Ask the Author: Gabe Oppenheim
Answered Questions (6)
Gabe Oppenheim
Same as the worst thing -- late nights when you follow the tendrils of your thoughts to their very tips, in the vast darkness of cerebral space. You're alone out there, on the edge. You've either nailed it or you've lost all tethers to the world. And possibly those are the same thing.
Also, cheese and cracker spreads at book-readings. Mmm, Taleggio.
Also, cheese and cracker spreads at book-readings. Mmm, Taleggio.
Gabe Oppenheim
If you're aspiring, you're already engaged in the activity itself. To hell with the "aspiring writer" tag. Once you've set yourself a goal, even you don't complete a single full sentence, you're in the trenches, struggling to create something. That's a writer, to me. The only value "aspiring writer" has -- and this does count for a bit -- is the way it deflects attention. It's a good way to tell people you write without sounding off-puttingly ambitious. But just know in your head/heart -- aspiration is another way to say breathing. You're doing it already.
Gabe Oppenheim
Brainstorming what to work on next.
Gabe Oppenheim
A little movie-watching, a little magazine-reading...and chocolate.
Gabe Oppenheim
From the city and people staring me square in the face. But to put it more simply -- from an old Philadelphia boxing trainer I met during my first week of college. His stories about his sport and his city and his difficult life begged so many questions. I just -- almost involuntarily -- asked them.
Gabe Oppenheim
Two strategies: I don't write at all. And I set myself a schedule of writing everyday regardless of quality. I switch off between the two tacks -- weeks on, weeks off. It's completely schizophrenic -- but then, if you think about it, so is the concept of a writer being blocked from writing at all...
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