Bock's Beautiful Children

I first met Charles Bock about four years ago -- over the Internet. He e-mailed my band’s website to inform us that he and his wife had danced to our music at their wedding. I remembered the post, mostly because of the author’s charm and sincerity -- and, naturally, his ability to pander to my ego.

When he informed me (again via e-mail) last summer that he would be in attendance at our show on Pier 54 in New York City, I invited him backstage. Little did I know that, in doing so, I would be connecting with a man standing on the cusp of the biggest adventure of his life.

It was a blustery, overcast day out there on the pier and, even with all the activity and hubbub (and a way-above-average deli tray), Bock’s energy radiated like a tractor beam. At 26 years old, he’d endeavored to write a novel -- a real novel, a novel powerful enough to be published by a real publisher. Now, at 38, his dream -- made manifest by eleven years of blood, sweat, and tears -- was coming true.

On January 22, Random House will release Beautiful Children, the first novel by Charles Bock. A dark, humorous, savage tale of runaways, gutter punks, and the soft white underbelly of Las Vegas (Bock’s birthplace), Children is as passionate and hungry as Bock’s utter devotion to it.

If you’ve ever wondered what its like to risk it all, suffer the heartbreaks and humiliations, and, ultimately, prevail at achieving your life’s ambition, then read on. I’ll let Charles, who currently resides with wife, Diana, in NYC, tell you about it himself. Because that’s what he does best.

Most people who write (and many who don’t) fantasize about scribing the Great American Novel. What was the tipping point for you -- when thought became action -- and why?

This novel started out as a short story when I was in graduate school, in 1995-1996 or so. I wrote a 10- to 12-page short story. It was the first thing I’d ever written about my hometown of Las Vegas. The story didn’t work, and was actually pretty awful. One reason was, I had so much energy and detail work in each sentence, that the descriptions were getting in the way of everything. Just an overwritten mess.

Meanwhile, as I tried to revise it, it became clear that I had plugged into something here, even if I did not know quite what it was. A story, or an inner desire, or something was compelling me. There was something I needed to write, or get out.

I’d always been afraid to write a novel. When I was in grad school they actually encouraged us to write short stories because we were learning the craft and trying to learn form. But as much as I’d avoided writing about Vegas and writing a novel — and I’d avoided them like the plague — as I worked on this, it became obvious, the story had more facets. It wasn’t going to be good at a short length. The only way to do justice to my ideas was to take it on, and try to write it all the way out. Which meant a novel.

Was it difficult to get started?

I don’t think a writer can worry about trying to write a novel all at once. You try to do certain kinds of organizational work. You try to worry about how an opening scene is supposed to work. You try to worry about how that opening scene starts. Worrying about bite-sized chews can keep me engaged and wanting to work and stay interested. Whenever I’d start worrying about all the work, the letters became capitalized and it became ALL THE WORK I HAVE TO DO, and then I’d want to bang my head against a wall.

My novel grew organically in a sense, in that I failed at writing a short story, and tried to fix my failure by expanding the piece. So I kind of tricked myself into beginning to work on the novel.

Did you have a routine? What did it entail?

My routine was strange because I had so many different and crappy jobs. I didn’t have set hours when I wrote, but I did make writing a priority. Every day I was going to give it some time. I was in my twenties when I started writing Beautiful Children and did not have much of a career path. I did enough work at different crappy jobs to keep bill collectors almost at bay. But I hoarded time, and tried to make sure that I gave my best efforts and energies to my novel.

For a lot of people, with real jobs and kids and responsibilities, that’s impossible. I’ve taught fiction workshops and I always tell my students a few things about this. One thing I encourage them to do is to treat writing like a part-time job. To block out time where you sit and try. Maybe you fail, but at least you put in the time.

Honestly, a lot of writing, as you know, amounts to working your way through a problem, and that means lots of false starts and bad sentences and half-completed ideas. But if you sit and do the work and put in the time, then at the end of that period, you will be that much closer to getting through the knot. That’s the worst-case scenario, when things aren’t coming. You do the work to get beyond the knot. It’s not always like that.

One thing I’d tell myself was my dog couldn’t write my novel for me; nobody could do it for me. Nobody was going to care about this as much as I did. With that in mind, I usually found or created time for myself to write. I’d often write from 10 pm until three or four in the morning, sleep a little, then go work some crap job, get home and sleep, and then get back to it.

I know from our conversations that you had to sacrifice some of the more conventional entertainments of your twenty-something peers in order to maintain your devotion to the book. How do you feel about it now? Would you feel differently if the book had not been picked up for publication?

It took me 11 years to write Beautiful Children. Except for some brief ghostwriting stints, during this time I was basically broke. I started when I was 26. I ended when I was 37. If it hadn’t sold, there’s no way I could have kept writing, or started something new. It would have been really hard for me to recover. So much of my identity, so much of the way that I think of myself, and that I thought of myself during this time, involved writing and, specifically, my novel. I didn’t have a career to fall back on. I don’t know what I would have done if the book hadn’t sold. It’s nice not to think about that.

The fact is, when it comes to writing, you can do something fast or you can do it right. I like to think I came pretty close to getting it right. When I read my book, I do find mistakes, but I also have the experience of remembering waves of edits, and all the revisions that went into various paragraphs. I see so much work that I’m proud of.

Meanwhile that means sacrifices. When I first started dating Diana [Bock is married to educator Diana Colbert, a PhD grad student in 19th century American literature at CUNY], I was so worried about my writing time that I made this ridiculous rule. We weren’t allowed to see each other on consecutive nights. Of course she flipped, as she should have. Honestly, our first year together was pretty difficult -- largely because of me and my need to create space for myself to write and to work on my never-ending mess of a novel.

As our relationship solidified, though, and because she is so wonderful and generous and understanding, she began to see that this was a huge part of who I was. And she also, I’m happy to say, fell in love with the book I was writing and believed in it and became the first person to whom I showed new sections and chapters.

So, yeah, there were all kinds of sacrifices. But I’m answering these questions just a few days before Beautiful Children hits the stands, and honestly, the publication process has been fun as hell -- just a great ride. Holding your finished book for the first time is a holy experience. And sharing it with your partner — the process where what you are creating moves from a secret that just the two of you share to something that anybody and everybody has a chance to read — that’s been wonderful beyond belief, too. Holy in a totally different kind of way.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about writing a novel? Is there anything you would do differently?

Honestly, people think they are done before they are done. They think a first draft is ready for publication. Or maybe a second draft contains some mistakes and does not get the response that they want. They think that’s the end. I think a lot of times people want to be published so much that this gets in the way of having a finished book that’s ready to be read by agents and editors and publishers. (The truth is, it costs nothing for an agent or editor to say no. It’s easy. There’s no personal investment. But representing a book takes time and energy. Buying a book or reading a book through to the end is a commitment.)

Also, too often, I think writers write what they want to be in a novel, instead of paying attention to the demands of their narrative or their characters. (A lot of beginning writers are too flowery, or too self-conscious, or they tell too much instead of showing.) Those are a lot of mistakes, in my humble opinion, that are common to beginners. There’s a lot more than that, too. And, honestly, I made most, if not all of them, along the way to finishing the book.

As far as regrets, I regret not seeing the Paybacks when they opened for the White Stripes. I also wish I’d have been a smart enough and good enough writer to have finished my book in half the time. But mostly, in terms of writing and regrets, I’m really happy with the finished novel. I hope readers will be, too.

What advice do you have for other first-time novelists?

The best, truest advice on writing I ever got is this: You are going to get humiliated. You will get humiliated some more. Then, just when you think you can’t get humiliated any more than that, guess what, more humiliation. But eventually, if you stick with it, you’ll write something good. And people will come running, because the world needs good writing. The world needs good stories. The world needs good books.

Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.