Interview with Chuck Wendig

New Realm: I’ve recently read Blackbirds and, I have to say, it was one hell of a good read. What would Miriam say about how you treated her in that novel?
Chuck: She would probably curse at me and flick a cigarette in my eye. Because that’s how Miriam rolls.
Can you give us any hints of what you have in store for her in Mockingbirds?
Hints! I can do hints.
Here. I’ll throw out a series of non sequitur words and phrases – all from the book – and you may do with these as you will:
“Wicked Polly.”
“Dead girls.”
“Pancreatic cancer.”
“Wren.”
“Uncle Jack.”
“Walt, the Cart Boy.”
“Ship Bottom.”
There you go.
What first inspired you to start writing?
Rolling around on a bed of money. And all the sweet, sweet health care anybody could ever want.
My aspirations may have been a bit… off.
More seriously, I’ve always loved stories and writing, even from a very young age. As to what inspired me to take this as a career? One book: Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon.
How long did it take you to get your first book published?
A tricky question, that. My debut original novel was Blackbirds, and that took me years to write, a short while to get an agent, and a long while to get published (year and a half).
My debut non-original part-of-a-series work-for-hire novel was Double Dead (a vampire in zombieland!), and that required me pitching to Abaddon. They accepted the pitch in fairly short order—couple-few months after the pitch I had the contract and was writing!
You’ve been blogging (and publishing) lists of advice for authors, what is your best piece of advice for aspiring writers?
Advice is slippery because it avoids qualifiers like “best” or “worst.” Strictly speaking, what works best for me might actually be terrible for somebody else.
That being said, there exists a few pieces of what I consider “universal” writing advice, and one of those things is: Finish Your Shit. You can’t move forward with any piece of writing until you have finished something. Finishing gives you a workable draft. Finishing makes you feel good. Finishing separates you from most of the other so-called self-described “writers” out there.
Finish your shit. Completo-el-poopo.
What qualities do you think are needed to be a successful published author?
There exist dozens of virtues a writer can and perhaps should possess: creativity, language skills, willingness to learn, a leathery liver that looks like a deflated football, a mote of madness –
But, really, I’d say that writers need above all else to exhibit patience. I say that, and I happen to have — *stops, checks personal gauges and meters* — zero patience. I do have patience’s surly, thick-skulled cousin, though: stubbornness. Get one of those going and it’ll be a real help.
What would you say is the most enjoyable aspect of writing?
There’s a part in writing a story – book, script, whatever – where things click. It’s deeply satisfying to know that things make sense. It doesn’t always happen on the first draft. Or the second. Sometimes it happens early. Sometimes it happens way, way late. But I’ve always had it happen and every time it’s the sound of puzzle pieces snapping comfortably into their spaces.
What is the one moment in your career that you feel most proud of?
Finishing Blackbirds. That book was a “make-it-or-break-it” book for me – I’d finished novels before (five or six) and they were all crap, and this one just wasn’t coming together and then, one day, after a long journey through my own writing process, it came together and I finished it.
Above I described a moment in a story when things click? For me and my story, finishing Blackbirds was when things “clicked.”
Which has been your most difficult novel to write? And why?
Dinocalypse Now. That level of pulp is very earnest and very loose, and further, I was playing with characters who were not my own. I had to really unearth those characters and make sure they weren’t just dopey heroes with nothing but a shared hero agenda. Because a heroic agenda is not a real agenda – they can possess that, but they also have to be real people to some degree, with genuine wants and fears and all that jazz.
If you could change just one thing about the publishing industry - what would it be?
The industry needs to move faster. I’d stick a firecracker up that horse’s rear and set it off, make it run. Tech and culture change fast these days – publishers need to be able to do the same. But the bigger the publisher, the slower the boat gets to move, and I think in the end that’s problematic. For them and for their writers.
What are you reading at the moment?
The Rook. Daniel O’Malley. Pretty slick so far.
What House of Hogwarts would the Sorting Hat put you in? Why?
This is a bad time to mention I haven’t read Harry Potter, right? I’ve seen the movies, but the houses escape me. Oh! Wait. There’s Slytherin, Gryffindor, and… uhh. Another two? They make me think of Pokémon names. There’s one that sounds like Jigglypuff, right?
Put me in that one. Put me in Jigglypuff.
You have a toddler, do you tell him his bedtime stories?
Not mine, no – I read to him every night, though. He’s voracious with books now. One book after the other, an assembly line of books thrust into my hand as he tries to clamber up into my lap.I could not be a prouder poppa.