of craft
based skills that, again, do have
some overlap with writing prose, but you're not a prose writer.
Nobody cares what the words on the page are in the script,
really.
Unfortunately.
They care about the story that's underlying that.
So that's the biggest difference.
Well, thank you both.
I just want to point out--