My writing process is ritualized and monotonous, but there's no other way to get the job done. All other fiction writers I've met say the same thing.
Douglas CouplandIf you don't change, then what's the point of anything happening to you? It'll still be happening to an unchanged person.
Douglas CouplandOne of my own stray childhood fears had been to wonder what a whale might feel like had it been born and bred in captivity, then released into the wild-into its ancestral sea-its limited world instantly blowing up when cast into the unknowable depths, seeing strange fish and tasting new waters, not even having a concept of depth, not knowing the language of any whale pods it might meet. It was my fear of a world that would expand suddenly, violently, and without rules or laws: bubbles and seaweed and storms and frightening volumes of dark blue that never end.
Douglas CouplandAnd then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.
Douglas CouplandHISTORICAL SLUMMING: the act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack industrial sites, rural villageslocations where time appears to have been frozen many years backso as to experience relief when one returns back to'the present'.
Douglas CouplandWhen someone tells you theyโve just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that theyโre locked into jobs they hate; that theyโre broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that theyโre fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. Itโs profoundly depressing.
Douglas Coupland