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BIO
Laura
Zigman grew up in Newtonville, Massachusetts, and spent ten years
working in the book publishing industry in New York. Her pieces
have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA
Today. She lives in Washington, D.C.
INTERVIEW
June
2, 2000
Laura Zigman, the author of DATING BIG BIRD --- a book about a woman
in her thirties whose biological clock suddenly becomes deafening
--- talks about her own pregnancy in addition to her novel in this
interview. Bookreporter.com's Senior Writer Jana Siciliano also
asks the author about her inspiration; her next project entitled
HER, about a wedding thwarted by an ex-girlfriend; her first novel,
ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, set to shoot this summer and stars Ashley Judd;
and much more.
TBR: Your new novel, DATING BIG BIRD, revolves around a thirty-something
public relations rep who decides on single motherhood. You are about
to become a Mom yourself and get married. Were you prepared to become
a single Mom before your engagement?
LZ: I'd like to think I was
prepared. I'd certainly given the issue enough thought and decided
that having a child was something I definitely did not want to miss
out on, even if I was going to be permanently single, as it seemed
then. The only problem --- and it was a big problem --- was how
I would have gotten pregnant. I came to see over the course of writing
the book that the sperm bank option was not something for me.
TBR: Ellen, the protagonist of DATING BIG BIRD, loves her niece
so intensely that it stirs up great feelings of maternity. Who in
your life has most inspired this book?
LZ: Well, I have to confess
that it was indeed my niece, Nicole --- a.k.a. The Pickle --- who
most inspired the book. I fell in love with her right after she
was born and every time I go out to Los Angeles to visit her and
my sister I become more and more smitten. She is really sort of
an animal at times --- headstrong, willful, stubborn, likely to
throw tantrums anywhere, anytime --- but she is very funny and very
much a character. We seemed to have a special kind of connection
or attachment early on, and ever since she's started talking we've
been able to have conversations over the phone in between visits.
She is definitely what made me realize how serious I was about wanting
a child of my own.
TBR: Everybody around Ellen is pregnant. Have you noticed, especially
since you're expecting, that it seems like everyone around you personally
is pregnant?
LZ: Actually, everyone around
me is pregnant. A writer-friend of mine here in Washington is due
about a week after me, and about eight or nine people I know in
New York are in various stages of pregnancy or pre-delivery. Seems
something was going on last fall...
TBR: What do you think is the hardest part about having a baby?
LZ: I don't know what the hardest
part about having a baby is since I haven't had mine yet; but I
can tell you that for me, being pregnant is a lot harder than I
thought it would be. Physically, it's quite a strain (heartburn,
backaches, the sheer energy it takes to lug around all the extra
weight for 9 months), and emotionally, too. You find yourself worrying
about everything. Will the baby be healthy? Will the labor and delivery
go smoothly? Will I torment and torture my child the way my parents
tormented and tortured me? All of the things which I hear are pretty
common take up a great deal of mental energy nonetheless.
TBR: What kind of research did you do on sperm banks?
LZ: I did much of the same research
on sperm banks that Ellen did --- that is, I sent away for material
from some of the bigger banks and surfed the web for donor profiles,
which was, as Ellen describes it in the book, truly bizarre. The
idea that you can select your child's father on the Internet (or
partially select --- you see shortened versions of the donor profiles,
and then you can request much more detailed profiles if you are
seriously considering a particular donor) takes some getting used
to. Which is true of most of the advances in the biotech field of
reproductive fertility.
TBR: Your last book, ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, mined similar material
about relationships. What do you know about relationships now that
may end up in your next novel?
LZ: My next novel, HER, is about
a woman planning her wedding when her fiance's ex-girlfriend reenters
the picture by moving to town. I've always been interested in the
irrational obsessional feelings of jealousy brought on by an ex,
and I think this will be really fun to write. It will be dark and
funny and full of all the things we do when we become completely
unhinged by our insecurity: Caller ID boxes and *69 call backs,
going through coats and pockets and drawers and desks; all of that.
Not to mention the complete obsession with the ex herself: what
she looks like, how thin she is, how we compare, etc.
TBR: What was your writing schedule like when you had a demanding
publishing career to contend with?
LZ: I wrote ANIMAL HUSBANDRY
while I was working full-time at Random House; which is why, I think,
it took me so long --- over five years --- to finish it. It's very
difficult to do both --- to have a demanding full time job and to
have the energy left over to come home at night or sit down on the
weekend and not only write, but think. When I wrote DATING BIG BIRD
I was lucky to be able to give it my undivided attention --- I rented
a house up in Massachusetts on the beach and finished the book in
three months. Which is, I see now, a very different way to write.
An idea is only interesting for a finite amount of time, and I think
five years is pushing the limits of that time frame.
TBR: Does your background in publishing effect what and how you
write?
LZ: My publishing background
has been useful in understanding how the marketplace works (or doesn't
work) when my books have come out. Namely, no matter what you do
--- what the jacket looks like, what the author photo looks like,
how the reviews are --- what sells and what doesn't sell in the
end is a complete mystery to publishers and booksellers. My background
was also useful in understanding what the whole publishing process
would be like, from working with an editor to going on tour. But
it has not in any way affected what I write about. I write what
I write because I'm interested in it. In order to write
a whole book about something, you'd better be interested enough
in the subject to sustain it for as long as it takes to finish it.
TBR: How do you battle the twin evils of self-criticism and self-editing
when you are working on a book?
LZ: It's very hard not to be
your own personal flesh-eating virus --- that is, to self-criticize,
self-censor, and self-edit everything that comes out on the page
or before it even makes it to the page. It's one of the hardest
impulses to stifle --- the voice that tells you that you can't write,
that everything you're thinking of writing has been written before
by real writers, that you have no talent, no ear for language, no
story to tell, nothing important to say, etc. You get
to a point, I think, where you fight this internal war as a matter
of course --- all writers hear the same voice, and you learn to
accept it's presence and simply ignore it.
TBR: Have you had any movie offers for your books? Would you
consider writing a screenplay adaptation of them yourself?
LZ: ANIMAL HUSBANDRY was bought
outright by Fox 2000 (a division of 20th Century Fox) when it was
still in manuscript, and is set to start shooting this summer ---
July 5 --- in New York City. Ashley Judd will star in it, Lynda
Obst will produce it (she produced, among other things, Sleepless
in Seattle) and Tony Goldwyn will direct (he directed Walk on the
Moon and was the bad guy in Ghost). I was very happy
NOT to have to adapt the book myself; because I think that would
be incredibly difficult and, probably, unsuccessful, since adapting
a novel for film is a very specific craft. I would, however, really
like to try my hand at writing screenplays someday, for film or
television.
TBR: What are you working on these days? Do you put yourself
on a time schedule or do you just write until you stop writing?
LZ: I'm working on another novel,
HER, which I mentioned earlier, and I've got about 50 pages done.
If I weren't eight months pregnant, I'd like to think I'd have 100
pages done, but maybe not. I keep trying to put myself on a little
schedule --- ten pages, twenty pages, fifty pages a week until I
give birth; but all I can seem to manage right now is shopping for
cribs over the Internet...
TBR: What are you reading now?
LZ: I'm embarrassed to say I'm
not reading much of anything lately --- too tired, can't concentrate
--- but I have a list of books I'm saving to read when I get my
energy back.
TBR: What are your thoughts on electronic publishing, for example
Stephen King's RIDING THE BULLET?
LZ: It's still a little difficult
for me to wrap my head around the idea of reading an entire book
online, like Stephen King's RIDING THE BULLET, but I'm all for it.
Whatever gets people reading, or keeps them reading, or attracts
a whole new segment of the population to reading, should be encouraged.
TBR: Would you ever consider publishing a book available only
as an eBook?
LZ: I think certain kinds of
books lend themselves more to being eBooks exclusively --- thrillers
and certain kinds of nonfiction --- so I'm not sure if the kinds
of books I write would fare that well. But I'm sure we'll be seeing
many more authors publishing their work as eBooks, and it will be
interesting to see how it works.
TBR: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
LZ: The best advice an aspiring
writer can receive is this: keep writing. No matter how daunting,
impossible, or difficult and painful it seems, keep doing it. It's
worth it.
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