Interview with Eddie Wright - CONTEST CLOSED

Friday, November 13th, 2009 | Posted by: Eddie Wright, Henry Baum

An interview with Eddie Wright, author of Broken Bulbs.  Check the end of the interview to see how you can win a copy.

Henry Baum: For people who haven’t yet picked up Broken Bulbs - what’s the novel about: on the most literal level and thematically?

Eddie Wright: Broken Bulbs is about a confused young man named Frank Fisher who gets addicted to actual seeds of inspiration that are injected directly into his brain. His muse/dealer is a girl named Bonnie and they form an uncommon romantic relationship. It explores the origins of creativity and the possible reasons for why Frank feels like life is meaningless and whether or not meaninglessness is a bad thing.

Henry Baum: Your book’s been compared to Philip K. Dick. Was that intentional, or is it just something people say when they think something’s unclassifiable?

Eddie Wright: It wasn’t intentional but I do see similarities between Broken Bulbs and Dick’s writing. I love his stuff and he’s a definite influence on all my writing. When I try to explain Broken Bulbs to someone who doesn’t typically read weird stuff, I usually ask, “Have you ever heard of Philip K. Dick?” A Scanner Darkly is probably my favorite book. At this point, anything that portrays an unreliable, manipulated, science fictiony reality is going to be compared to Dick. Especially if you toss some drugs in there too.

Henry Baum: What are some other literary influences for Broken Bulbs?

Eddie Wright: There were a ton of influences, some fictional some non. The writings of J. Krishnamurti really influenced a lot of the philosophical stuff in the book. Especially Freedom from the Known. He’s one of the few “spiritual” thinkers that I tend to wholeheartedly agree with. He was a real “fuck authority” rebel but he never drifted into nihilism. He rejected the idea of giving yourself over to a higher power and understood that understanding your unique perspective is the secret to understanding everything. John Fante’s Ask the Dust was on my mind as well. He was an amazing rambler. I also thought a lot about Dee Dee Ramone’s autobiography, Lobotomy. The shoddy writing and matter-of-fact-ness about not only drug addiction but every insane thing in his life really appealed to me. Osho’s Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within, David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish, Deepak Chopra’s Perfect Health and Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements also knocked around in my noodle while I knocked out Broken Bulbs.

Henry Baum: The book is half-screenplay. Curious about this - do you see screenplays as an independent artform? Stage plays get published and re-staged. Screenplays usually don’t the same treatment. Is screenwriting something you’re going to inject into work in the future?

Eddie Wright: Screenplays can be an independent artform but it really depends on the writer and the circumstances for which the script was written. If you read someone like Tarantino or Charlie Kaufman then you can see the artistry in the writing because they know they’ll be involved with the production. If you read a spec script that was written with the hopes of ending up in production someday, it may not be as interesting because the writer may hold back on the way he or she would normally describe certain scenes or characters so as not to overly influence or upset a producer or director. Screenwriting is sort of a depressing artform because it’s just a part of a machine. A lot of times its potential is not fully realized until directors and actors add their own input. It’s part of a collaborative effort and in that regard it can’t be expected to fully stand on its own. But adding it into a book is interesting because you can mess with people’s expectations of both standard fiction and screenwriting. Playing with other formats within a book is fun. I’m sure I’ll stick more screenplay stuff in future books. I started out wanting to be a screenwriter but lost hope after finishing a script with a friend of mine and beginning the submission process. It’s a hell of thing trying to find an agent to find an agent to find a producer who may buy your script but never produce it. If you’re not making the movie yourself, I don’t really see a point. Unless of course you’re being paid to write it in the first place.

Henry Baum: Gotta ask: how much of this is autobiographical - including drug use and dysfunctional relationships. The book’s about a fictional drug, but the sense of addiction seems very much from experience.

Eddie Wright: Quite a bit of the book is autobiographical and quite a bit is not. I have never been a drug addict but I do have first-hand experience with drug addiction and dysfunction, both of which are related. Frank’s addiction is not just to his drug but also to his fear, anxiety and depression. Frank’s his own dealer in this regard and I tried to explore an addiction to insecurity, which is a pretty universal theme, I think. I suppose I wrote from the experience of someone who felt insignificant and trapped and scared. We all crave and desire something to the point where it becomes interchangeable with a drug. Frank’s addiction to seeds of inspiration could easily be replaced with heroin or alcohol or porn or Doritos. It’s the idea of needing “something” so bad that it could kill you. I, and hopefully most people, can relate with that. I did own a hamster and I did mistreat the poor bastard, so that part is pretty much yanked right from my childhood.

Henry Baum: Where’d this book come from? There’s a dreamlike quality to it - wondering about your writing habits: where you were when this book was written, how quick it was to write, or drawn out. Was your state at all like Frank’s when you sat down to write? Because what makes Broken Bulbs work so well is that it’s so vivid. It feels like it’s been lived.

Eddie Wright: It was lived. I think a writer should be living his story, if he’s not, he should probably be writing something else. When I wrote Broken Bulbs I was living in New Jersey and working at a local TV news station. Once I decided to sit down and actually do it, it came together pretty quickly. Maybe three months. It took a long time to decide that I actually wanted to write a book though. It was a screenplay first but one day I decided to get inside Frank’s head and ended up writing what is now the first chapter and I realized that I had something that was pretty cool. There was a bunch of crap that was added and removed and added again and removed again. At one point, werewolves were involved! Certain portions of the book were written in a revved-up, caffeinated state. I would wander around the room and basically assault the keyboard. None of it was written very carefully. Careful’s for suckers. What I essentially do is purge onto the page. I try to get the feeling out in words then I go back and try to figure out what the hell I just did. This usually involves adding more description, cutting and moving chunks of words around to see the best places they fit. Some things are written out of order, some are written straight through. In college, I studied video editing and worked in the field for five years. I think some of that training rubbed off on my writing. I like to find it all in the editing. I tend to visualize portions of the story then just sort of wing it. I don’t plan much. I usually have a loose idea of where I want to end up and try to get there. I almost always end up in a totally different place though. I’ve discovered that if I keep a goal too firmly implanted in my mind I end up with artificial, forced garbage. I want things to be messy. I like when things feel crafted but not polished. I like when they feel like there was a guy in a dark room patching stuff together with glue and string.

Henry Baum: Are there themes you want to express in all of your writing? Is Broken Bulbs a kind of introduction to your worldview?

Eddie Wright: I think so. I start everything with a theme but the themes that interest me are pretty inward. Right now, I’m very interested in confusion and creativity and Broken Bulbs is very much a combination of my thoughts on those two subjects. I don’t want my characters to know too much about anything. I like uncertainty. Broken Bulbs is a pretty good example of my worldview. It’s all an overwhelming, chaotic mess, but there are some nuggets of truth floating around out there. You just need to recognize how you interpret the ideas of chaos and truth in order to find those nuggets.

Henry Baum: What exactly is Tyranny of the Muse - it’s related to Broken Bulbs, but is it necessary to read BB to get what Tyranny’s about?

Eddie Wright: Tyranny of the Muse is a blog that features serialized adventures centered around Bonnie, the muse from Broken Bulbs. It explores her past and post-Broken Bulbs life. Broken Bulbs is being featured in its entirety in Tyranny of the Muse so if you haven’t read it, you can. I think if you’ve already read Broken Bulbs than it’ll be fun to learn a little bit more about this mysterious character. It’s also a place that will feature work by other artists. It’s basically centered around this concept of inspiration. I want artists to find some inspiration in the writing and submit their work, in any medium and I’ll display it. I’m looking for illustrations, paintings, music, films, anything.

Henry Baum: Are you going all-in with web fiction, or do you see yourself publishing print-only in the future. How’s that project going? Does web fiction fulfill something different than writing with print in mind?

Eddie Wright: The web fiction is just an addition to Broken Bulbs right now. It’s just something to have out there while I work on my new book. I’ll eventually collect everything and release it in some way. I’m thinking an ebook and a limited print edition complete with all the art and everything. I’d really like to make a book by hand. My next book, which has nothing to do with Broken Bulbs, will be both print and digital. I’ll probably serialize it before going to print with it. I don’t know. My plans for Tyranny were a little different than what I’m ending up with. Since I don’t think linearly and change my mind so often, I’ve already gone back and George Lucased the blog so I could use some of the stuff in my new book. Web fiction is a nice place to experiment because there’s no cost and no loss. You put it there and people read it and that’s it. Doesn’t matter. I want to write books though. That means both print and ebooks. Web fiction for me is a bonus. I want the book to exist as a whole, not as a collection of parts. Web fiction is a nice way to always keep yourself in readers’ minds though.

Henry Baum: This one’s a running theme in our interviews: what’s your favorite sentence in the book?

Eddie Wright: “I was having a lovely day. It’s always a lovely day, for tooth decay.”

Henry Baum: Finally, what do you think you do as a writer that you can’t find in other writing? What’s a reader going to get out of being in the head of you and Frank for the length of novel?

Eddie Wright: I wanted to write what I wanted to read. I like the idea of being punched in the face by a story. I like when stuff dives down your throat. I don’t find that in books very often. I wander through bookstores and websites and the library and read the first page or two of a book and hope to be grabbed and if I’m not grabbed instantly, I don’t bother. I want to be challenged and I want to be entertained. I think Broken Bulbs does this. I like fast reads and I never want to be bored by a book. I don’t think Broken Bulbs gives you the opportunity to be bored. I think readers can either find Frank’s troubles relatable or find them fascinating. I think Broken Bulbs is full of the unexpected and I think most importantly it’s entertaining. I wanted Broken Bulbs to be funny and absurd and bizarre but I also wanted there to be something to think about. I think it works as pulpy mystery and I think it works as something more. I don’t think I’m the only person who wants to read what I wanna read. At least I hope I’m not.

Henry Baum: Thanks, Eddie.

CONTEST: To win a copy of Broken Bulbs, select an inspirational quote and add it in the comments.

In Broken Bulbs, Frank Fisher receives mysterious packages containing famous inspirational quotes. What famous inspirational quote would you send Frank Fisher?

Eddie will pick the winner.