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I don't think fake people living in a fake house in a fake suburb are any less dismissible or believable than a fake psychic attending a fake school in a fake town. Nothing's inherently believable about any kind of fiction, because all of it's untrue.

Heidi Julavits

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Heidi Julavits
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: April 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Portland
Maine
Less
Untrue
People
Living
Suburbs
House
Psychic
School
Psychics
Nothing
Fake
Suburb
Town
Believable
Kind
Towns
Attending
Think
Fiction
Inherently
Thinking

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As a writer, you want to go somewhere else sometimes. You want to vary the terrain that you're exploring.
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I wouldn't be myself if I weren't always trying to be someone else. I only have so much time on this earth and I want to be as many people as possible.
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I'm at that age where I notice friends checking out my face and wondering, Has she been Botoxed? There's a new map there people that are trying to read. I think if I did get any kind of enhancement I would be very public about it. I don't want people wondering - I want them to know.
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No matter what you wear, not everyone is going to understand what you're saying.
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Whenever I hang out with my female friends, I feel like context is never needed. They can just say two words about something, it's like hearing the first two notes of a song and you can always identify the song. They can just say a word and I know exactly what they're talking about.
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I really did for a few weeks think, I'm in pain because the world needs me to save it. Which is so ridiculous and egotistical.
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Whether I'm writing about plumbers or psychics or psychic plumbers, I want to find a creative space that imprisons me usefully, so I can deviate with purpose.
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Sometimes it can be useful to read your bad reviews.
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I obviously read and adore traditional fiction. I teach traditional fiction, I also teach all kind of not-so-traditional fiction. And since I'm such a plot buff, and I'm really such a narrative buff, I can't seem to relinquish my - not just reliance - but excitement about those traditional techniques.
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You know you're screwed when a Western doctor recommends acupuncture.
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If I can just stop being so stressed out, maybe my cancer will get better! This is far less scary than treating a disease of unknown etiology.
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It's fascinating to imagine two successful writers in one house. But when you think about it, it isn't very unusual. In fact, so many writers have writer spouses.
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As such, anything is always possible, even if your protagonist is a plumber. But it's the possibility, the limitless possibilities, of any fake life, that make writing about it so challenging.
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If I'd done the discovery before I wrote the book, then there would be nothing to discover. It would feel dutiful instead of exciting.
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When you are expending much energy on someone else's demise, it's like you weaken your psychic immune system.
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We're taught to find the antecedents to our adult failures in childhood traumas, and so we spend our lives looking bacwards and pointing fingers, rather than bucking up and forging ahead. But what if your childhood was all a big misunderstanding? An elaborate ruse? What does that say about failure? Better yet, what does that say about potential?
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If you agree with an outside person's interpretation of you, that's a happy bit of affirmation. It means you're communicating externally what you believe to be true internally. If you disagree, it helps clarify how you understand yourself. And maybe makes you productively question how to improve your communication skills.
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I guess what I find so interesting about memory, and its role in a person's identity, is how the attempt to achieve accuracy requires you to remove yourself from your life in an authorial manner.
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I used to have a really sharp memory. And its loss has proven destabilizing from an identity perspective.
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I want the plot to be as complicated as possible. Usually I'll write all the way through to an end, and then I go back and try to fix the ending so that it makes sense. I don't think out the plot ahead of time.
Heidi Julavits