Transcript
Question: Did you hit any writer's block while writing?
Richard Price: No. Once I started writing it, I didn’t have writer’s block; I had the opposite problem. I started writing elements, pages and pages that somewhere I knew weren’t going to make the final cut. But it’s sort of like jogging on a sprained ankle. You know your ankle’s hurting but instead of the doing the sensible thing, which is stop running, you run faster. So once I realized I was going off into the woods over there, I worked twice as hard trying to jam that square peg into that round hole. I’ll have writer’s block between books and it’ll go for two years. I’ll be doing screenplay work just so I won’t sit there freaking out because I can’t think of anything to write a novel about. The good thing about screenplay work is somebody’s done the big think for you. They’ve said “Here’s the story. We want a story about so and so that’s involved with so and so.” I say okay, thanks. You gave me the idea. That’s all I need. I’ll do that. It’s like getting paid for writing but without the burden of making a huge statement every other year.
Recorded On: 3/3/08
