Ask the Author: Michael Pronko
Answered Questions (11)
Michael Pronko
Thanks for your message! I love to hear from readers. That's amazing you've lived here for 35 years. I'm trying to catch up with you! I've got several more planned in the series. Thanks for the input on the issues, and those are all ones I agree are a disaster here. I'll check with Hiroshi and see what he's thinking. Sometimes issues pop up first and sometimes characters. The next in the series looks at hidden wealth and international marriage. It should be out in the summer! Anyway, he's on the way!
Michael Pronko
Yes. He's my father's first cousin. Did you study with him at Pomona?
Michael Pronko
Several books on writing (as always)
Many books on Zen (as always)
David Goodis
Road Trip America
Greg Iles
Cinema of Outsiders (indie film)
Kansas City Lightning (Charlie Parker)
The Jazz of Physics Stephen Alexander
Imaginary Cities Darren Anderson
Don Winslow Satori
Suzanne Kamata
The Three Marriages David Whyte
Idiot America Charles Pierce
And a couple more...
Many books on Zen (as always)
David Goodis
Road Trip America
Greg Iles
Cinema of Outsiders (indie film)
Kansas City Lightning (Charlie Parker)
The Jazz of Physics Stephen Alexander
Imaginary Cities Darren Anderson
Don Winslow Satori
Suzanne Kamata
The Three Marriages David Whyte
Idiot America Charles Pierce
And a couple more...
Michael Pronko
Whoa, that's a tough one. But an easy one, too. Many possible answers. How I grew up in Kansas, but ended up in Tokyo. As for a book, I'd have to make that one fiction.
Michael Pronko
I have so many! I like Harold and Maude (both novel and film). Alexis Zorba and Basil in Nikos Kazantzakis' "Zorba the Greek." Those are not traditional couples per se, but then again, they are powerful couples.
Michael Pronko
Those ideas come through sifting through my experience to find what was of meaning and value in my experience. I constantly compared my life in America and my life in Japan. I read a lot, so that brings in ideas. If anything, weeding out the ideas is more the problem. An overflow of ideas can drown out the doable ideas. The ideas are always there, the problem is to focus on the right one and follow through on it.
Michael Pronko
For the essays about Tokyo, I had deadlines, which are very inspirational. I find other art forms to be very inspiring. Art, film, and music, along with conversation and exercise, all kinds of activities inspire creativity. Inspiration helps writing some of the time, but the rest of the time, I write with or without inspiration. That is, there is micro-inspiration, which is like a great idea popping into your head. I have no idea how that happens. And there is macro-inspiration, which is working with habits and schedules to keep going over the long haul. Inspiration is a mystery, but it can be encouraged through practice, focus and an attitude of open attentiveness. So, I have to pay attention or I’ll miss the inspiring word, moment, image, realization or experience. But I also step away and let the unconscious mind do its work. Its work is to inspire me. And when all that doesn’t work, I put on some very loud music.
Michael Pronko
I’m working on a mystery-thriller set in Tokyo. This will be my third, even though the last two are still with my agent while I finished the essays. I’m working on an epistolary novel about teaching in Tokyo. I’m pulling together a third collection of essays about life in Tokyo, but that’s work in the sense of editing. And I’m always working on new notes, ideas and outlines for novels, essays and short fiction.
Michael Pronko
The how-to guidebooks lay it all out real nice and clear. I read as many of those books as I could get my hands on, and still do, as a kind of therapy and tune-up. They all pretty much say the same thing: write every day, develop strong habits, ask for help, don’t be too proud to accept help, get super-organized. Take all the writing chances you can get. If writing opportunities don’t come to you, go to them. The 10,000-hour rule for mastering basic skill in any art, craft or area of knowledge, I think, holds true. Spend those hours. Breaking writing into small, doable chunks helps immensely, but also developing a sense of where you are in the overall process. You’re always basically lost, but you have to kid yourself you know where you are just to keep going. Keep a notebook at hand always to jot things down. I stop in the middle of a rush hour train station if I need to, which are very crowded in Tokyo, just to write stuff down fresh.
Michael Pronko
The internal excitement of writing is the most thrilling thing. Making connections, getting into trouble, with ideas or characters or technique, and getting back out, learning through writing, all of that I find to be just amazing! The “a-ha” and “whoa whoa whoa!” moments of insight, breakthrough, and understanding are what make the suffering of writing worth it. You can get those moments in regular life, but with writing, you get to share them.
Michael Pronko
Lower my standards. It’s OK to accept shitty writing sometimes. No one gets out of bed dressed for a wedding. You’re in an old T-shirt and torn underwear. Or I am. I always figure I’ll spiff up the writing later. Writing for years for newspapers and magazines, I got used to this little thing called a deadline. The idea of a deadline becomes internalized, as a normal part of the process. Getting blocked is usually a little internal melodrama you’re acting out inside yourself, like an argument with your lover over something trivial. It’s never worth it.
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