CWDW Interviews...Brian Christian

I am super delighted for this interview today. I was lucky enough to meet Brian Christian in college. Brian and I were on an amazing, student run theater board called Production Workshop (PW).

Brian was a poet who was majoring in Philosophy and Computer Science. He worked on theater shows. And he was from New Jersey, like me.

So, basically, I wanted him to be my best friend.

Then he went and graduated on me, going off to get his MFA in Poetry. Lame.

Still, I sorta, kinda got my wish when we both ended up in Philadelphia two years ago. I made him hang out with me and he agreed to be my writing buddy. So basically, we were besties (okay, in my head we were...). 

Brian is the author of the book, The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive (and a lot of other stuff).

The good news is that he is awesome and agreed to answer a few questions. The bad news is that he moved from Philadelphia this past summer...moving to that great, mythical place called San Francisco. I have a lot of friends who have moved there...away from me...but whatever...I'm not bitter or anything.

Enough of me...onto to the interview...

Brian Christian

Author

CWDW: So you have an idea for a piece. What happens next? Outline? Research? Freewrite of all your thoughts?

Brian: Frequently pieces come to me first as really loose assemblages of linked ideas. I try to construct a really bare-bones outline of what leads into what, and then I start filling it out from there, diving by turns into research or interviews and letting that mutate the structure as new things come in.

How do you write? Computer? Pen and Paper? In a cafe? At home?

It's hard to beat the sheer wpm of the computer, and only when I'm typing can my fingers really even come close to keeping up with the speed of the voice in my head narrating what I want to say. But the slowness of pen-and-ink can be really good for thinking concertedly about syntax, for example. Sometimes when outlining, the free-form 2-dimensionality of a blank page is critical. And I generally find there to be mnemonic value in the pen that there isn't on the keyboard—I'm much more likely to remember having written something when I write it by hand. (Paradoxically this means I rarely consult my notebooks for ideas, as it's the act of recording them that preserves them, rather than the resulting document.) So I try to be more or less thoughtful about choosing the right "medium" for that stage of the process without getting too preoccupied over the medium to the detriment of the work itself.

I just bought a gigantic 27" monitor for my desk, which means I can now legibly see two full pages side-by-side, taking up almost my entire visual field: I find the experience much more conducive to the "flow" state of getting lost in the task than in my normal 13" portal (porthole?) that I have to relentlessly scroll through as I work on a longer piece.

For editing, I find that few things beat printing out 6-8 pages and walking them out to a cafe. Lacking the rest of the document, it's impossible to wander off task into other sections of the piece. And lacking the word processor, it's easier to draw a sharp line between the "identifying issues" and "rebuilding" phases of an edit.

You've written all over the country and, perhaps, all over the world. How do your habits change due to your environment?

It's not clear, although I keep having this hunch that foggy days make me want to hunker down and copyedit and move syntax around, and clear days with a good view make me want to think big-picture. Somehow my mind wants to resemble the environment.

What is up next for you?

At the moment, I'm happily working on the beginnings of Book #2.

What or who inspires you?

I get exhilarated in music and in literature by unexpected connections, whether it's in the content or the form—two ideas, samples, or genres that make strange unforeseen bedfellows. In nonfiction particularly, I love books—James Carse's Finite and Infinite Games is one of my favorite examples—that just seem to click into place between you and the world, like a phoropter lens at the optometrist. All of a sudden you find yourself—and there's no going back—seeing everything around you more sharply than before.

Have you ever felt a little lost when writing? How do you push through?

Absolutely. One of the best things for me is just putting the paper and the computer away and trying to explain something in person to someone else. Writing is, at the end of the day, a communicative act, and sometimes there's no substitute for a flesh-and-blood audience. Many times I've said, or I've heard another writer say, "I'm really stuck on this one part; I can't seem to explain that..." And half the time the very next words are a perfect articulation of the idea that they can then just transcribe word for word on to the page. Humans really are quite good at communication, and sometimes I think the unnaturalness of the writing medium just gets in the way of that innate ease.

Any advice you'd give to any would-be writers out there?

Remember that, as far as making connections is concerned, you may or may not be an expert on any particular domain but you're likely one of the few experts on the nexus of your various interests. Maybe you can make a knitting metaphor that explains something about steeplechase, or a pottery analogy that opens up the health care debate, or explain a concept from applied math that can offer something to an environmental group trying to protect your neighborhood pond. Use that unique positioning at the crossroads of your life experience and interests to your advantage. Look for ways to say what only you can say.

And, of course, what are you reading now?

Right now I'm plunging through a stack of research books related to the new book project, and for pleasure I'm rotating between Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and (as a newly-minted San Franciscan) Infinite City by Rebecca Solnit.

Thank you, Brian! Can't wait to read book #2!

A little more about Brian:

Brian Christian is the author of The Most Human Human, which was named a Wall Street Journal bestseller and a New Yorker favorite book of 2011, and has been translated into ten languages.  His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Guardian, The Paris Review, Gizmodo, AGNI, Gulf Coast, and Best New Poets, and in scientific journals such as Cognitive Science. Christian has been featured on The Charlie Rose Show and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has lectured at Google, Microsoft, the Santa Fe Institute, and the London School of Economics. His work has won several awards, including fellowships at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, publication in Best American Science & Nature Writing, and an award from the Academy of American Poets.  Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Christian holds degrees in philosophy, computer science, and poetry from Brown University and the University of Washington.  He lives in San Francisco. His website is: brchristian.com