August 6, 2004

Today is the day to put on your drinking shoes. 

Buy my book!

Zulkey.com is simpatico with today's interviewee, because we are Midwest writers, fond of internet publishing, and are ponies in the small-publishing-house stable.  We are, on the other hand, not simpatico--not because he has anything wrong with him: far from it. It's just that one of the dudes who worked on "The Matrix" offered to turn his book into a short movie, and nobody has done that for me. Oh well. 

The Paul A. Toth Interview: A Little Under 20 Questions 

How did John Tissavary come to turn ìFizzî into a short film?
He read the script I had written based on the first chapter of the book.  He liked it, and we struck a deal.  Simple as that.  This all happened via Zoetrope.  Actually, another person fairly well-placed in the New York theater world expressed interest as well.  So if you have a short script, try Zoetrope.  By the way, there's a new film I wrote which can be accessed on here.  I'm very pleased with this one, so check it out.  You have to go through the usual free registration, then search for "Knotted" using the "Short Films" button. 

  Has Zoetrope helped your writing much in other ways?
The process was more helpful in the earlier days.  However, some of the more sarcastic criticism became irksome.  It can also become seductive to write for the reviewers.  I'm not a supporter of workshopping.  I think it tends to have a corporate influence, like a meeting in which everyone is supposed to "think outside the box" and is immediately shunned upon doing so.  Zoetrope is a good place to network, and the reviews are helpful to those just starting out, some kind of feedback to supplement rejections, and that's better than nothing.  But in general, I think one is better advised to follow instinct rather than herd behavior.  If everyone likes something, I probably don't.  I prefer the writers who would get six or seven "yes" votes out of ten from literary journal readers, and I suspect I'm one of them.  I know the dictatorial setup of, say, the old studio system had its downside, but when a writer has to please a Board of Directors, we're on the road to making burgers, not fiction.  Tofu burgers, to be exact.

Did you enjoy writing in script form or do you prefer prose?
I much prefer prose primarily because description is so slight in scripts.  Also, I find plot points and the rest of that narrative arc bullshit as annoying as it is mandatory, and the reason why nine out of ten movies remind me of something I've seen before.  On the other hand, there is a jigsaw puzzle aspect of screenwriting I enjoy, and it's definitely good for learning how to write dialogue.  I think I'd rather write a novel and let someone else handle the script, if I were lucky enough to receive an offer.

How are things in Flint? Is everybody happy for Michael Moore? 
Oh, Flint is worse than ever, truly hopeless.  Much of the population here hates Moore, and the rest love him.  Some can't stand Roger & Me, feeling that it knocks Flint down, tears it apart.  They never noticed it was already knocked down and torn apart.  I'm 50/50 when it comes to Moore.  He's like Nader: I agree with many of his ideals, and I also know they'll never be achieved.  Sometimes beautiful dreams can get in the way of a slight but actual improvement in reality.  At least Moore has come around in this regard, while Nader has revealed himself as suffering from some type of delusional disorder. 

Was there any particular reason for giving Ray the last name Pulaski? 
I used the phone book method.  So to the entire Pulaski genealogy, my apologies; it was pure chance.

Pulaskiís problem is that his life has no meaning. But do you think thereís also a problem where people are convinced these days too much about meaning? I mean, have you ever read O magazine?  Why are people so intent on meditation and self-fulfillment? Is this the Me Generation all over again?
You just nailed the true theme of Fizz, which many miss.  Ray tries everything to "find himself," and people are more than happy to dupe him along the way.  I believe meaning is made, not found.  Until one realizes that, he or she is a primary target for every huckster out there, and there are a million of them in this country.  To paraphrase Larry Flynt, everyone in America finds Jesus sooner or later;  the problem is figuring out why.  Or, to paraphrase the artist/writer Brion Gysin, we're here to go. 

  Recently, I read that consciousness may be a mistake rather than an evolutionary step up the ladder.  That makes sense to me.  I hope it's true.  That would explain why we're always asking unanswerable questions and making up answers.  I think everyone should take a moment every now and then to stop and ponder just how many people claim to know the unknowable.  And then they should stop listening to them.

You say that your next novel, Fishnet, is about a very strange marriage. Whatís so strange about it? 
The story concerns two people who have drifted so far apart that they live more with their imagination of the other than the actual other person.  It's a book about what you might call the internal marriage, the marriage that happens in the minds of partners.  They live in a rather fantastic town called Mercy, California.  Don't worry, this is not the story of a divorce in which someone has an epiphany in the Bermudas while sipping blue cocktails.

You lived with a guy who slit his dogís throat?? 
Indeed I did.  One morning I awoke and upon entering the kitchen was promptly informed, "The fucking dog bit me, so I slit his throat."  The guy later insisted that doing so was more humane than taking the dog to be gassed.  Maybe so, but I slept with one eye open after that.  He wasn't a bad fellow besides or even including that, if you accept his position.  But I wouldn't want to be his dog.

Youíre taking notes for your fourth book. What does taking notes entail and how does that evolve into writing a full book? 
Since I'm a bit ahead of schedule now as far as publishing these things, the fourth book will entail a much longer process.  Mostly, I develop the general storyline, incidents, the major characters, and lines that pop into my head.  I just open a file and write everything down as it comes.  My novels to date haven't involved much research, but the next one will.  So that will become part of the process.  I keep taking notes until I have the feeling I know the story well enough to call it a friend but not a lover.  And then I try to convert it.

What do you like about Los Angeles? Iíve never really been but Iíve never heard much good about it. 
Yes, most people claim to hate it.  It's the kind of thing people say because other people say it.  You just have to avoid the more obviously annoying aspects of it.  I briefly lived off Laurel Canyon, and I would go back to that spot in a second.  One minute you're in the mountains, the next in the city, with a country market a walk from your house, and everything else within relatively short driving distance.  Also, I liked L.A.'s proximity to the desert and the ocean.  The amount of variation in the surrounding environment is amazing.  Finally, as congested as it is, there's much more breathing space (however polluted the air) than New York.  I need more room than New York allows.  I need distance.  I am not a grouper human. 

Do you think authors have a duty to be friendly to their fans?
I think so, within reason.  I don't have this problem, so I can't say with certainty what I would do if I did.  But if fans are satisfied with a brief exchange or an autograph, I think that much is owed them, especially in this cultural climate.  At the very least, one should politely run away.

How did you come up with the concept for your screenplay ìBlack as Dayî? Did it garner much interest? Will it ever be made? 
The idea emerged from an article I read about the possibility of head transplants.  I thought it would be comical to have a black man whose head is transplanted onto a white guy's body, and he thus becomes truly biracial.  I came close to an option when one partner of a production company loved it.  The other partner didn't.  That old story.  It's dead in the water at this point.  

What do you make of the situation of online writing and publishing today as contrasted to a few years ago? 
I find plenty of good writing on the web, probably more than I do in literary journals.  I think the reason is obvious: If you're not dealing with the web, you're not dealing with the world today.  I'm not saying every story has to involve the seismic historical shifts taking place right now, but it would be nice to more often read fiction in which the characters seem aware they are living in changed times rather than in 1974.

  I find several other trends troubling.  One is the seemingly unbreakable habit of writing about a depressed writer who bears a striking resemblance to his or her depressed creator.  Please stop.  And I think children's book authors should form a posse, hunt down and terminate with extreme prejudice all celebrity children's book authors.  But there's a lot of good stuff out there, too.  How it gets there, I don't know.

Do you ask your wife to read your work? Are you a fan of sharing stuff with people to get their opinion or is that like dancing around naked in front of them? 
My wife likes to read them when they're published, so I've given up bothering her until then.  With novels, I keep them to myself lest they get away.  With stories, it's not an issue because I'm not a particularly slow writer. 

You and I have something in common: we both had something published online on September 11, 2001. Yours was a profile of David Mamet for Salon. Do you think that it didnít get the attention it might have had it run, say, on the 10^th? 
You do your research!  I was lucky in that Salon archives everything, so the Mamet piece lives on, and every now and then someone mentions they enjoyed it.  September 11, 2001 was as perfect a day in Michigan as it was in New York.  It was to be a celebration, since I'd been waiting eight weeks for that article to appear.  Then I turned on the television.  That was the end of the celebration.  I don't suppose anyone ever read that piece except in the archives.

Whatís one thing you like and one thing you dislike about working with a small press?
The small press takes chances and usually doesn't have a squad of "No" people ready to send their "I didn't fall in love with it" letter.  The downside is that reviews are tough to secure. 

Who are some of your favorite celebrity reinventers?
David Bowie and Brian Eno. 

How does it feel to be the 101st person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
I am so hot about it, I have a temperature of exactly 101 degrees.