I quit law in 1988 to start writing, and it took me 17 years from that point to get a book contract. I guess you can say I was on the slow train.
BEN FOUNTAINI quit law in 1988 to start writing, and it took me 17 years from that point to get a book contract. I guess you can say I was on the slow train.
BEN FOUNTAINI’m ashamed and embarrassed to say that I’ve read very little of David Foster Wallace’s work. It’s a huge gap in my education, one of many.
BEN FOUNTAINIf you want to write, then write; if you don’t want to write, then don’t write. I fell into the former category, and I just made the decision that I’d keep on because I liked it and might someday do something decent.
BEN FOUNTAINMaybe the light’s at the other end of the tunnel.
BEN FOUNTAINI have a horror of being self-indulgent and wasting time, and there is that risk in doing this kind of work. Are you totally deluded in sitting down at a desk every day and trying to write something? Is it self-indulgent, or might it possibly lead to something worthwhile?
BEN FOUNTAINIf you could figure out how to live with family then you’d gone a long way toward finding your peace.
BEN FOUNTAINEruptions of talent continue to happen in Haiti, in spite of everything.
BEN FOUNTAINFrom about the age of 15 or 16 I’d had the notion that I wanted to write fiction, and I’d done enough in college to satisfy myself that I had a knack for it – I wouldn’t call it “talent” – though I wondered if I’d ever have the guts to actually commit to it.
BEN FOUNTAINI kept going back while I was writing the novel – which never sold, may it rest in peace – and by the time it was finished I had too many connections to Haiti to walk away.
BEN FOUNTAINIt’s amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course.
BEN FOUNTAINI thought when I started writing that I’d have a book out in four or five years, and as it became apparent that that wasn’t going to happen, I became increasingly frustrated and unsure of myself.
BEN FOUNTAINI really had to decide why I was writing. I had no interest in going back to law; I very briefly – for about six hours – considered going to get my MBA, but in the end, I realized that the only work I really wanted to do was write.
BEN FOUNTAINThere was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.
BEN FOUNTAINAmericans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.
BEN FOUNTAINI took two fiction-writing courses in college and majored in literature. I felt that I had a knack though I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a talent. But it scared me. I felt it was a childish thing wanting to write and that I would forget about it eventually.
BEN FOUNTAINI got brilliant stories from people who’d never set foot in an MFA program and had published very little, and terrible stories from people who’d published a lot and had all the credentials. It was all over the map and that was part of the fun.
BEN FOUNTAIN