How a Hollywood Actor Got the Hang of Writing Novels

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June Thomas: This ad free podcast is part of your Slate Plus membership. When.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: When you go to. Right. Always remind yourself, nobody has to read it unless you show it to them. And if you don’t ever see it worthy of sharing with others, are you going to tell me you wasted your time by writing? That’s never a waste of time.

June Thomas: Welcome back to Working. I’m your host, June Thomas, and.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: I’m your other host, Karen Han.

June Thomas: Karen. It is great to see you again. But I have to ask. The voice we heard at the top of the show, it sounded really familiar. Who does it belong to?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: I am delighted to report that that voice belongs to Tim Blake Nelson. He is an actor who has appeared in movies like The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, O Brother Where Art Thou? Minority Report and shows like HBO’s Watchmen and an upcoming episode of Poker Face. He has also written and directed movies including The Grey Zone and Leaves of Grass. And he’s a playwright as well. Most recently of Socrates, which starred Michael Stuhlbarg in its run at the Public Theater.

June Thomas: Oh, good grief. Talk about Renaissance Man. And why did you want to talk to him? No.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: He just published his first novel, City of Blows, which takes place in Hollywood and sort of focuses on the production of a movie. Some people want to get it made and some people really don’t. And it’s the, like, intertwining lives of three characters. And eventually for as they all kind of fight around this production.

June Thomas: So you mentioned he’s written plays before, but writing a novel is pretty different, right?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yeah, very much so. So we definitely get into kind of the differences between mediums and also like how his practice in different fields informs the writing of this novel and what’s so special about writing in the first place, and a few different tips to kind of keep yourself on track and feeling good about your work.

June Thomas: Yeah, well, if a guy like him who’s so incredibly busy to write a novel and I think a pretty chunky one, right?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yeah, it’s a big boy.

June Thomas: Okay, So I’m sure there’s lots of good information there. And I believe you asked him some questions that are intended exclusively for Slate Plus members. What will they hear?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: So we talked about the process of designing the book cover, including Tim’s initial idea for what it would look like, which he soft describes as lame and his influences as he was working on the book.

June Thomas: Oh, that sounds amazing. If you’re a Slate Plus member, you’ll get to hear that at the end of the show. All right. Now, let’s listen to Karen’s conversation with Tim Blake Nelson. After that, we’ll be back to distill some lessons from his creative process.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Hello, Tim. Thank you so much for coming on to working.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: It’s my pleasure. I appreciate your interest in the novel and I guess in me.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Oh, my God. Of course. We’re very excited to have you on the show. And I just finished reading the book, I would say a week, a week and a half ago. So I’m very excited to chat with you about it. So I’ll start with something a little bit broad. There’s of course, the old adage, write what you know. But what inspired you to write a book about the entertainment industry?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Yeah, I mean, it’s my first novel and I wanted to have some measure of familiar territory that I could traverse in in the journey. And so I write about the entertainment industry, but then I get into some places that I didn’t really know about. So I also like Chicago and Mississippi, and I don’t live in Los Angeles. So a measure of research needed to go into that. Plus there’s a segment on Long Island. So it was a good mix of what I do know deeply, which is how the film industry works and what sorts of characters inhabit it. But I also got to do some good challenging research, too.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: And I wanted to talk about this as well, where the book deals with some, of course, like real life events like COVID, shutting down Hollywood to a certain extent. And then there’s the analog to the downfall of the Weinstein Company and the MeToo movement. Can you tell me a little bit about the decision to work in these real life events into your book and how much you were thinking? We wanted to be, I guess, fiction versus drawn from reality.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I’m always interested in that mix the way that novels can anchor their get a sense of veracity any way through anchoring events to topical issues or current events. And I always knew I wanted to do that in the novel, but you have to do it somewhat coyly or artfully or your novel becomes topical, right? That’s why in the book you do have a character who is very much like Harvey Weinstein, but it isn’t Harvey Weinstein you have. A movement which in real life is me too.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: But in the novel I call it 50.8, so that the novel is announcing itself as fiction. But as. A distillation of truth. Type of fiction. So that you’re always understanding. You’re reading a novel. It’s it’s storytelling. But you’re sure meant to reflect on its setting as your own setting. Mm hmm. It’s really interesting. And I tried to do this in the book. When a writer plays with the truth and I really mean plays with so in a sense that it’s playful and that has some scintillation to it, I guess. Mm hmm.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: And I feel like reflecting on your own work is sometimes kind of tough. Like, I know I tend to be very critical of the things that I write or produce. Like when you are reading your own novel and going over it. At what point do you think I’ve successfully done what I set out to do? Like, I think it’s achieving this playfulness as well. How do you decide with yourself that you’ve accomplished what you set out to do?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: When I set out to write the book, I didn’t put any pressure on myself that I’d ever offer it to others to read. I just wanted to try and write a novel and see where it went. About two thirds of the way through when I’d written, I don’t know, probably about 110,000 words, something like that. Mm hmm. Once I got into the second part and the characters were headed toward one another in conflict, I felt like, All right, this is something that I’ll probably end up showing people. And that notched it up in terms of what I expected of it. Because as soon as I was going to share it with others, the editorial process took on a different sort of feel. Mm hmm. And even as I kept writing, I started editing myself as I was writing in a different kind of way.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Mm hmm. It just caused me to, I suppose, care a lot more about the story’s presentation because I didn’t want to sully the form of of the novel with some, you know, with a book that wasn’t creditable and certainly not one with my name on the cover. Hmm. And I also, just on a more base level, I didn’t want to take it out and fail to get it published. Yeah. So it really did change once I decided others were probably going to end up reading it. Mm hmm.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: And of course, once you start taking it out, that opens up an entire kind of second step of working on anything, which is working with an editor on what you’ve already written.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: How did you find that process? As someone who’s obviously had a lot of collaborative work in the past, like as an actor, as a playwright, as a director? What was it like kind of encountering it in in the literature space?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Well, to compare it to what you do as an actor, I mean, it almost couldn’t be more different because as an actor you perform in a movie and then it is truly your performance is edited together by. Other people. And at a minimum, that’s going to be the director and an editor. Often when you’re in a studio movie that’s going to be a director, an editor. Studio executives, maybe the head of the studio. And if they’re test marketing the movie, then your performance gets inflected further by what audiences have to say on these scorecards that they fill out. And so you truly lose control of what it is you’ve offered once you leave the SAT. Mm hmm.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: As a filmmaker, I generally have final cut when I direct movies, and I’ve generally written the script myself. Although a major difference is, is that because movies are so expensive to make, you really do have to take into consideration what your financier says and how audiences are responding. You can’t be utterly insouciant in the way that you can with a novel. With a novel. You write it, you write it, and then give it to a series of editors. Mm hmm. If you’re lucky and several want to do your novel, you end up choosing from among several editors. And then, yes, it’s a collaboration, but the numbers aren’t there like they are in the movie business. And so ultimately, you can do what you want.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: So as an example, in my novel, there are a lot of stories inside of stories because I was really interested in the way that a novelist can diverge and digress, hopefully, while always moving a story forward. I wouldn’t call what I wrote a potboiler. I think it’s an easy read, but it is 450 pages and you do get a lot of backstory for the different characters, and some people might be impatient with that. I’m not. It’s what I wanted to do and it’s what I set out to do, and I got to make the final determination with input from my wonderful editor, Chris Heiser. But I got to make the final determination and I didn’t have to worry about a kind of popularity contest. I could I could do the novel on my own terms. Hmm. And that’s what’s special about being an author, I think.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: And speaking of the differences between these fields, I’m also curious how your experience as an actor and as a director and playwright affects your fiction writing. Acting obviously involves a lot of character study where you kind of have to get to the heart of what does this person want, what what drives them? Do you think that has an effect on how you write these characters and how you want to shape them in the book?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I guess in a lot of ways I was like, you know, the little boy with the thumb in the dike where I’d always wanted to write a novel and never had the guts or frankly, the experience and ability to it. I do feel like it took me 45 years to when I was in my mid-fifties before I said, All right, I’m going to try this. And during that time, I wrote plays, I wrote screenplays, I directed movies, and I acted. And I read a lot of books. I read a lot of novels. Short ones, long ones, prolix ones, lean ones. I mean, it was, you know, every everything you can imagine. And I was just building up and building up and building up.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Also, this is the thumb in the dike metaphor, a real appetite for being able to describe stuff in prose. Because in writing plays and in making movies, you don’t do that. So in writing plays, it’s dialogue. And really what a production looks like is up to the director.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Right?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: In a novel, it’s prose description, and that’s why you go and read a novel. That’s what’s exciting. That’s the novel ness, not novelty, but the novel of a novel. And I’m really interested in whatever form an artistic endeavor is taking in the thing ness of the thing. Why? A play must be a play. Why a film must be a film. Why a painting must be a painting. Why a novel must be a novel. And so I just let loose. I let all the water, you know, that was behind that thumb just crashed through the dam. And I liked writing a lot of words in describing the world of the novel where these characters come into conflict with one another. Mm hmm.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: I was lucky enough to attend a talk you did with Del Toro about your new book, and you mentioned with regards to kind of going to this degree of detail and describing what’s going on that you had to sort of teach yourself to be unafraid about going to that extreme. Was there a particular point after which you felt like you had overcome that or kind of were only enjoying it rather than worrying that things were getting too long?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I think ultimately I did restrain myself. The novel was much longer. It had many more digressions, and so I cut those back. The novel was, I’d say, easily 100 pages longer. So wow, maybe even more. I think it probably the original draft would have been 600 pages instead of 450. So 25% longer and gone. I cut back as much of it as I could.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Without? Well, no. I could have cut back a lot more. I cut back short of that because I wanted a degree of digression. There was this great quote from David Foster Wallace about Infinite Jest when his editor was just begging him to cut it back and he said, No, I want this book to be hard labor for the reader.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Now, I don’t want that in City of Blows. Make no mistake, I want it to be an easy read, I think. You know, if I’m walking down the beach on Fire Island this summer and I see somebody with the book, nothing will make me happier. So I think it’s an easy read. I think the writing is clean and the digressions at times, which are really stories inside of stories where you go into characters backgrounds are meant not only to be tolerable, but to be kind of fun and challenging in a good way. And you always get back to the thrust of the story. But I wanted some of that in there because it’s a novel and I wanted it to be a novel.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yeah. I really loved reading all that interweaving. It is really impressive. Like, especially when you take a step back and see how many stories are kind of winding through this. And to that end, I wanted to ask about your, I guess, structuring process for this book. Like, are you much of an outline or how did you go about intertwining these stories and kind of keeping track of where you are and making it all still cogent?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I’m not an outline or on paper, but I’ve outlined it generally in my head, but I like for characters to surprise me. Mm hmm. And in particular, the David Leavitt character room. Most people will say, oh, well, that’s that’s him writing about himself. It’s not He’s a fictional character with who shares a lot of my background, particularly in terms of schooling.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Right.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: But he is not I and he surprised me when he did something in the book that I wouldn’t do. And I like to leave room for that to happen. And so I don’t want to over outline something that I did in general know the whole story and also the way the novel would be structured stylistically. So you learn about some characters at seminal moments in their lives and part one.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yeah.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: There’s a conflict in part two. It’s resolved in part three. I knew that was going to happen and I knew the conflict was going to be over the making of one movie versus the making of another. Yeah. And who owns the director’s time and how people fight over that and why?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Mm hmm. But I also was writing the novel in 2018. I started writing in that I think probably the early summer of 2018. And in 2019 I was out in Los Angeles in the middle of writing it. But doing press for this movie, Just Mercy and also for Watchmen and COVID was headed toward the West Coast, and there were wildfires everywhere. And I thought, okay, I’ve got to make room for all this. And suddenly the novel changed to being something about a specific moment.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Mm hmm. There is now, because it was 2019. It’s effectively four years ago. It’s kind of a historical novel in a way of very recent history. But it’s it’s anchored in 2019 and it’s anchored by COVID. And it’s anchored specifically by what was going on in Meta and Black Lives Matter at that moment. And the wildfires. Hmm.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: So forgive me if this is a misread, but you mentioned you started thinking about writing this or started writing about this kind of write as these things were happening or write before these things were happening. So in the initial, I guess, nugget of your idea, was it a little more suspended in time? Like was there still a particular moment that you were thinking to set this book in?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Had I not decided to set it when COVID was happening?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yeah.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: It would have been set for 2023 or 2022. So it was meant to be a kind of this is what’s up right now. It wasn’t meant to be historical. It was meant to be absolutely contemporary. And, you know, historical might not even be the appropriate word. I don’t know what the statute of limitations is for something, you know, being contemporary versus historical. But I look at the moment COVID came here as historical.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yeah, absolutely.

June Thomas: We’ll be back with more from Karen’s conversation with Tim Blake Nelson after this.

June Thomas: Now back to Karen’s conversation with Tim Blake Nelson.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: I wanted to ask about your writing process as well. Something that really struck me in what you said in the talk about your writing process was that you try to write every morning, but when you are in an acting job, you have to stop and that affects your work kind of on both ends. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about that, like how you discovered that these things were weighing on each other?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I my career was going really, really well. I was getting work and I was lucky enough. And I never thought I would get to this stage in my life as an actor, nor did I ever think I would deserve it. I’m still not sure I deserve it, but there was more work than I had time for. And so I felt, Well, I’ve got this solved. I choose these roles and then I go do them. And and I know how to work and I do my thing and I’ve got it. I’ve got it lit. And when you believe that something’s wrong, what I learned and what I would do, I was so hubristic in that ways. I would go off and do a part and write while I was working and go into work every day and hand in these roles. And when there was a even when there was a set up change, they were just moving the camera and I had 30 minutes off. I would I would go off and write in my trailer and.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I looked at my work and I thought, Well, it’s okay. I’m still pretty confident about it. But I had a niggling doubt, maybe about some of the work I was turning in when I would see the movies. But then I suddenly felt how complacent and jaded I had become. And I just looked around and said, I want to feel the way these. Younger artists feel. I’ve lost that. Mm hmm. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep going on in this complacent, hubristic way. I’m going to start over.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: And then I was lucky enough to get to work with Daniel Day-Lewis on Lincoln. And it was just that did it. I just said, Don’t waste these opportunities you’re having. You’re one of the lucky few who get to go from movie to movie and play these interesting parts. Stop wasting it. And I did an inventory of everything that I felt was inhibiting deeper and more exciting work. And at the top of the list was the fact that I was writing on other projects while I was playing a role, and it was hindering my concentration. And so I stopped. And it’s one of the reasons that I hope in a way, my acting has gotten better.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: I’m curious if if how that manifests with your book as well. Like obviously you mentioned you started writing this around 2018, so this would have been a couple of years after you had this revelation about your, I guess, working style. What do you do to I guess, make sure that all of these projects like are interesting, whether it’s acting or writing, Because this I understand you had to sort of come back to periodically as you were doing other jobs.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I guess what I do, I mean, because you were this all started by asking about work habits and writing habits. Is I simplified? I very much simplified my life as well. Mm hmm. So I basically I’m a father of three boys. The last one is about to leave. But while raising them, I would like to think I mean, I think they would say I was a diligent and involved father. I’m the same way as a husband. I’ve been married 28 years now at 29 and June.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I write a direct I act. I really I don’t do any social media. Mm hmm. I use my time diligently and with discipline. And so in a period when I’m not acting and I can be writing, I really write. And I do it every day. And I do it until my brain, too, can’t take it anymore. And when I’m playing a part, it’s all about that part.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Mm hmm. I think you have to do that. I don’t consider myself unique or special in this regard. I think that I look around and the actors and writer directors that I whom I respect, and certainly the novelist whom I respect, are also disciplined. And they organize their way, their lives, in ways that allow for a level of performance that that is going to reward them. I imagine that you’re the same way. You concentrate on what you do and you organize your life in a way that maximizes that. I just happen to do a lot of different things, and so I have to compartmentalize it. And then I guess I suppose I get very zealous about my use of time.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: To that end, I feel like writing is one of those things that can get tricky with time, where you find yourself staring at the same word or page for an hour and realize that you haven’t really made any progress because you don’t know how to progress past that. Is that you mentioned that you stop writing when your brain can’t take it anymore. Is that the kind of thing that you have learned how to recognize? Or you say, okay, like I need to stop for the day or else this is going to be a waste of my time?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Yeah, I’ve I’ve lived for long enough now to to be able to read what’s up. It’s really clear when I’m working on lines. What I do now as an actor. So I. I like to show up on set with the whole script learned. Mm hmm. So that I’m not learning pages the night before, ever. That takes a lot of prep in usually about six weeks to two months before of just every day working on the text. And man, does my brain tell me when I had enough in those days. And I can only do it for two or 3 hours.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Mm hmm. But that’s great, because then I can write for another four or 5 hours that day. And use a different aspect of my mind and tire that out and then maybe go back to memorizing, play the guitar or, you know. Yeah, you just I know how to hear my self in conversation with myself. Yeah.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: That’s a valuable skill, I think. Still something I’m working on.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: So you mentioned that for this book, you started writing it without any expectation of ever showing it to anybody. I know that you’re now working on your second novel. Are you approaching it the same way, or do you feel a little more pressure this time?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I don’t know. I’m, you know, we’ll see how the first one does. It seems to be selling well now. And so perhaps there’ll be an appetite for someone to publish my next novel. So. But I don’t want to take that for granted. I might not even be able to put it out if my first one doesn’t work. But no, I’m. I’m. I don’t lie awake at night at all, thinking I’ve got to make sure that this one gets published. If it doesn’t get published. I will not say, well, I wasted my time on that.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: And I feel the same way about City of Blows and had nobody wanted to publish it, I wouldn’t have despaired over that. I would have said, Well, people didn’t think it was good enough and so therefore it didn’t get published and maybe I dodged a bullet. But I wouldn’t have regretted any of the time I spent on it because I honestly grew as a as a person and as a writer. And, you know, I grew in a sense of myself as somebody who could write a long form prose piece. And, you know, I was very excited by that alone, whether or not it got published. And I guess I feel the same about the next one.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Mm hmm. And that’s liberating. It’s not a trick I’m playing on myself. Mm hmm. I say this, but it is incredibly liberating. And I always say to two young writers who ask, Well, how did you. I just can’t get started. I’m so afraid. And I beat myself up. And I you know, what I always say is. When you go to.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Right. Always remind yourself nobody has to read it unless you show it to them. And if you take that mindset, then you can write anything because it’s private. It’s just like having private thoughts. And, you know, this is not Orwellian. There aren’t thought police. Mm hmm. Your thoughts or your own and thoughts are not illegal and your writing can’t be held against you if you don’t show it to anyone. So just write and look at it and work on it until you consider it fit to share with others. And if you don’t ever see it worthy of sharing with others, are you going to tell me you wasted your time by writing?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I mean, that’s never a waste of time. You’ve done something gorgeous by writing, even if you never show it to anyone. I’ve got 25 journals up in my. You know, I write in a journal and I’ve never I’ve never even reread it. I’ve never shown it to anyone. I wouldn’t grade any of my journal writing or anything. That’s a great way to spend time. You grow when you do that. So, yeah, I’m, you know, we’ll see. We’ll see if if the second one ever comes out. Yeah.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: That’s such a wonderful mindset.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: And I think something a mindset that takes most of us a long time to sort of come to terms with early. Speaking from personal experience, it took me a while to get to that point. Have you always felt that way about your writing, or was it something that you did feel a little, I guess, trepidation over as a younger man?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I always have said, You don’t have to show this to anyone. Mm hmm. And that has been liberating. I’ve only recently decided and I mean truly decided if I never show this to anyone, I will not have wasted my time. Mm hmm. Recently, have I come to that conclusion? So I have a play that I’ve written now. A new play?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Mm hmm. And I got to do a workshop of it at Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer, and I’m incredibly proud of it. I love it. I’m really excited about it. And I’ve got a wonderful director of marketing Davey, who’s going to direct the production. But we can’t. I mean, it’s. It’s a horrible time to try and get a play produced right now because there’s a glut from COVID and theaters are really struggling. And my play is it’s only a five person play, but it’s the set is complicated and probably will be somewhat expensive. And so I’m not even really I took it out a little bit, but it quickly became obvious to me that it just wasn’t a good time to bring it out.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: And so I’ve got this play sitting there that I really want up, and maybe it’ll get produced in my lifetime. Maybe it won’t. Who knows? But I’m sure glad I wrote it, and I learned a lot about myself in life, and it made me think about issues to try and that the play grapples with and coming to that level of comfort. And ease with myself and the amount of time I put into stuff and kind of suppressing the resentments that used to inflict my thinking when I was having trouble getting something produced that has taken a long that that has taken a long time. I’d say that only started in my fifties.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us about your new book.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: It was my pleasure. And again, thank you for your interest.

June Thomas: Karen. I really love that conversation. First of all, he’s crazy smart. But I particularly enjoyed hearing how Tim’s process and especially his understanding of what he needs to do to produce the best possible work has evolved over the years. One thing that really struck me about that was his decision to prioritize focusing on one big thing at a time. You know, he stopped writing between takes when he was working on a movie because he realized it wasn’t good for either the quality of his acting or his writing. And that’s something that freelancers, which, after all, is a group that includes actors, directors and writers, often have a hard time with because you typically have to combine a whole bunch of projects to pay the bills. So I wondered, do you have any advice for producing your best work when you have to switch from one project to another with some frequency?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: It is really hard and I was similarly struck by what he said about that because I was like, This takes a lot of introspection. I feel like to get to that point to know that about your work and your process. Yeah. More broadly speaking, I think the best thing I can say, especially if you’re not really in a position where you have the luxury of, say, taking a month off just to focus on a script, which is something I dream about all the time.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yes. And the best thing I can really do is to prioritize and also make sure that you leave yourself markers as to what you did and what you intended to do next in case you have to leave a project on the backburner for a while. By prioritizing, I mean figuring out what project needs to get done soonest, whether it’s because you have a set deadline or because the payday you’d get from it would help you in the short or long term. Yeah. And then knocking those things out, especially if it’s something that, you know, you can do quickly and just get it off your plate. Yeah. And again, for more long term or intensive projects, it’s really important to make sure you haven’t totally forgotten what you were doing. When you jump back into it, as I expect, you may not be able to only work on that for as long as you’d want to or until it’s finished.

June Thomas: Yeah, that’s a good advice of like just leave some breadcrumbs for yourself because I know I’ve done that. Like you think, Yeah, I’m not going to forget. This is my life’s work. How could I forget? And then you come back to it after even just a few days and you’re like, Sorry, what was I doing?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Yeah, Yeah.

June Thomas: What was this about? Yeah. So that’s very smart. But I was very convinced when he said he uses his time diligently and with discipline. And, you know, I actually found it pretty inspiring because, you know, he’s obviously mega-successful. It’s not necessarily all that relatable to someone like me, but like, yeah, you know, that of course, he must have he must have not only prioritized but prioritized very well, you know, but when you’re lower down the achievement ladder, it can feel important to do some of the things that he said. I just don’t do that. I don’t do social media. He said, Well, I feel like I need to kind of be aware, at least, of building a network and marketing and, you know, doing all the other things that he has been able to issue. Mm hmm. What advice do you have about that?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: It really is such a tough balancing act. And there’s a degree to which, especially in the contemporary landscape, where everyone seems to need a side hustle. And audience size matters almost as much, if not more, than whether you’re actually good at your job. That what you’re talking about. This networking and self marketing feels like it is inherently a part of your job or something that you have to do. It just doesn’t seem like something you can ignore or leave by the wayside. And the problem is that it often does feel distracting, like the time that you spend emailing people or DMing people, it takes away from the time that you could be spending actually creating work.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yeah. As for part of my answer, I don’t think this is necessarily universal or something that will be a sell for everyone, but I think the answer to at least the networking problem for me has been to have networking in mind less and making friends and mind more, if that makes sense. Like the people that I meet and the relationships that I want to cultivate are with people that I want to spend my time with outside of work that they could or couldn’t help. My career is kind of immaterial to that. It’s just like, I like this person. I want to spend more time with them. Because if you solely think about people in terms of what they can do for you, they’ll mostly be able to sense that. And it’s not a good basis for a relationship, right?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: As for self marketing, though, this is a lot harder. I really don’t know how to avoid it because for anyone who hasn’t already established some measure of success or has some wealth to fall back on, it unfortunately feels extremely necessary. Right. I think I may have said this on the show, but literally I’ve been told like one or maybe two jobs. When I got the jobs, they were like one of the things that we did consider when hiring you is that you have a pretty a relatively large like audience built in. And I was like, this sucks. Like, this shouldn’t be something that was taken into consideration. Yeah. And I think you can sort of see that people don’t like doing it either in that when people reach a certain stratosphere of success, you can see a lot of people kind of drawing back from social. Or media or handing it off to an assistant.

June Thomas: Yeah.

June Thomas: He also mentioned making the best use of time by identifying tasks that use different parts of the brain so that you can switch to tattoo when you just can’t do any more. Task one for the day. Is that a strategy you use? And if so, could you share what you switch to when you can’t do any more writing?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: It’s very practical advice, and I think it’s something that I do due to a lot of the time. When you’ve hit a wall for the day, you can kind of tell pretty easily what you’re like, I’m not going to get anything more done. Yeah, I’ll say that my particular method might not be super productive though, in that my switching tends to be like between writing projects. So it’s still writing. And in those cases it’s a matter of feeling more inspired by one thing in that particular moment, like having a better sense of where that story’s going or having a specific idea for a scene. Whereas with the other projects I’ll just have nothing. But in the cases where writing as a whole feels impossible, there’s a mix of things that I’ll move on to some more productive than others from like sketching or doing chores or playing games or watching a movie. So it kind of just depends on the day.

June Thomas: Yeah, And I think too, that, like I’ve learned this from our co-host Isaac, that, you know, writing isn’t only about, you know, working with your pen or sitting down at your keyboard. You know, I often will switch from writing to research, partly because I really, really like research and I can get lost in it. So I have to get real myself back. But that feels like it does, you know, engage a different part of your brain so that yeah.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: I know you’re talking actually, funnily enough, in the talk that I went to with Tim and Guillermo del Toro, one of the things that Ghahraman said was even if he’s not like sitting at his desk and writing, he sort of considers everything that he’s doing as part of that process. Yeah, like I think that we’ve talked about that too, where it’s like just going out to like a museum or going out to see a movie can inform the work that you’re doing and it’s helpful to think about things that way.

June Thomas: I think absolutely. I have to admit that I was kind of moved by his really very well articulated position that writing is something you can do just for yourself or maybe even for its own sake. Yeah, it doesn’t have to be an income stream. It doesn’t have to be a side hustle. It can be something you just do for like joy and self-discovery, you know. It made me think of how we often look at kids and like our minds are blown by the way that they can just invent and draw and tell stories without any of the, you know, agita we bring to these projects. And I’m sure there’s some explanation for that in brain science. But I also think that almost rampant creativity is possible because they’re just making what comes into their head rather than thinking about, you know, saleability or trying to niche down or any of that. What do you think about that?

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: I totally, totally agree. And I think it also has a lot to do with an increasing fear of failure as you grow up. Like when you’re young, I think the consequences of a, quote, bad idea tend to not occur to you at all. Whereas the older you get, the more you’re told you should worry what other people think about you and that showing something someone, quote bad will make them think less of you.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Basically, if your thing won’t get an A-plus, then what’s the point? And the more you grow up, the more you get graded, you know, where it’s like you go into school and then it’s like, Oh, like this writing sucks. You got an F on it. Or like, this writing was really good, you got an A-plus. And then even after that, it’s like you’re you feel like we’ve talked about, like not taking pitch rejections personally, but it’s hard to because when that happens, you’re like, Oh, my idea was bad. Like something that I did was wrong. More and more, your idea, the success of your idea tends to hinge on other people as you get older, which is not something you really experience as a child to that degree. Yeah, and I struggle with this a lot too. Like, I get frustrated when I’m not good at something straight off the bat. I don’t like showing people my writing until I think it’s good because I have trouble convincing myself that it’s for me or that it’s wonderful that I’ve written something in the first place. But I’m trying to get it right.

June Thomas: Yeah, and I really do think too, that I mean, as he mentioned, you know, he’s he’s in his late fifties and he’s done, you know, he’s got a lot of reps and he’s, you know, what did he say? He’s got 45 journals. You know, he’s he has all of that material that, you know, wasn’t for production. You know, he’s writing his first novel after he’s 50. And but he’d written a lot in various genres. And he you know, he just had more of a sense of the joy of it. So, yeah, that feels relevant, too. Yeah. Well, that’s all the time we have this week. Unless, of course, you’re a sleepless subscriber, in which case you will soon hear a little something extra from this week’s interview. But that’s not the only benefit of Slate Plus membership. You’ll also get extra segments on shows like this one and Culture Gabfest and the Waves, entire bonus episodes of shows like One Year and Big Little Mood, and you’ll never hit a paywall on the Slate site.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Thank you so much to our guest, Tim Blake Nelson. Go read his book and thank you to our superb producer, Cameron Drews. We’ll be back next week with Isaac Butler’s interview with Torn and Zack Adams, the programmers behind the computer game Dwarf Fortress. Until then, get back to work.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Hello Slate plus listeners is here is an extra bit from my conversation with Tim Blake Nelson. To return to City of Blows. I wanted to ask a little bit about the design process as well, or all the stuff that kind of comes after you are nominally done writing the book. Having put out like my own book last year, like I remember that was some sort of a second wind where I felt more excited when I saw what the designers at the publisher were doing with it. What was that process like for your book?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I was so incredibly thankful for Chris Heizer and the folks at Unnamed Crafts because my idea for the cover, once I started thinking about it as a book that I was going to try to get published was so much less interesting than what they came up with. And the first examples they gave me weren’t so appealing to me. And then suddenly they came up with what’s presently there. And I honestly it astounded me. I just I just knew that was it. And yet, as you experienced yourself with your own book and I’m so glad you said that because I was elated and it did give me, as you describe, a second wind to hold something in my hand that I felt, you know, I really actually felt this actually, I felt this makes the novel better because it teaches the reader what sort of a book that it is.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Yeah. Can I ask what your original idea for the cover was?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Oh, it’s so lame. I thought, you know, the Hollywood Hills. And then instead of the Hollywood sign, the City of Pillows and. And I. And I was even stupid enough and to reveal that to the publisher, and he said, No, I really I think that’s a little obvious. And we have a relationship where I you know, I like people telling me I don’t like them couching words. And I said, Yeah, you’re right. It’s really quite obvious. And they found this French artist and they were able to get her to allow them to use her drawing.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Mm hmm. For the cover of the book and then aspects of it for the chapter headings. And it’s wonderful. I suspect that my experience was unique because I found I didn’t have to get that involved. They just sort of presented me with stuff, and I was excited about it. Mm hmm. I imagine that writers far more experienced than I will get more heavily involved in the look of their novel.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: I wonder, because I had the same experience where I saw what they did and I was like, This is great. I have nothing more to add. Like, I think I’m.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: Going to get your book.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: Well, thank you very much.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: So I also want to know, like what other I guess books or even movies kind of weighed in as influences on the story. Like, what were you looking at as you were writing this book?

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: I’m my favorite artist in any medium, whether it’s music, filmmaking, Poetry fiction is Tom Waits. Mm hmm. And Tom Waits has talked about how he just has his antennae out. And if his antenna I can capture AM FM, serious air traffic control, everything. It’s just imagine that. And he’s just taking in whatever he can gather. And that influences what he does, how he writes his words, how he writes his music. Even the construction and song order of each album with interstitial sounds, it’s all goes in there.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: And that inspired me to look everywhere for inspiration, and I certainly do do that. That said, I’ve read novels all my life since I was probably ten years old, maybe even younger. And I still read novel after novel after novel. And I guess my biggest influences for this book would be Philip Roth, Saul Bellow. And strangely guy writing today because of his novel The Marriage Plot, which I really loved. Jeffrey Eugenides.

Kathryn Hahn, Karen Han: And that’s it for this week’s Slate Plus segment. Thank you so much, as always for your support. And we’ll see you next week.

Tim, Tim Blake Nelson: So.

June Thomas: Hey, listeners, I hope you’ve been enjoying working overtime. The bi weekly bonus version of Working focused on listener questions, which you can catch every other Thursday. We love to give advice and we want to answer your questions, respond to your concerns, and generally share ideas on that show. Is there a creative problem you’re having or a creative practice that’s working very well for you right now? If so, drop us a line at working at Slate.com or call us and leave a voicemail at three or 4933. W. O. R. K. And if you’re enjoying this episode, don’t forget to subscribe to working wherever you get your podcasts.