Wands Spotlight: Edan Lepucki

I met Edan Lepucki in dance class. You've read about dance class. It's my therapy (so is my actual therapy, but you get the idea). Dance class is a place where I do something hard that I'm not good at, where I practice resilience and try to love my body for what it can do (it can't do a lot of things, but it can do some!).

I don't remember who made the first move, but I noticed Edan weeks before we talked. She was encouraging to other dancers and funny and she liked to be in the front of the class. I'm a front-of-classer as well, in spite of my dance non-abilities. Once a front-of-the-class girl, always a front-of-the-class girl, I suppose. I was drawn to her and liked her energy and her cool haircut. Edan and I started asking each other to film our routines, and I became an excellent cinematographer for Edan-specific dances. Making friends as an adult is so awkward and sometimes very stupid, but Edan and I have a lot in common – our daughters are very similar, for example, and we're both writers.

When I told my husband that I had made a new friend in dance class, he said, "I look forward to going to dinner with her and her husband for the next twenty-five years." He should look forward to it, it's gonna be great.

Edan's writing is sharp and funny. She's a New York Times best-selling author, and rightly so. You'll love her books, and I hope you'll run out and buy them (as I have) from an independent book store (or Amazon, if you have to, though you should read Stephen Colbert's take). I'll link to her novels below. You should also absolutely subscribe to her substack – Italic's Mine – if you enjoy my newsletter, I think you'll love hers. She's observant and wry and gorgeous and excellent at dancing. Also, if you're a writer, you should absolutely join one of her accountability groups the next time she offers one (you'll know about them in advance if you subscribe to her newsletter) – she's an excellent teacher and motivator.

Enjoy this interview with one of my favorite writers and new friends!

How would you describe yourself? Do you use the word “artist”? Do you use another word? 

I say I’m a novelist because I really like that word, and it’s the writing I care about the most and the writing that I shape my whole life around. I do sometimes just say “writer” but that leads to the “Oh, a screenwriter?” conversation and it feels more efficient to be specific. I never say “I am an artist” because that makes me think of visual art. I do consider myself an artist but I don’t self-proclaim it in conversation! It seems a bit…over the top?

How do you know when it’s time to move out of the envisioning/brainstorming/inspiration gathering process and get to work?

I get to work almost immediately, though I often have months of random daydreaming without actually sitting down to write because I am still busy with another project. I can’t, however, envision and research and all that without writing. It’s the writing itself that is its own motor, which brings the vague vision into focus.

Are you a planner/outliner? Is your process more intuitive? How did you discover a process that worked for you? And have you ever worked differently?

I have never outlined and I think most novelists do not outline because the form is less structurally constrained than, say, a screenplay. I work from intuition and I have to move through writing something to know what happens next, or how it happens, or how it feels to happen. I am not a messy writer, however, even if I don’t plan ahead. I care about making pleasing sentences and crafting scenes, and so my early drafts feel more polished than others who write by instinct—though, alas, they usually have deep, structural flaws! I often revise as I go, or I write a bunch and then stop and rewrite.

One piece of advice I always give my students is “honor your process”—that is, embrace the kind of writer you are, with all your rituals and proclivities. Maybe you’re a meticulous outliner, or maybe you write super wackadoo nonsensical first drafts; maybe you write a little bit every day, or maybe you write in inspired bursts and then nothing for weeks. It’s all work! Some practices can be cultivated or tweaked, of course, but the core elements are you being you, making your specific art, and that’s great! I wish I could write my work out of order, but I gotta honor my process, so here I go, obsessively writing a book in the order I expect it to be read…sigh…

If you’re working on a piece of art/writing, and you suddenly get a new idea, how do you deal with that interruption? And how do you determine whether that new idea belongs in this piece or a different one? If you’ve mapped out how something is supposed to be, do you ever divert from the plan?

I have never had this happen. My Ideas are so fixed to form, so one storyline would not walk into another storyline! For instance, right now, I am writing the first draft of a new novel. I have an idea of a story, and it’s kind of bobbing in the back of my brain, shimmering with promise. But I just let it bob there, gathering intrigue, but not really developing; it will wait for me to explore it when I have some time off from the novel. All my projects, somehow, stay separate. Also, the more I work on something the less room there is in my imagination. Like, I have no new ideas because I am cultivating this one! As far as diverting from a plan within a project…oh yeah, that happens a lot. I always say “the book is smarter than you”—meaning the book knows what needs to happen and you just have to get curious. You have to get real close and listen to it. Let it lead the way. I am in the process of restitching my novel together after taking out a plot line; the book is like “Duh, Edan,” and I only just caught the drift.

Can you describe the worst part of your creative process? Which step do you enjoy the least?

I love all parts and also they all challenge me. The blank page is liberating and full of potential, and it’s also frightening and so much work to create something from scratch. With a revision it’s hard to sustain the thrill and it’s difficult to know if your changes are making something better—or just different. Writing plot is not my strength except that I am getting better at it and I love when it finally falls into place and my story starts to vibrate. I do hate writing little transition sentences or dialogue gestures and tags that feel invisible yet also dramatic and useful. That can feel tedious.

Maybe the worst part of the creative process is the feeling of dread that comes over me when something in the narrative feels false. It’s a sinking gut feeling, a nausea. William Gass calls this walking in the snow in cardboard shoes and that is TOTALLY how it feels... you’re thinking, “Maybe this will work, maybe no one will notice” as your feet get colder and colder, as they turn numb, as the cardboard shoes disintegrate. I hate this feeling! Then again, I’ve also learned to dig into the dread a little, to ask myself: why is my body responding this way? Why the alarm bells? Where’s the emotional false note? Where can I go into the draft and fuck around to get rid of this falseness and, thus, my dread? That helps.

What is your favorite part of the creative process and why?

I love working on a paragraph and getting the rhythm right, nailing that little microcosm, that tiny emotional journey, the shifts in tone or revelation. I love writing a killer simile! I love when I’m in a scene and it’s so sharp and I’m connected to what the scene needs to do and feel. I love, during revision, coming to understand a character and truly getting deeper into the meaning of my work—those revelations and discoveries are so special.  I love being in the “flow state” of creating, when hours just fly by and I was just riding through my own special world. When it’s going well, writing is just so cool and fun.

How active is your inner critic in your process? How do you deal with your inner critic? Does he/she ever have anything helpful to say? Do you have any tips for how to silence them?

The inner critic gets louder the less consistently I work, so if I am working regularly, I have a chance to get in there, solve problems on the page and that little bitch can’t get a word in edgewise.  When I am working consistently, it becomes less about “Oh I’m just a bad writer’ and more “I don’t like what I’ve written—how can I use technique, craft, and my experience to make this better?” Working regularly also means that one session of writing is just one of many, so there’s less pressure to BE A GENIUS RIGHT NOW. So that’s my tip: face the work regularly and shut that bee-otch up!

How do you deal with burnout?

Daily cappuccinos, dance class and other exercise, nightly baths, good books, cuddles, sex, sleep. I also don’t work like crazy—it’s all about those humane hours! Even when I’m on a writing retreat I end at 5 pm and chill out.

What is your spiritual/psychological relationship to your work? 

I am not a particularly spiritual person. I don’t believe in God and a childhood with a hippie father has soured me on a lot of the new age stuff. When I’m writing I do have the sense that the work it already out there, written, and it’s up to me to find it—to discover the statue already within the block of granite. Is that spiritual? It’s delusional at least!

[Note: to me, that seems deeply spiritual]

Do you enjoy collaboration or are you more of a solo artist? Is there a story you could tell me about how you came to understand this about yourself? 

I haven’t had that many opportunities to collaborate. I think I like writing alone. I did have a podcast with someone and it went up in flames for various reasons. It was traumatic and I was upset that it ended so suddenly—that felt deeply unprofessional to me. I have also written a script with my husband, based off a story I wrote, which he gave me the idea for. That was actually very fun to do, but when we got into production meetings and started getting notes I was so bored and annoyed! I realized I love the intimate writer-editor conversation; I do not love the lets-write-something-by-committee thing that happens in Hollywood. 

What is your ideal creative environment?

Most of the time I write at coffee shops and I’m about to try working at a co-working space in my neighborhood. I like to write with headphones in, but out in the world, among strangers, with coffee. I like the buzz of activity around me. However, a few times a year I go out of town to write and that is truly my ideal creative environment: my own studio, somewhere beautiful, to create work for hours upon hours. I have been to Ucross in Wyoming, which is heaven—they even deliver you a picnic lunch!—and at least twice a year I go to Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in Temecula, CA and rent one of their cottages. I do such good work at Dorland, and feel so connected to my writing. It’s the best.

Have you ever had a burst of inspiration where your creative process has felt like channeling? Where something artistic feels like it is pouring out of you, quicker than you can even process it? Do you have any idea how or why that happened? 

Definitely. Once, at Dorland, I tried to start a fire in the little stove, and it wouldn’t light. I finally gave up and just began writing. I dropped into a particularly inspiring session and only stopped when I heard a muffling sound behind me. I turned and there, in the stove, was a fire! It had lit after all…and it was raging! It felt mystical. What’s funny is that this inspired scene is not in the final, published draft of that book—it was the wrong choice. The gods were wrong, it turned out.

I would say, generally,  that when writing is going well, the world drops away and time collapses and I have no idea where or when I am. It’s a meditative state. And it does feel magic!

However, I haven’t written anything in its entirety in some kind of fever state—if only!

What is your relationship to deadlines? Do you love them? Hate them? Why?

Deadlines are great and I always meet them— often early. Being a writer means having homework for your entire life, so you better turn your shit in on time to get that A!

What is the best piece of creative advice you’ve ever gotten?

My teacher Dan Chaon told me I had a weird/special upbringing and that I should never be afraid to draw from that, or to go deeper into the darkness that I was attracted to. He basically just gave me permission to be myself on the page. He had such confidence in me and my work, and that propelled me to pursue this career.

Chris Offutt always said, “Don’t make a reader do math” and I think of it all the time.

What is the best piece of creative advice you’ve given?

I have a lot of helpful pearls as a teacher, but I feel like there is just one thing that is truly helpful: I always end my critique letters with “Go, Go, Go!” In essence: Don’t give up! Persistence is the secret sauce, baby.

Have you ever had a creative failure? What did you learn from it?

Boy have I! My first agent dumped me after she read my first novel, and then my second agent tried and failed to sell that novel to publishers. It was really hard to take all that rejection. And yet, I also started California immediately after that first agent dropped me. It was my first visit to Ucross—the residency in Wyoming I mentioned—and I had two weeks to work, and no agent, no prospects. I’d vaguely had this idea for a “post-apocalyptic domestic drama” and I thought, “Well, my career is over before it started and no one is ever gonna read this book so I might as well do whatever the fuck I want!” That was actually very liberating.

I have had many rejections before and after this one: being a professional writer is all about hearing NO and NO and NO again. But were they “creative failures”? What does that mean? Everything I’ve written, even if it doesn’t get published, even if it doesn’t work out, has taught me something, so there was no failure.

Recommendations:

Edan's instagram handle is: @edanlepucki

Her website is www.edanlepucki.com

Substack: Italics Mine

Edan's Books:

Time's Mouth - From the forests of Santa Cruz to the 1980s glam of Melrose Avenue to a solitary estate among the oil derricks off La Cienega Boulevard,Time’s Mouth is an enthralling saga about family secrets that grow more powerful with time, set against the magical, dangerous landscape of California.

Mother's Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers As We Never Saw Them - Edan Lepucki gathers more than sixty original essays and favorite photographs to explore this question. The daughters in Mothers Before are writers and poets, artists and teachers, and the images and stories they share reveal the lives of women in ways that are vulnerable and true, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always moving.

California - California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind’s dark nature and deep-seated resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love.

Woman No. 17 - A sinister, sexy noir about art, motherhood, and the intensity of female friendships, set in the posh hills above Los Angeles, from the New York Times bestselling author of California.

If You're Not Yet Like Me - Joellyn—as judgmental as she is insecure—tells her unborn daughter the story of her courtship with an unemployed, terribly dressed man named Zachary. The novella is a romantic comedy—if romantic comedies were dark and screwed up and no one got exactly what they wanted.

And there's so much more of her writing in her newsletter and on her website! Enjoy!