Ask the Author: Peter Ames Carlin
Answered Questions (5)
Peter Ames Carlin
Self-loathing, anger, wine, exercise, sulking, skulking, having absolutely no other option than to sit the fuck back down and get it done because I won't get paid otherwise and chances are I already spent the money.
Peter Ames Carlin
You get to pursue your interests as far as they'll take you, sometimes far beyond the point where they seem even remotely interesting, but then you learn something unexpected and new and boom, you're ears-deep in it again. So that's a good thing.
I love playing with language and words, finding new ways to breathe life into things they've already seen or heard about forever, and get them to think about it in a whole new way. A good line or paragraph can hit the page with a wallop that makes your whole day feel like part of a life just extremely well-lived. Then the next day comes and you're such a ridiculous failure...etc.
Reporting is often the funnest part. Writing has given me a chance to see incredible things and hang out with really cool people, often in bars where the beers flow and you can really get to talking. It's also made me a more introspective and, I hope, sensitive person.
So it's a kind of tenuous way to make a living, rife with possibilities for failure and heartbreak, but that's the game of love, my friends. Love what you're doing and it could break your heart. But I'll live with that.
Besides, it's the only thing I can do.
I love playing with language and words, finding new ways to breathe life into things they've already seen or heard about forever, and get them to think about it in a whole new way. A good line or paragraph can hit the page with a wallop that makes your whole day feel like part of a life just extremely well-lived. Then the next day comes and you're such a ridiculous failure...etc.
Reporting is often the funnest part. Writing has given me a chance to see incredible things and hang out with really cool people, often in bars where the beers flow and you can really get to talking. It's also made me a more introspective and, I hope, sensitive person.
So it's a kind of tenuous way to make a living, rife with possibilities for failure and heartbreak, but that's the game of love, my friends. Love what you're doing and it could break your heart. But I'll live with that.
Besides, it's the only thing I can do.
Peter Ames Carlin
I'm getting rolling on a project about working musicians and playing music for a living. More on that later.
Peter Ames Carlin
A combination of factors, from creative drive to philosophical impetus to the good old profit motive and deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.
Peter Ames Carlin
From being a music fan and student of American cultural history. I've loved Paul Simon's music since I was five years old (in 1968, when "Mrs. Robinson" was playing constantly on Top 40 radio) and followed his career ever since. As the descendent of Jewish immigrants who came to this country just as Simon's grandparents arrived here I was also fascinated by the assimilationist thread running through so much of his work. It felt like an epic American story that needed a deeply researched, clear-eyed telling. So I set out to write it.
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