Ask the Author: David Leite
Answered Questions (8)
David Leite
Three are on my List:
1. Forever Summer by Jamie Brenner.
2. A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman
3. Never Caught by Erica Armstrong Dunbar=
1. Forever Summer by Jamie Brenner.
2. A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman
3. Never Caught by Erica Armstrong Dunbar=
David Leite
As several readers have already noted, there's an element of mystery to "Notes on a Banana," my memoir. I play detective from age 11 until 36 trying to understand what was wrong with me--"this blackness, this gloaming." I plant all the clues along the way, so that the reader experiences the growing awareness of my illness the same way I did. When I'm finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder age 36, the reader understand fully how and why I got to that point.
David Leite
Yaaresse, I wasn't prepared for the emotional onslaught the material brought up for me. I thought I had long ago dealt with this mishegas in therapy. How naive! It caught me off-guard, and I needed to find ways to allow myself to steep in it for the writing of the book, but at the same time not allow myself to be dragged under. I wasn't always successful.
In writing a cookbook, I needed to think logically, precisely. It was a lot about measures, and weights, and clarity. And there was as much memory work as there was time spent facing the stove. But in the end, while I had some emotional epiphanies while writing the cookbook, it's still a how-to book, a book that is of service to the reader. It tells its story through the foods I featured. The memoir, on the other hand, was all memory work; my job was to get lost in memory in order to tell the story.
And that is the biggest difference between the two books. How to tell the story. The hardest part of writing the memoir was picking and choosing those scenes that together tell the story. There was a lot of arranging and rearranging of those scenes, writing and rewriting, adding and subtracting. Many times whole chapters were cut in order to serve the larger story. (The largest cut was more than 15,000 words.) I didn't know what to include until I found out what not to include.
In writing a cookbook, I needed to think logically, precisely. It was a lot about measures, and weights, and clarity. And there was as much memory work as there was time spent facing the stove. But in the end, while I had some emotional epiphanies while writing the cookbook, it's still a how-to book, a book that is of service to the reader. It tells its story through the foods I featured. The memoir, on the other hand, was all memory work; my job was to get lost in memory in order to tell the story.
And that is the biggest difference between the two books. How to tell the story. The hardest part of writing the memoir was picking and choosing those scenes that together tell the story. There was a lot of arranging and rearranging of those scenes, writing and rewriting, adding and subtracting. Many times whole chapters were cut in order to serve the larger story. (The largest cut was more than 15,000 words.) I didn't know what to include until I found out what not to include.
David Leite
It's trite, I know, but park your ass in the chair and write. And read, as much as you can, especially upward.
David Leite
I wrote a blog post about being bipolar and how it affected me when I was a young teen. The response from readers was huge, both publicly and privately. So I put aside the cookbook I was working on, and set my sights on the memoir.
David Leite
A memoir about food, being gay, and grappling with bipolar disorder called Notes on a Banana, to be published by Dey Street, an imprint of HarperCollins.
David Leite
Setting my own schedule, working wherever I want, working at my own pace. Being bipolar, I can work at home, which allows me to manage my illness better than I ever could at an office.
Plus, creating something that moves and affects others is wonderful.
Plus, creating something that moves and affects others is wonderful.
David Leite
I don't believe in writer's block. (I think this is a holdover from my advertising days when I had to turn in copy at the end of the day, no matter what.) If I’m stuck as a writer, I believe one of two things is going on:
1. I'm not sure of where to go, and writing activities aren't going to get me there. (So writing exercises and diagramming are useless to me.) I'm cogitating, digesting, filtering, sifting, and I have to honor that. I usually try to do something entirely different. Taking a shower is great for me. I get a lot a good ideas there, like a first line of a New York Times article, which then gave me my structure for the article. Taking a walk is effective. A once-around the country block helped me come up with this. (I always have my phone with me so I can dictate notes and ideas.) Taking a few days off, if I can, helps me, too.
2. I'm being a perfectionist. Trying to write the perfect first sentence, after which follows the perfect second sentence, etc. is a waste of time and creative energy. It truly rankles me, but I just try to go on a tear and write as much as I can as fast as I can to plow through a rough spot. I know most of it will be garbage, but there might be a lovely sentence that summarizes exactly what I'm trying to say, or I might see a passage that could work as an opener or a close to an essay, chapter, book.
1. I'm not sure of where to go, and writing activities aren't going to get me there. (So writing exercises and diagramming are useless to me.) I'm cogitating, digesting, filtering, sifting, and I have to honor that. I usually try to do something entirely different. Taking a shower is great for me. I get a lot a good ideas there, like a first line of a New York Times article, which then gave me my structure for the article. Taking a walk is effective. A once-around the country block helped me come up with this. (I always have my phone with me so I can dictate notes and ideas.) Taking a few days off, if I can, helps me, too.
2. I'm being a perfectionist. Trying to write the perfect first sentence, after which follows the perfect second sentence, etc. is a waste of time and creative energy. It truly rankles me, but I just try to go on a tear and write as much as I can as fast as I can to plow through a rough spot. I know most of it will be garbage, but there might be a lovely sentence that summarizes exactly what I'm trying to say, or I might see a passage that could work as an opener or a close to an essay, chapter, book.
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