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On Writing

2024-12-10 · letter vlog · John · 4:19 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay

Having turned in first pass of Everything Is Tuberculosis, John says the book now belongs to its readers; his younger self scorned nonfiction and wanted books to last forever, but forever is an incorrect concept, and he now hopes nonfiction can also reach across the divide between writer and reader, as the book continues his long-running themes.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — First pass is also last pass: the book now belongs to its readers

  • ★★ John explains the publishing term first pass: the first time he sees his new book, Everything Is Tuberculosis, laid out as a book. — 00:00:00 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★ John feels some grief because first pass is also last pass: he cannot change the book after it and must stop reading so others can start. — 00:00:09 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★★ Having turned in first pass last night, John says the book no longer really belongs to him but to its readers, who will make whatever use they can of it. — 00:00:21 · Everything Is Tuberculosis

00:00:29 — Nonfiction versus fiction, writing in pursuit of forever, and writing as reaching across the divide

  • ★★ John says the book is very different from Looking for Alaska or The Fault in Our Stars: nobody falls in love, and it is nonfiction rather than fiction. — 00:00:31 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, Looking for Alaska (novel), The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★★ John says his younger self would have disapproved of this book: he thought nonfiction a waste of time, fiction the way to write, and was disappointed when fiction-writing friends wrote nonfiction. — 00:00:44
  • ★★ John says he was very ambitious and thought one should write in pursuit of forever: he wanted his books to last a very long time and be read critically and in schools. — 00:01:00
  • ★★ John says that dream has largely come true: 20 years after first publication Looking for Alaska is still in print, and many of his books are read in schools. — 00:01:11 · Looking for Alaska (novel)

  • ★★★ John tells his younger self his books will not last forever, since forever is an incorrect concept, and calls that great news: someday The Fault in Our Stars will be read for the last time and humanity will go on. — 00:01:18 · The Fault in Our Stars

    “forever is an incorrect concept”

  • ★★ John says it is lovely that his books will give way to other art that speaks to people's now in ways he cannot. — 00:01:36

  • ★★ John says an artist can imagine an audience but not a future one; he does not know what it is like to be other people now, and barely knows himself. — 00:01:44 · perspective-taking

  • ★★★ John defines writing as an attempt to reach across the infinite divide between him and the reader, making something within him that might matter within them. — 00:01:58

    “Writing is an attempt to reach across the infinite divide between me and you”

  • ★★★ John used to think only made-up stories could do that job, but now believes, and hopes, that nonfictional ones can too. (hedged) — 00:02:09

  • ★★ John says Everything Is Tuberculosis is written for right now, not forever; he hopes the title will someday be irrelevant, with people saying everything was tuberculosis. — 00:02:14 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, tuberculosis
  • ★ John says the book has little romance, except the romanticization of tuberculosis in 19th-century northern Europe. (playful) — 00:02:28 · tuberculosis, Europe

00:02:39 — How Everything Is Tuberculosis continues his themes and goal; letting the book go; sign-off

  • ★★★ Rereading, John sees the book continues 20 years of his work, extending his fascination with illness: cancer in The Fault in Our Stars, OCD in Turtles All the Way Down, plagues in The Anthropocene Reviewed. — 00:02:39 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, cancer, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)

    “the most underutilized of life's great universalities”

  • ★★★ John says tuberculosis speaks to his recurring theme of how we imagine and misimagine each other: we see our own lives as complex and multitudinous but imagine others' lives simplistically. — 00:03:08 · perspective-taking, tuberculosis

  • ★★ John says with tuberculosis this misimagining has led both to romanticization of the illness and to its intense stigmatization. — 00:03:19 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ Like most of his books, John says, it stars a smart teenager who loves poetry: Henry Reider, a young man who lived with tuberculosis for most of his childhood. (playful) — 00:03:23 · tuberculosis
  • ★ John notes that, like most of his books, it contains the word 'deadpanned' precisely once. (playful) — 00:03:37
  • ★★★ Rereading showed John that though he is not writing fiction now, he pursues the goal that started him writing: speaking from his deepest self to someone else's deepest self. — 00:03:40
  • ★★ John says whether he succeeds is not for him to decide: from now on the book belongs to its readers, who determine whether it is successful or useful. — 00:03:52 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★ John says it is time to let the book go, saying for the seventh time in twenty years that this story is yours now, and hopes readers like it. — 00:04:06

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Everything Is Tuberculosis · nonfiction · tuberculosis

Also: People: Henry Reider

Works: Looking for Alaska (novel) · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book) · The Fault in Our Stars · Turtles All the Way Down

Concepts: cancer · disease · infectious disease · obsessive-compulsive disorder · perspective-taking · poetry (concept) · reader-response criticism · social stigma

Places: Europe

Also centred on nonfiction: My Lies

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