Interview with a Girlfriend
Rather than a tradition blog entry, which would be boring and stupid, we are going to go ahead and run an interview I recently conducted.
birdlives1: state your name for the record.
sarah: Sarah.
birdlives1: What is your relationship to John Green, the creator of this web site?
sarah: do you want me to just say that you're my boyfriend?
birdlives1: That is precisely what I want you to say. What can you tell us about John Green that we don't already know?
sarah: one sec, phone call
birdlives1: oy vey. Does this happen to Terry Gross when she's interviewing people?!
sarah: A. Despite his insistence that he is: John Green is not fat! B. John Green's hometown is really Orlando, FL
birdlives1: Wow, both of those facts are contestable, and we have photographic evidence to the contrary with regards to Point A.
sarah: You are not fat!
sarah: And please don't post a photo of your belly
birdlives1: You've given me no choice!
[At this point a lengthy discussion ensued, the long and short of which is that I am not going to post a picture of my belly.]
birdlives1: Now, as much as we like talking about John Green, and God knows it is our favorite way to pass time, let's talk about you.
sarah: ok
birdlives1: When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?
sarah: I wanted to be a graphic designer
birdlives1: That's funny, because when I was a little boy I wanted to marry a graphic designer. Weird coincidence.
sarah: Crazy.
birdlives1: I did not, at the time, realize that if I was a writer and my wife was a graphic designer, then no one would have any health insurance.
sarah: What did you want to be?
birdlives1: I wanted to be a writer.
sarah: Did you think about it practically, or just the vague notion?
birdlives1: I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't understand that in order to do that, I was going to have to write a lot.
sarah: When did you realize that?
birdlives1: Around September 15, 2001, and believe me, it was depressing.
sarah: when you started to write Alaska, yes?
birdlives1: That's when I started to write Alaska seriously, yeah. I remember getting to about page four and realizing, "Oh, man. Books are long."
birdlives1: I'm guessing that when you thought about being a graphic designer, you thought about it quite practically.
sarah: I did think about it practically. I liked the process aspect.
birdlives1: The process of creation still appeals to you, does it not?
sarah: Yes, it does. While I'm not really a graphic designer, I still design things. And I still make art.
birdlives1: Do you find the process of artistic creation fulfilling or are you primarily focused on the finished result?
sarah: I find the process fulfilling, as long as i'm sure that there will be a finished result eventually (i.e., if I ever finish the project).
sarah: What about you?
birdlives1: I don't really enjoy the process. It's lonely and frustrating. But I do find it fulfilling, I guess. Or at any rate, I keep doing it and don't want to do anything else.
sarah: So, writing is hard but you still want to do it. Is it a "calling"?
birdlives1: Yes. It's a calling. It must be. It's just that my writing is unimportant, so it's difficult to think of it as a calling.
sarah: Oh, come on. You're writing for kids. How can you say that's unimportant?
birdlives1: Right. Well, that's why I write for kids. When you're writing for kids, you are allowed, in some ways, to lay bare your desire to help people.
sarah: Are you trying to find excuses not to write Katherines?
birdlives1: Well, look. I know what I was trying to accomplish with Alaska.
sarah: what?
birdlives1: Without giving away plot twists, I was trying to explore the question of how we live with real guilt, and how misremembering helps us to survive. And trying to celebrate that, find hope in it. I mean, admittedly, Alaska is mostly jokes about pee. But still.
sarah: But I think you know what you're trying to accomplish with Katherines too. It seems to focus on the hope too.
birdlives1: Yeah. I am sort of obsessed with hope and forgetting.
sarah: So I hear your a finalist for Chicago most fabulous 20somethings.
birdlives1: Yes, it's a contest RedEye is having. I wonder who nominated me.
sarah: Hmm, yeah. I wonder as well.
4 Comments:
John, I am coming to Orlando on Friday to track you down.
It'd be nice if you could let me know where I could meet you but if you don't I'll just start searching the city from top to bottom.
Email me: nerdfighterjane at gmail dot com
I can't tell you how pleased I am to find out that you hate the process of writing. I sort of always imagined that all writers simply adore sitting down and writing for four hours and then poring over it and making it perfect, where I'm sitting there for four hours going, "I could write, or I could go out with my friends..."
I loved what you wrote about Alaska, because that's exactly how I felt about it when I finished.
And that's interesting, Paper Towns deals with a lot of hope and forgettting as well.
The comment about health insurance made me laugh in a very silent room full of people, by the way
I, like fellow commenter Chewbob, am relieved to hear that even John Green doesn't like writing sometimes. I mean, there are these moments, of course, where I just love love love it. But then there are times where words. just. don't. come. out.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home