Christopher Noxon
I carry around a notebook and jot down ideas as they come. But in general, I don't wait for inspiration. With three school-age kids and a wife who often works long hours, I’m a between-dropoff-and-pickup writer, starting at 8:30 and finishing before 2 for bus pickup. I write all over LA, in coffee shops and restaurants and libraries – anywhere but home (where I’m often interrupted by dogs, deliveries or the telephone). I love the ornate Mediterranean reading rooms at the Pasadena Central Library and the sunny modern stacks at the West Hollywood Library and have even written sitting on park benches and in my car while waiting for pickup at school.
My last book was Rejuvenile, a heavily-researched, quasi-sociological survey of adulthood that asked why grown-ups today act so much more like kids than adults of previous generations. When I set out to write a novel, I figured, how different can it be?
Answer: entirely. I may as well have been a cobbler for all the necessary skills I had to write a novel.
That’s not entirely true. To write anything long and lasting you need to first of all keep your butt in the chair and ignore the Internet and your phone and the insistent never-ending desire to right now at this very moment get up and eat a cookie. I learned how to do that writing my first book (notwithstanding the many Mint Milanos).
Everything else about the process was new. The big difference, one that took way too long to recognize but which landed like lightening when I finally did, was the importance of emotion. I had initially outlined Plus One as a series of events – this thing happens, which leads to this thing happening, which eventually leads to a big climax. Only after a few months of churning out surface-y, limp, mostly lifeless prose did I realize that the fiction I love most isn’t built around plot. What happens in the story matters, but what gives it life and energy and propulsion is how people feel. It wasn’t enough for me to outline a series of what TV writers call story beats – I had to dig deeply into how my characters felt and allow those emotions to drive what they did and how they behaved. I had to replace storybeats with what I now –embarrassingly – call emobeats (cue the violins!).
In the end, the process of writing fiction called on more of me – my head, heart, guts – than anything I've done before. Writing a novel is part meditation, part performance, part puzzle. Now that I’ve written one I’m just as excited – and intimidated – by the form as ever.
My last book was Rejuvenile, a heavily-researched, quasi-sociological survey of adulthood that asked why grown-ups today act so much more like kids than adults of previous generations. When I set out to write a novel, I figured, how different can it be?
Answer: entirely. I may as well have been a cobbler for all the necessary skills I had to write a novel.
That’s not entirely true. To write anything long and lasting you need to first of all keep your butt in the chair and ignore the Internet and your phone and the insistent never-ending desire to right now at this very moment get up and eat a cookie. I learned how to do that writing my first book (notwithstanding the many Mint Milanos).
Everything else about the process was new. The big difference, one that took way too long to recognize but which landed like lightening when I finally did, was the importance of emotion. I had initially outlined Plus One as a series of events – this thing happens, which leads to this thing happening, which eventually leads to a big climax. Only after a few months of churning out surface-y, limp, mostly lifeless prose did I realize that the fiction I love most isn’t built around plot. What happens in the story matters, but what gives it life and energy and propulsion is how people feel. It wasn’t enough for me to outline a series of what TV writers call story beats – I had to dig deeply into how my characters felt and allow those emotions to drive what they did and how they behaved. I had to replace storybeats with what I now –embarrassingly – call emobeats (cue the violins!).
In the end, the process of writing fiction called on more of me – my head, heart, guts – than anything I've done before. Writing a novel is part meditation, part performance, part puzzle. Now that I’ve written one I’m just as excited – and intimidated – by the form as ever.
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