Usually, when you're talking about work with other writers it's because something seriously bad is going on with your work and you've absolutely thrown out a lifeline and you're hoping that someone will help you with something. Either there's some bad feeling you have about the work, or sometimes it's not specific - just kind of solidarity.
Chang-Rae LeePart of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's going to happen. You have a broad sense, maybe, but it's this rash leap. It's like spelunking. You kind of create the right path for yourself. But, boy, are there so many points at which you think, absolutely, I'm going down the wrong hole here. And I can't get back to the right hole. I'm not going to be able to get this section back to the right hole - so I'm just going to have to cut it.
Chang-Rae LeeI rarely talk about work with writers, and I love getting together with writers. I think writers are great to get together with, because we can talk about everything. I think that's why I enjoy it. Writers tend to be pretty open-minded, and pretty profane and loose. They have fun minds.
Chang-Rae LeeAnd it occurred to me that in this new millennial life of instant and ubiquitous connection, you don't in fact communicate so much as leave messages for one another, these odd improvisational performances, often sorry bits and samplings of ourselves that can't help but seem out of context. And then when you do finally reach someone, everyone's so out of practice or too hopeful or else embittered that you wonder if it would be better not to attempt contact at all.
Chang-Rae LeeThey're not parallel at all. They're my concerns, but how they're expressed particularly on the page is completely divorced from who I am in my street life.
Chang-Rae Lee