Lazyteacher

Junot Diaz is a hero to me. Not that he is much like me. He is a writer who was born in the Domenican Republic and then moved to New Jersey. Somehow he created a writer’s voice which finds a way of combining a hip hop machismo with a literary fiction Jonathan Frantzen-y insight gently marinated in a sci-fi vinaigrette.

His novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao followed his short story series by 11 years. So, I figured he has writer’s block; he has Ralph Ellison disease. Actually, no. Watch the video above and you realize Dude doesn’t really like to write that much. He says he writes for a few hours in the morning and then basically reads all day. This is basically my idea of heaven. When school starts up again, that will disappear, but summers for me are these idylls of reading in which I’ve now introduced two twin serpents of discord: writing on this blog and for my little novel (page 30, sigh).

But Junot did it. It took 11 years. He also had gigs at MIT and such but he did it. And here’s the other trick. He has high standards. He mentions that he would write a page and the other pages would tell that page, “Hey youc an’t hang with us.” But see, I can write something bad and then say, “It’s ok. Be bad. I don’t mind. I still love you.” Of course, I won’t win a Pulitzer, but it does give me hope to keep writing.

The other gem from the interview? Diaz’s next book is about werewolves (or vampires or something supernatural)? You can see the 1st few paragraphs here. Now, if he could just add Dr. Horrible into it, perfectness would result.