{"id":277,"date":"2006-12-01T16:14:11","date_gmt":"2006-12-01T16:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/?p=277"},"modified":"2006-12-06T15:09:50","modified_gmt":"2006-12-06T15:09:50","slug":"zadie-smith-on-buffy-on-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/01\/zadie-smith-on-buffy-on-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"zadie smith. on buffy. on writing."},"content":{"rendered":"

Zadie Smith once told me I had to be fearless if I wanted to be a writer. <\/p>\n

We were talking about television shows we adored and daughters we didn’t have when I said it: “I just quit my job. To finish that novel everyone and their mothers are writing.” I bit my lip because I knew she had heard it a million times before. “I’m scared to death.” <\/p>\n

I didn’t want to like her. The impossibly pretty woman from North London. With the shy face and the nervous foot. I made my mind up on it some time back in the Y2K era when I first heard of her success with the May Anthologies. Then<\/strong> I read her work. <\/p>\n

Every now and again books come out to huge hype – and that’s all they ever are. I wanted hers to be this way. I wanted to believe it<\/strong> couldn’t be done because then I wouldn’t feel bad for being too afraid to try. But no one so effortlessly writes life as does Zadie Smith. The layers. The depth. The simplicity.<\/p>\n

“You can’t be afraid.” She followed my declaration with a shake and a nod of her head. A kind of almost sigh that said I know<\/em>. “If you’re going to do it, you have to make like The Slayer (we share an admiration for this thing Whedon-esque) and be fearless.” <\/p>\n

\"Zadie<\/center><\/a><\/p>\n

The British novelist spends two hours a day perusing Gawker and doing other things mundane before she gets down to business. Before she casts off her own fear. <\/p>\n

“This book (On Beauty) was incredibly hard work.” I imagined those graceful fingers drumming on a desk or holding a pen the way my grandfather would hold a shovel. Maybe.<\/em> “Being a writer is hard work. But people do it.” <\/p>\n

She did it. <\/p>\n

Zadie Smith wasn’t Easton Ellis. She was working class. Before she made her own way. With a voice and a word. With perfect pitch and intonation and clarity of tone. <\/p>\n

Today I’m<\/strong> trying to do it. But I’m afraid. Because when it is finished, it is done. I’ll no longer have the idea of all that may be<\/em> to get me by. It will either do what it’s meant to do…or it won’t. And if it doesn’t, where will that leave me? <\/p>\n

Truman Capote said that finishing a novel is like shooting a child. If he meant the mere thought makes you wretch and fall down in a sick faint, I’d have to agree. My own is almost complete; and I’m scared to death. <\/p>\n

I guess it’s time to make like Zadie. To make like The Slayer. To be fearless. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zadie Smith once told me I had to be fearless if I wanted to be a writer. We were talking about television shows we adored and daughters we didn’t have when I said it: “I just quit my job. To finish that novel everyone and their mothers are writing.” I bit my lip because I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hum-drum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}