Bill Peters’ debut novel, Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality, was called “One of the most inventive novels published this year” by The Los Angeles Review. Here Peters completes the Litquake Interview.
Peters appeared at First Fiction on Sat., October 6, 2012. Part of Off the Richter Scale.
1. What is your favorite book?- My preferences change all the time. But right now, maybe The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño? I’ve been reading way more nonfiction since I finished that book, and that was three years ago.
- 2. Who is your favorite writer?
- Grace Paley.
- 3. If the answers to 1 & 2 are different, why?
- In Paley’s stories, in their voice and in their structure, the technique for me is more visible and more available to learn from. I read The Savage Detectives after I’d been laid off, and I was probably too busy feeling like a failure, and too caught up with the buildup of failure written about in that book, to see much else.
- 4. How old were you when you were first published?
- Twenty-five. The first story I ever submitted, to the literary journal Pleiades, was accepted for publication. After that: mounds of rejection. Life would have been way easier if I kept the 1.000 batting average.
- 5. What writing style do you most abhor?
- Getting a book published has largely robbed me of my ability to abhor other writing styles. At some point during the editing process of my book, I started to feel that writing was hard work for everybody, and that trash-talk was bad luck. So, at the risk of financial ruin or being hit by a train, I’ll say metafiction. Yet some of that I love. Everything can be done well or poorly.
- 6. What is your favorite writing cliché?
- Weird, slightly-off descriptions of sex, I think. That, or making fun of writerly clichés, which I love doing. Basically, if you do something, and are a writer, and somebody says it’s a cliché, it becomes a cliché. For instance, if I published stories about quaint, New Englandy towns, but my day-job money came from the illegal organ trade, all someone would need to say is “Illegal organ trade? Of course you do.”
- 7. What is your favorite word?
- This is really stupid, but the first word that popped into my head when I read this question was “bag.” “Bag” was not at all my favorite word before this. There are way better words than “bag.” But “bag” is what I am typing now, and I am powerless to stop it, so I guess I’m going with “bag.” Bag.
- 8. When and how do you write?
- On days off, through the morning and afternoon, at my house’s dining room table, with my laptop, usually with my cat sitting next to it. I’ll open the curtains of the sliding door, grind up some coffee, make a bagel, and then write whatever I can get out easily and quickly – a few words here or there. Then I’ll pace around, check email, talk to myself, worry about something, sit back down and do it again, usually for four to five hours. Denis Johnson, during a talk years ago, said that sometimes you need 24 hours in the day to get 40 minutes of writing done. That’s pretty much how it goes for me.
- 9. What is your greatest fear when you first turn in a manuscript?
- That everybody hates it, and they can tell immediately by my writing that I am the kind of person who is afraid of upsetting people.
- 10. In what era do you wish you’d been born?
- Maybe the ’50s or ’60s? I’d be old enough to appreciate Husker Du, the Replacements, Carver, DeLillo – all those people I loved when I was younger – when they were younger or still alive. But I’m not too picky about eras.
- 11. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
- “Still” to begin a transition sentence. “Life” as a saddener and perspective-broadener.
- 12. Which talent would you most like to have?
- Like many writers, I would like to be a better guitar player. I would also like to be naturally better at understanding law and finance.
- 13. What is your greatest accomplishment?
- Publishing my first novel without losing all of my weight and turning into Gollum.
- 14. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
- Leopold Bloom? The narrators of Sebald’s books who take long, terrifying walks? Why? Would any of these people ever help me if I got stabbed? I can’t be sure they would.
- 15. How would you like to die?
- I suppose I would like to be killed by a really-slowly-moving asteroid, as in, an asteroid moving toward Earth at the speed of 10 feet per day. As news broke of the oncoming asteroid and the population evacuated the planet, I would tell myself: “So this is how it ends. All those things I worried I’d never accomplish? Guess I’m off the hook now!” As time passed and the population started new lives in space colonies and the asteroid eventually reached the atmosphere and gently parted it over several months, I would put on a tuxedo and stare defiantly toward the sky as the rock hovered closer and closer to me over the years. I would shake my fists and yell: “I am not afraid of death! I have made peace! I am not afraid! Take me goddammit!”
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