ZZ Packer–I Have a 1,000 Page Novel

Summary

Podcast Summary: Toure Show – Episode Featuring ZZ Packer: "I Have a 1,000 Page Novel"

Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Toure Show, host Touré engages in an in-depth conversation with acclaimed fiction writer ZZ Packer. The discussion centers around Packer's ambitious second novel, a Civil War-era epic spanning over 1,000 pages, and delves into her intricate writing process, creative challenges, and the profound historical insights embedded within her work.

Overview of ZZ Packer’s Novel: "The Thousands"

Concept and Historical Context

ZZ Packer’s forthcoming novel, tentatively titled The Thousands, is a monumental project that explores the lives of the Buffalo Soldiers—African American cavalry units that played a pivotal role in American history. The novel intricately weaves the soldiers' experiences post-Emancipation as they navigate the complexities of moving westward, confronting native populations, and combating institutionalized racism.

Plot and Characters

The narrative is multi-faceted, encompassing three primary storylines:

1. Lazarus and His Sister ([03:02] Packer): Set just after Emancipation, Lazarus escapes Mississippi for Louisiana with his deaf sister, facing new societal challenges in a predominantly white and tumultuous environment.

2. Cathay Williams ([05:01] Packer): Inspired by the real-life story of Cathay Williams, a woman who masqueraded as a man to serve in the Buffalo Soldiers, the character grapples with identity and survival in a rigid military structure.

3. Colonel Edward Hatch ([10:12] Packer): A white colonel leading the 9th Cavalry, Hatch exemplifies a progressive figure who contrasts sharply with contemporaries like the notorious General Custer, illustrating the internal conflicts within the military and society.

Research and Historical Accuracy

Packer emphasizes the extensive research undertaken to authentically portray the Buffalo Soldiers' historical milieu. "It took part of my lifetime just to actually get the history right," she states ([10:20] Packer). This dedication ensures that the novel not only narrates personal stories but also sheds light on the broader societal and political dynamics of the era.

Writing Process and Challenges

Time and Life Challenges (Single Motherhood)

Balancing motherhood with the demands of writing a sprawling novel has been a significant challenge for Packer. She acknowledges, "Children will slow you down" ([04:10] Packer), highlighting the intricate dance between personal responsibilities and creative pursuits.

Creative Process: Plot Structure and Story Architecture

Packer delves into her obsessive focus on plot structure and story architecture, drawing from various theories and frameworks to support her complex narrative. "Creativity is inseparable from intellectual problem solving," she explains ([13:18] Packer), illustrating her methodical approach to crafting intricate plots and multi-dimensional characters.

Narratology and Consciousness in Writing

Her exploration of narratology— the study of narrative structure—plays a crucial role in her writing. Packer discusses the importance of understanding point of view and perspective, stating, "What does limited point of view mean? What does omniscience mean?" ([18:56] Packer). This deep dive ensures her storytelling remains both nuanced and psychologically compelling.

Advice to Aspiring Writers

Common Mistakes: Macro and Micro

Packer categorizes writing pitfalls into macro and micro mistakes:

• Macro Mistakes: Including excessive coyness or irony that detracts from clarity. "Just don't be coy. Just don't be ironic," she advises ([19:39] Packer).

• Micro Mistakes: Such as overusing words like "said" in dialogue, which can hinder narrative flow. "The word 'said' is fine; you don't have to change it to something elaborate," she notes ([25:23] Packer).

Emphasis on Clarity and Meaning

She underscores the foundational importance of clarity and meaning in writing. Drawing from her mentor Frank Conroy, Packer explains the fiction pyramid where communication—comprising meaning, sense, and clarity—is paramount before layering in elements like voice, tone, and metaphor ([28:46] Packer).

Importance of Reading and Developing Taste

A fervent advocate for voracious reading, Packer believes that immersing oneself in literature is essential for developing a writer's sense of taste and narrative intuition. "There are plenty of people who want to write a novel, but they can't tell you the last book they read," she emphasizes ([33:26] Packer).

Publishing Journey

Long-term Project and Publishing Industry Changes

Packer candidly discusses the prolonged journey of writing her novel, spanning 15 years, and the evolving nature of the publishing industry. She reflects on how major publishing houses have merged, intensifying the pressure to meet deadlines and market demands. "They are owned by a conglomerate," she observes ([48:43] Packer).

Book Deals and Editorial Process

While Packer currently lacks a publishing deal for her extensive manuscript, she remains optimistic about its eventual acquisition. She shares frustrations with the industry's accelerated timelines, contrasting them with the more patient, albeit slower, traditional publishing processes. "I have no fear about it being taken," she asserts ([48:43] Packer).

Personal Insights and Reflection

Superpower in Writing

When prompted about her "superpower," Packer reflects on her unwavering determination and heightened awareness. "Awareness and a sort of dogged determination to like, be aware," she shares ([99:18] Packer). This mental resilience allows her to navigate complex themes and persist in her creative endeavors despite external pressures.

Generational Observations

Packer offers keen insights into generational differences, particularly between Generation X, Millennials, and Zoomers. She discusses how digital immersion shapes Millennials and Zoomers, impacting their reading habits and cognitive engagement with information. "They're kind of captive to it," she notes ([85:10] Packer), highlighting challenges in fostering deep, contemplative reading practices in an age of perpetual digital stimulation.

Future Plans for the Novel

Packer expresses a sense of urgency in completing her novel, driven by a desire to see her extensive research and creative vision realized. She mentions setting personal deadlines and seeking fellowships to carve out dedicated writing time. "If I can't do it this year, it's like it's a sort of shit or get off the pot kind of thing," she admits ([97:34] Packer).

Conclusion

This episode of The Toure Show offers a profound glimpse into ZZ Packer’s literary journey, emphasizing the intersection of meticulous historical research, personal perseverance, and the relentless pursuit of narrative excellence. Packer's insights serve as invaluable guidance for aspiring writers navigating the complexities of storytelling and the evolving demands of the publishing landscape.

Notable Quotes

• “Creativity is inseparable from intellectual problem solving.” – ZZ Packer ([13:18] Packer)

• “Just don't be coy. Just don't be ironic.” – ZZ Packer ([19:39] Packer)

• “There are plenty of people who want to write a novel, but they can't tell you the last book they read.” – ZZ Packer ([33:26] Packer)

• “If I can't do it this year, it's like it's a sort of shit or get off the pot kind of thing.” – ZZ Packer ([97:34] Packer)

Final Thoughts

ZZ Packer's dedication to her craft and her ability to intertwine complex historical narratives with rich character development make her upcoming novel a highly anticipated work in contemporary fiction. Her candid discussion on The Toure Show not only sheds light on the challenges of large-scale writing projects but also inspires writers to embrace clarity, depth, and unwavering commitment in their creative pursuits.

Transcript

[Toure]

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[ZZ Packer]

Express stockings were hung by the fireplace of care. Knowing in about an hour stuffers would soon be there onto the road. Walmart Express delivery. We went chock full of wondrous things.

[Toure]

In the Saint Nimesen. Let's go.

[ZZ Packer]

Get express delivery in as fast as an hour, even on Christmas Eve. Orders must be placed by 4pm local time on 1224, subject to availability. Fees and restrictions apply.

[Toure]

Express delivery to y'all and to all a good night. Welcome to your Walmart.

[ZZ Packer]

One friend said, you're probably using this novel as a lab or an experiment for your, all the different things you want to be looking at. And, you know, she was trying to gently say to me, but, like, time to bring the experiment to a close, you know, so sometimes it'll, it'll come to me only when someone says something like, they'll be like, we've been waiting for your book for a long time. Then I'll maybe be thinking about that. But normally I'm just kind of in my zone with the kids trying to do this, trying to do that, you know, fellowships this, that, getting upset with like the current state of politics, Trump. I mean, I feel as though I may have, like, lost good two years just because of Trump being in power.

[Toure]

ZZ Packer is a great fiction writer and an old friend who's been famous since the publication of her first book, drinking coffee elsewhere. She's been working on her second book, her Civil War novel, for many, many years. It's over 1000 pages long right now. I wanted to give you a look inside a great writer's process. So I went to Harvard, where she's teaching, and talked to Zizi, who's still in the midst of figuring out her book. Talked to her about her immense project and about writing and about life in general. One day when this thing is finished, you can say that you got to look inside her process while she was still wrestling with it. It's ZZ Packer on Toure Show. How's your book going?

[ZZ Packer]

Oh, my God, Ture. How is my book going? So I've been writing this book called the Thousands for a while.

[Toure]

Novel.

[ZZ Packer]

It's a novel. How long, how long have I been writing it? I would say I want to lie, but I'm going to say that it has been. Don't lie. It has been at least 15 years.

[Toure]

What? Yes, I know, it's you're Ralph Elton territory now.

[ZZ Packer]

I don't even say that. I just have been working on it for a long time. And then a friend of mine who's an architect read a good amount of it and he said this is actually three different books. Not different as in under different covers, but like this is like a series, basically. Essentially you're trying to say that it's like one book and you're trying to cut it down to like, you know, 500, 600 pages.

[Toure]

What have you been doing for 15 years? The book is older than your oldest child.

[ZZ Packer]

You're right. It is older than my oldest child. My oldest child is 14 at the moment.

[Toure]

Is it children that have slowed you down?

[ZZ Packer]

I was, yeah.

[Toure]

Or I mean, I mean, obviously children slow down any creative person, but like, is it mainly trying to be a working mother or are there creative issues that you've been slogging through?

[ZZ Packer]

I think that since it's been 15 years, it's been a, a combination of both of those. I mean, children will slow you down. I feel as though, especially if you're a mother, you know, and you are just the way that society expects mothers to be and the way mothers expect themselves to be and the way children.

[Toure]

Expect more from the moment.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, children expect more from the mom. I'm actually a single mother, so I think that adds a lot on that as well. But part of it is just like, you know, you're raising these beings. One of my friends, or actually the partner of my friend is my friend Akua Nauru, who is a famous hip hop artist, more famous in Europe than here. Her partner was like, oh, Zizi, I know why it's taken her so long to write this novel. Her kids have become her novel. In a way.

[Toure]

Your kids are what you're creating.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, that's what he was, that's what he was saying. And on the one hand I was so depressed, but I was also sort of like teary eyed and sort of like, oh, someone at least sort of sees some of this and you know, 100%.

[Toure]

But yeah, I mean, you have over a thousand pages.

[ZZ Packer]

I like, I don't even count them anymore. I know I have. I could show you like a scrivener document or a scrivener thing. Yes, definitely more than that. And it's not like those are continuous, contiguous, whatever you want to call it. But it's like I've been writing these pages, and some of them are. And what would I say? I mean, I would say that, like, some of them I just know I'm gonna throw out. Some of them I know are gonna be in, but I have to revise it. It scared me when my friends said that this was a series. Cause then it sort of made it seem as though. Yeah, actually, you could have over a thousand pages. And it'd be like three books or something like that. Cause then it was like, okay, then I have to make each of those books like something, you know, so. It's been a long time, but it's been. I don't know if you know anything about the book itself, but it follows in chronicles the Buffalo Soldiers. So the Buffalo Soldiers, they're these cavalry infantry units who were African Americans, who they were. This was the first time blacks were part of the regular standing army. And this is kind of a, like, I feel, somewhat untold story. You know, here are these, you know, African American soldiers who basically were kind of like proto civil rights icons and legends. Like, these were the people who actually, when they went into these settlements, towns or what could eventually become. I don't know. I will say mostly white settlements, you know, basically were the ones who, whenever there was a. Anyone black or. And I would say a person of color, but mostly black people, they would actually pave the way for them, you know, and they did these kinds of things where they stood up for blacks in all these ways. And just remember out in the west, there just were, like, a huge population of tons of blacks. I mean, you had the exodusters, you had other people who were white moving towards the West. But, you know, blacks were still mostly in the South. So when these soldiers, who most of them being from the south, moved to the west, you know, they had to sort of make a world, you know, that didn't exist. And they were fighting the army who was, you know, white. And everyone had just come off the Civil War, you know, they were, you know, not. They had to sort of learn what it was like to be. Not learn what it was like to be Native American, but they, you know, were certainly thrust into this environment where the Native Americans, especially the Apaches, had been there for just centuries, you know. And, you know, you had, like. Then the whites would come out and be like, sort of like in a sort of manifest destiny fashion decide, hey, we're going to, like, move into these places. And this little buffalo soldiers were pitted in between, you know, those groups. And then in a lot of the Southwest, you had, you know, the Mexicans, you know, and Mexican Americans who, you know, Texas was Mexico. So these people were also in the mix. So it was sort of like whenever anyone portrays the west as kind of cowboys and Indians, that's a kind of way of just making America seem like the mythological America that whites want to view it as. And then they can sort of sentimentalize and romanticize Native Americans and be like, oh, they were on parody and it was the cowboys versus the Indians. But there were all sorts of people in the mix. You know, like, you had the Pesenos who were in El Paso who were fighting these, like, salt wars, you know, over salt, as you can imagine, with these whites who had just come in from, you know, other parts of Texas and were trying to sort of take over. You had these people who were in New Mexico. New Mexico. You know, a lot of the Congress didn't want to make it a state. New Mexico territory didn't want to make a state because there were. It was majority Hispanic, you know, majority. So all of this stuff was happening. All this stuff is kind of like pre Gilded age stuff, which actually relates to how America is now. And no one, like Americans just don't look back at this history and trace the threads of how we got to where we are. Gun rights. When people always say, oh, guns, we are guns is second amendment rights. And they're harken back to the revolution, Revolutionary War. No, the gun. The way we have guns now is a direct result of the state militias that were put in place during reconstruction to keep blacks subjugated, you know, in the manner that they were slaves. And this is all pre Jim Crow. So gun rights have more to do with Jim Crow, segregationist Jim Crow, and this dismantling of Reconstruction, you know, called redemption by, you know, whites of the time, than it does anything to do with second amendment rights or the Revolutionary War. So this is kind of like this.

[Toure]

History that, like, I. I hear like an overall history. Yeah, I didn't hear any characters. Oh, yeah, I didn't hear any. Like, I heard like an over developing, an over draping story.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah.

[Toure]

But I didn't hear, like. And I feel like I'm your editor, Like, I didn't hear, like, what is the actual thrust? So, I mean, is this the backdrop and then there's a specific story within this.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes. So this is the backdrop, Is it.

[Toure]

A sprawling sort of big tale, or is it, like, focused on, like, one person's journey?

[ZZ Packer]

It's a sprawling, big tale with this as a backdrop. And I feel as though it took, like, part of my lifetime just to actually get the history right. So all the history stuff that you're hearing as backdrop, that just took years. And, you know, as I was writing research and writing. Research and write. Yeah. And it wasn't as though I was just doing the research and then develop the characters or just had the characters and then had to invent, you know, the backdrop or research the backdrop. It was kind of like all of these things were happening at once. So it just took years to do the history years for the characters to come into play in the way that I wanted them to come and not just be kind of functionaries of the history. You know, all of this took an insane amount of time. And it's at the very least, three different stories. But more than that, I feel. But one is this character Lazarus, who's this. You know, he's. This is just after emancipation, basically. And, you know, he runs away. He still has to kind of run away from Mississippi to Louisiana, which, you know, Louisiana had been occupied. Right. And so he goes there with his sister, who's deaf. And then that's one character. Then there's Cathay Williams, who is based on a real woman by the name of Cathay Williams. And she eventually calls herself William Cathay. You know, she's unsuspected as a woman in the real life, Will. Cathay. Cathay Williams underwent three different infirmary visits with no one discovering that she was a man. So there is. She's a character. She's out of Independence, Missouri. And there's a whole sort of backdrop of the Bushwhackers, you know, Jayhawkers, all that kind of stuff in Missouri. Yeah, go ahead. And then the last one is this. So both of them are black, they're African American. And then the last one is this white colonel who. Edward Hatch, who, you know, he did what Custer wouldn't do. Custer was assigned, or offered, rather, colonelcy of the 9th Cavalry. And that's the black Cavalry along with the, you know, 10th Black Cavalry. The 10th Cavalry. They were called the 9th and 10th Cavalry. Colored, you know, in parentheses. And Custer was just such a racist that he. There was. He wasn't going to do it. And then he met his end at Little Bighorn and Hatch. Actually, there's a kind of situation which the black. The soldiers actually ended up helping and saving these White soldiers on the Milk river in Colorado under Thornburg, who were basically in the exact same position that Custer was in. So that's the. The colonel of them, you know, the 9th Cavalry was this white man.

[Toure]

So what are some of the creative challenges that have made it take so long?

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, I would say that at one point I was like, this is such a huge undertaking. I'm going to have to find a way to work. And that meant, how am I going to do this day by day and let me find a way to do it? And I'm kind of like, I don't know. In Myers Briggs terms, they say it's, you're an entp, which means you're extroverted, intuitive thinking and perceptive or whatever. But that basically means you're a crazy person who kind of is like a systems person who you come across as being like, hey, very, you know, valuable, garrulous, talkative, whatever. But you're really just. You have to like, when you're presented with a problem, you like to bear down and come up with a system for it. And so I will tell you that for years I just became obsessed with plot structure, story architecture. You know, I have like about a zillion different little apps that I like, have used and programs and trees, horizontal. So creatively like, I think that to me, creativity is inseparable from. From, you know, sort of intellectual problem solving. So I kind of got, some people would say into a rabbit hole. But for me, this sort of exploratory whirlpool of. Of just looking at what is structured. I'd be looking at like paltis, like Pulte's, you know, 33 essential plots. Or, you know, I just do all this kind of research and like, well, what is a story like? Well, I would come up with, you have this essential lack. I would look at like, you know, John Truby's. I think it's like storytelling architecture. I like went through like 500 screenplay writing books and then like three act structure. Then I thought about five act structure. And so those are just like, even on the structural level, that's not even character and all that other stuff for characters. You know, I feel actually fairly confident about characters. Like, I don't think I have as much of a problem, like thinking, like, once I'm writing, I'm so kind of like. I don't want to say the word ventriloquist, but I'm so much of a daydreamer naturally that like, I. When I'm writing, like, by this time the Characters are kind of haven't inhabited me. Did I say that right? Inhabited me. So, like, I'm right. But the problem would be, like, I would kind of, like, audition them. So I'm like, okay, I wrote this one scene and the character's this way. No, I got to rewrite it, and the characters this way. And then I think, like, would he or she really think this? So for me, characterization is, like, much more the kind of aspect of writing that I just love doing in the moment, like in the draft moments. But the revision kind of stuff is, like, stuff that I, like, do heavy research on, like consciousness, you know, point of view. I like, went through another whole session of where I just became a not expert, but a kind of student of narratology, which is kind of involves, like, the study of narrative. And there's post classical narratology, there's sort of psychoneerratology. And it kind of looks at, like, the most boring aspect of narratology would be just like, oh, let's try to treat narrative like a science and look at nereams and, you know, whatever. Reduce characters to, like, these little, you know, science experiments or something. And that's not what I'm interested in. The part of narratology that I became interested in was like, well, psychologically, what is narrative? How does it reflect, you know, reality? And how does it reflect how we view, shape and inhabit reality? And so that then gets to some of these deep questions, like, well, why do we have point of view in certain ways, like, what does limited point of view mean? What does omniscience mean? And that has to do with stuff like. That touches on stuff like, well, religion. What do we mean? Omniscient God or omniscient narrator means what? And why do we need one who is objective? And this gets into the question of how objectivity gets changed and how narratives get changed. You didn't really have people trying to pretend to have an objective narrator until I'm going to say this now. It's going to sound like it's an absolute. But, you know, someone like, in modern times is, you know, conservative dude. What is the name? Paul Johnson talks about how objective narratives didn't sort of come into the fore until, like, you know, the turn of the 20th century. Like, it was kind of a thing where, like, we accepted, like, that there was an authority, you know, and author comes from that. Like, whereas then when we begin to question, well, why does he. Or she. But generally it was a he. Why does he know everything? Well, what. Why can't like this one person who's a peasant, you know, why can't we have the story from his or her point of view? So that kind of stuff, you know, becomes really interesting to me. And then I started reading. You know, Daniel Dennett talks about consciousness, but then you also have. And James Wood talks about sort of in how fiction works, authorial perspective, which I actually feel is a slight misnomer. I mean, I know. I love James Wood, and he's wonderful, but I think it's actually narrative. It's the narratorial perspect. And then I started reading, I don't know, people. Katya Melman and these. Dorit Cohen, and they're these narratologists who really get deep into point of view and perspective. And Gerard Jeanette, who's kind of like another. He's, like, big into.

[Toure]

You have read so much more about writing than I have. No, most people have. No, but I want. No, that's true, but. But I want you to just basically give us a little class for those who are listening, who are fiction writers or want to be fiction writers. What do you think folks should be doing in terms of structure, in terms of narrative, in terms of character?

[ZZ Packer]

Oh, my God.

[Toure]

Because you are teaching. You're gonna be a professor at Harvard.

[ZZ Packer]

Yep.

[Toure]

So.

[ZZ Packer]

Yep. Yeah. What would I say? I mean, what I. There. I don't think that there is any one way.

[Toure]

Of course there's.

[ZZ Packer]

Of course there's not only one way. So would you ask in terms of structure or in terms of character? Like, for instance, it's really hard for me without someone's. And I'll try to. But I'll still try to do this without someone presenting an actual piece of writing to me to say what to do. Because there are so many varied, you know, ways to do anything or methods to do anything and sort of tricks and whatever and tools to employ that without seeing one piece of writing, it becomes difficult. But I could kind of list, like, some of the things that. Like, I've tried to list a few things that I kind of see a lot of beginning writers do. They. Like, I've just noticed, like, no matter how good, like, I can see they probably will be a really good writer eventually, but they're hampering themselves with certain kinds of. Like, certain, you know, problems that really, in an hour, two hours, the course of a semester, if they worked on, you know, their failure at writing will come much more quickly. And the whole. That's the whole point of writing. To fail more quickly, to fail faster. I think that's someone's website. And that to fail faster means to be successful more quickly. I mean, it's just like you have to fail in order to succeed. So the thing is getting rid of those little failures out of the way. And so I kind of have, you know, amassed like a seriously, a sort of slideshow that's in Apple or Mac Keynote that, you know, people look at and they're like, this is 500 slides. And. And. But a good, you know, I'd say 50 of them are on sort of quote unquote mistakes. And they're the macro mistakes that people make and then the micro mistakes. So I would say macro mistakes would include things like being coy. You know, there'd be writers who they really fall in love with sort of the snarky writing, really intelligent, but, you know, withholding kinds of writing. And they'll wanna write like that. And it's hard to do unless you not just have the intelligence to back it. But, you know, why you're being snarky or why you're being coy or why you're being whatever. And a lot of the people just take the attitude without actually even taking the wink, wink, nod, nod sense of irony with it. Like, they think that they can just sort of paint irony. So I'll tell a lot of beginning writers, just don't be coy. Just don't be ironic.

[Toure]

Be more direct with the reader and.

[ZZ Packer]

Actually just be real. And I know that sounds weird when you're writing fiction to say be real, to be authentic, but, you know, the coyness and all that kind of stuff can come. Actually, I'm not an advocate of coyness, but the irony, the distance and the sort of clever sleights of hand of legerdemond that comes later from you actually building up what you know to be your position fictionally or, you know, in terms of nonfiction. And so you almost have to just begin from the most sincere, earnest, like, level possible. And that feels kind of hard for writers because writers, you know, it's assumed there's an assumption of a certain amount of intelligence there, right? And so when you're, you know, starting out as a writer, you really want to, like, put that front on. Like, oh, yes, I am saying something that's worthy and intelligent. So, but, like, it's hard to do. You almost have to be naive, earnest, and just get rid of that coyness, that sort of melodrama. A lot of writers who are beginning want to be melodramatic, you know, And I'm like. And I'll be like, what if I'm not this way? Then there's no drama. I was like, drama is different from melodrama. And discerning what is what takes a lot of energy. There is a writer. When I met him, he was teaching at Vassar. And I'm trying to remember what he used to. Who he used to write for. His name is Hwasu. Now he writes for the New Yorker, who's a staff writer. And he had this class called, which was all about taste, you know. And what he meant by taste was like discerning, you know, having a sense of taste. And I sat in on one of the classes, and it was wonderful. And it was so instructive because you had to read and discern, like, what is good writing like, in who had to develop a sense of taste. So that is kind of what is essential when I'm talking about. When I say don't be melodramatic, don't be coy. I used to also say, don't do sort of overt memoirization. Like, it's one thing to write a memoir, it's another thing to write fiction, but you also have to have this sensation, this character has to be drawn from your emotional experiences, but not wedded to or tied to your maybe actual experiences. Because then you're getting into a kind of a psychological quagmire, which could be interesting. I mean, it could be. But for a lot of people, especially beginning writers, they're not there yet to, like, ungird it, you know, so they get sort of caught in this trap of when, you know, teachers will say, write what you know. And they don't really even just mean, like, write what you know. Like, I was a, you know, computer programmer. So my thing is about a computer programmer, they're saying, like, write what is, like, available to you in terms of details, but also emotional experience. Emotional experience rather than the actual events, you know. So those are kinds of basic Microsoft macro ones that I would say are big ones. I could probably, like, look and find others, but those are the ones that come to the top of my head.

[Toure]

I like those. I mean, are there other macro things?

[ZZ Packer]

They're all here. Like. So, I mean, should I look? Sure. Okay, I'll look. I'll look. But. So there's some macro ones, but micro ones. I'll get back to some macro ones. But the micro ones would be things like that are so small, like, said will do. The word said aid, of course.

[Toure]

But that is, you don't have to change it to be like to guffawed.

[ZZ Packer]

Or you know, like whatever.

[Toure]

That goes back to Strunk and White.

[ZZ Packer]

It does.

[Toure]

You can say he said, she said all day long.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, but these are things that, like, as you said, you could read Strunk and White and get this, you could read some basic, you know, creative writing names or the Art of Fiction by John Gardner. Even though it's like an old one, it's very, you know, it still stands up today. But I think that the problem is a lot of beginning writers are sort of, they are reluctant to just sort of reread these manuals. Like every year I'm rereading something that I already read before and just because I have to be reminded one big thing. This episode is brought to you by US Cellular. You shouldn't have to sacrifice a great experience to get a great deal. And U.S. cellular Prepaid agrees. Which is why right now you'll get a new Samsung Galaxy A15.5G for free without any hidden fees like the device activation fees you get with those other prepaid providers. So you can use your free phone with US Cellular's nationwide 5G coverage to stay connected to the ones you love without having to make sacrifices. Terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details. When unprecedented times are all the time, it's time to start walking the talk with PwC leaders like you. Turn to PwC to see and stay ahead. Upskill your workforce. Use intelligent automation and transform big ideas into breakthrough outcomes. Explore the human LED tech powered solutions that help you thrive. It's all part part of PwC. Learn [e-mail] for me and I want.

[Toure]

To hear more of your macro stuff. But one big thing in my writing life, I came out of graduate school at Columbia thinking if I write beautiful sentences, the world will care. And I wrote some books that were basically based on the notion of I will write beautiful sentences and you know, this'll be great. And I feel like I sort of quickly found out the world does not care about your beautiful sentences. And spending a lot of time like making these architectural things and like a more direct relationship with information and like banging people on like here's some analysis, some information that matters that might change how you think about something, be it what it means to be black or prince or whatever and like that hits people much harder and people have a much greater, I found relationship with that. And when I stopped caring about, you know, the specific quality of the sentences and started caring more about the information that I was trying to convey, that made a big difference.

[ZZ Packer]

I think you're absolutely right. And I think it goes back to one of the things that Frank Conroy, who was one of my. Just a great creative writing teacher and a wonderful author, author of Body and Soul. And you know, one of, I think his last book was maybe the the Caravan Rolls on, the Dogs Bark but the Caravan Rolls on, which were some of his lessons in writing. And he taught at the IO Writers Workshop and kind of led things like a boot camp. And he had this idea that kind of disabused a lot of writers from beginning with lyricism. You know, not to say that you needed to erase lyricism from your, you know, your mentality or your writing life completely, but, you know, a lot of this was geared as like, what do you get? How do you first get to a reader? And so you mentioned, you know, hitting them with information. And so the fiction pyramid, which I don't know if he promoted or whatever, but you know, it has at the bottom of it, the level of communication is first meaning, sense and clarity. And so he would hammer this into, you know, writers heads all the time. And I would say that this, the reason why the Writers Workshop was so strong for just years under his leadership and tutelage was that like, you know, you kind of didn't leave from there, at least as a fiction writer without understanding like his kind of like these canards and the meaning, sense of clarity, which sounds like the same thing if you initially think about it. Well, okay, if it has meaning, it has to make sense and it's clear. But they're really semi separate, but they're related. You know, what you just talked about information, like, what is the meaning of this? Like if, you know, as I said before with the macro, if you're being coy and alighting the truth, you know, which happens today in our political, you know, political world, then you're letting the meaning escape. You know, the idea is to cut the meaning from the coal of its surroundings and get this sort of like press, graphite diamond or whatever. I'm mixing metaphors, but, you know, so the meaning is essential, but it also has to make sense. I mean, if it's going to be alternate reality Earth too. And it makes no sense if you're talking about alternative facts and like, you know, no, you know, but so you have. It has to be tethered to sense and the sense has to be. Is obviously tethered to the like, intellectual grasping that the reader or your audience is, is utilizing to get it. And then there's clarity for it to, you Know, you can have a whole bunch of words, but if you're not, as a writer, making an effort to make it as clear as possible, you know, then you're doing a disservice to the meaning and the sense of it. So kind of beginning on that level of communication or information, as you wisely put it, you know, puts you on a good sort of foundation with the reader or the audience. And then you can move up the pyramid to next level. Voice, tone, mood. That'd be a level. Subtext. That'd be another level. After you have the subtext that's there that a reader or audience can pick up on, metaphor, then you can begin engaging in metaphors. A lot of people engage in metaphors first. Not to say that that's bad or wrong, but you have to, you know, if you have enough sense and, you know, clarity and meaning already embedded in that, okay, great, you know, and then last would be symbol. But the problem is you. A lot of writers who. So that's like, how many stages? I think that's like five that I've listed. But a lot of writers, they might begin with symbolism. And they don't even understand their own, you know, in their own minds how that's working as a metaphor, how it's working subtextually, how it's working in terms of voice, turn and tone and mood. They just let it happen. You know, they're not like, governing it. They're not, like, bringing in a sort of sense of, like, looking at different types of atmosphere. Like, you know, many sense of clarity. And the only thing that can really, like, help, like, because you can study these things, but the real studying is actually just reading literature, you know, that forms a template in your head for it. And you begin to actually just subconsciously, unconsciously, I always say those two Jungians would get mad at me. But, like, you know, unconsciously, kind of like that becomes part of your unconscious, right? And then. Then you work from there. That's why you're never gonna have, like, just a good writer be someone who is not also a reader. Like, there are plenty of people out in the world who want to write a novel, but they, you know, you ask them what books they read, and they can't tell you the last book they read in, like a week or whatever. So, no, you can't, because they don't have the template there for a good writing.

[Toure]

I mean, just because you're a good reader does not mean you will be a good writer. But it's impossible to be a good writer without Having been a good reader.

[ZZ Packer]

Exactly. And then I think that if you are a good reader, then that's the point at which you can begin to really study these kinds of things the way you kind of try to do in most MFA programs or MA programs. And, you know, you can do it on your own as well. Sure. I just think it's harder. I just think it's harder. It takes more time. You don't have these people, you know, when you're in an MFA program, even if your teachers suck, you know, which I was, you know, I've seen there have been students and they will sometimes complain about their teachers or not their teachers are bad, but their teachers might be. Might not be as present for them as they want them to be, or not being as mentors as much as they want them to be, but then they still have this community where they're actually engaging with other writers and that's like they're using these ideas.

[Toure]

That's a big part of it.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, it's a big part. So you can kind of, as long as you're constructing that world for yourself, yes, you can do it. But it takes a lot more organizational energy to do it.

[Toure]

Sure, sure. But you got a lot out of Iowa.

[ZZ Packer]

I did. I think. I think, you know, when I went in there, I was very skeptical. I really thought, it's Iowa, it's just white people. No offense. White people.

[Toure]

It's the Epic MFA writing program.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah. But I also was kind of like, look, I'm gonna be here and it's just gonna be a bunch of corn. And I really was terrified. When I first got into town, the gas station, there was a stand of corn there. I was like, what? Just like, what? But, you know, in the end, you know, you had these out of a. You know, it's a huge program. There are a hundred people there. You know, I think it's qualified as very, very large and, you know, 50 poets, 50 fiction writers. So if you can't find like five, six fiction writers out of that 50, you know, then it's a problem probably with you. But like, you know, you can find your own kind of mini community in that community. And that, that helped immensely. And then the teachers, you know, I had like, Stuart Diebeck, who's amazing. No, Francine Prose was a Hopkins. Frank, who was Wonderful. James Allen McPherson, who passed away recently. Amazing, amazing mentor and writer. And Marilyn Robinson. I mean, that's like an all star team of. You know, I mean, I was just lucky. I was just the lucky. I felt like the Luckiest, you know, would be writer in the world.

[Toure]

What were some of the big things that you got out of being at Iowa?

[ZZ Packer]

What are the big things? Well, I mentioned what Frank talked. He talked about that. Like he kind of. His big thing was like, if you're a writer, you're a writer if you write. You know, so that. And that also sort of sticks with me. There are days when I don't write. I just. I don't feel like a writer. I mean, a lot of people say, well, you're published and you're this and you're that. Like, I will feel quite depressed, like in a depression. Cause I'll be feeling you're not a writer. Cause you're not writing. And that was one big one. But also, you know, psychologically, like sort of major in terms of hurting me. But I would say out of Iowa, it was kind of like, you can do this, you know, like, it was kind of like, as I said, I mentioned the word boot camp earlier. It felt like in those days, a kind of boot camp. And then, you know, the way you're a marina, you get through boot camp and you're like, okay, everything is easy. Fuck it. After that, then you kind of have that feeling. That feeling itself is a lot like, you know.

[Toure]

But you had been celebrated as a writer from your teens.

[ZZ Packer]

Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, I. I don't know if it was really celebrated or not, but I feel as though you don't know what. You don't. Okay. There's a way, philosophically, if you don't know what you don't know.

[Toure]

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[ZZ Packer]

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[Toure]

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[ZZ Packer]

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[ZZ Packer]

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[ZZ Packer]

Yeah.

[Toure]

Because I didn't know what I didn't know, and I could see. Okay, you're going to be able to become a writer.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes.

[Toure]

I had written a long. I spent a long time writing a profile for the New Yorker, and he sent me these notes, and I was like, I don't know what you're talking about.

[ZZ Packer]

Was it Remnick at the time?

[Toure]

No, this is way before Remnick. This is before Tina Brown. I'm a little older than you. Not that much older than you. A little older. I think you're. And I was like, I do not understand what you want me to do to get to the level that you think is publishable. And I had done a bunch. I had done Talk of the Town stories. I had done Rolling Stone stories. And I was like, I am lost, and I don't want to be going through thinking there are others who know more and I don't understand what they're talking about. So I went to Columbia just to make sure that I evened that up. And I didn't encounter. I don't know what. I don't know. So now I'm like, okay, now I know what you're talking about. Whether or not I want to do that.

[ZZ Packer]

Exactly.

[Toure]

Whether or not I can. And then it was then.

[ZZ Packer]

Cool.

[Toure]

Yeah. Yeah.

[ZZ Packer]

And that's. That's a big thing. I mean, that separate. That operates in so many aspects of life. I mean, you know, just. There was a friend of mine, and she just didn't even know, like, sort of, like, in terms of grants, like, what she could be saying, you know, and that's a big separator between, like, you know, there are gates and there are gatekeepers, you know, but there are also, like, these just like. Well, sorry, there's gatekeepers, but there are also these just gates. And, like, the thing is, like, if you want to sort of understand how you're going to get through, you know, and, like, open this gate, you have to kind of know what you don't know. And there are various institutions that you can go to that help you with that. And there's also just various kinds of ways in which you have to sort of, like, you. You tell yourself or ask yourself, what is the sort of arena or, like, what's the enclosure of things that I think are going to be possible? And that's one of the things that an MFA is kind of good for. Like, Even if you hate it, you know, like, if you go through and you.

[Toure]

Do you watch Girls?

[ZZ Packer]

I did watch Girls.

[Toure]

Did you find it accurate?

[ZZ Packer]

It was not accurate.

[Toure]

It was not, No. I felt like. I felt like I was back at Columbia. I know that feels like what we went through.

[ZZ Packer]

It was probably accurate to MFA programs kind of generically, but I felt as though like if you were trying to get Iowa, I was like, oh, Tony child. Like, I need to, because I would.

[Toure]

Because I thought it felt emotionally accurate.

[ZZ Packer]

It's. I'm sure that most MFA programs felt like that felt accurate, like just the general MFA program thing. But since they were in particular doing Iowa, I was like, oh, my God. Like, how could I tell you? This was like infinitely harder and worse. Like, it was just like, like that felt like a walk in the park. Like, I mean, for other people, I'm sure it felt like, oh my God, that's so harsh.

[Toure]

So wait, now I. Yeah, I've come to this slide of yours. The top 10 mistakes that mid level writers make. Let's talk about some of these.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, okay, so I said some macros. If I find some more macros, I'll look at that. Look at the macro errors. Not macros is like a computer programming term. But then. And then there's some micros, which I mentioned. Like the little ones like the said and this and whatever are. There's some more micros, but like, but like, then there's the middle level of those, which is like where most writers who are pretty good, they already intuitively know not to do some of the macro level errors. They've already learned the micro level ones. But then there are some ones that are just. You could be making. If you're like, let's say a second year mfa, you're out of your MFA or whatever you're still making. And that would be like, not just POV shifts. Because a lot of people understand that you don't. Like, if you have a point of view and it's first person, you don't just like automatically slide into third person point of view. Or if it's like from the, you know, this one character's point of view, you don't just automatically slide into the other person's point of view. But then there's more of like POV consciousness, which is more like, you know, and that's a case in which like the author themselves are. She is like looking at the scene and then she sees that she's in close point of view with one character. She's thinking about the other character, she's thinking about that first character, thinking about the next character maybe across from them at a table. And then she begins to inhabit that other character's point of view without realizing it, simply because her gaze, the author's gaze, is on that character for the moment. And so they'll make up these sort of slip ups, and they're slip ups of consciousness, you know, And a lot of readers won't even notice those slip ups unless they're specifically asked to say, well, whose consciousness is this now? And the thing is, and I have like all these examples, but we don't have time for them. But then I think that's qualitatively different from an author being in complete control of the consciousness to the extent that it becomes blended with that of the narrators. And I use this example, it actually, it's from Zadie Smith's White Teeth, where she has the character who's this white Englishman, Archie, at Morgan Hero, which is, I guess, like the Firm or whatever. And there's this sort of genteel racist Maureen, who is disbelieving that Archie could be having this like half white, half black child, this biracial child who might have blue eyes, you know. So the thing is, you know, what Zadie Smith does there, which is the opposite of a consciousness shift, is she's able to sort of merge the two characters, their beliefs, but then also the narrator slyly comes in with her, I'll say, her own kind of system of beliefs that's commenting on Archie and commenting on Maureen without your actually sort of realizing it unless you're a little really looking at it. And so I don't even know if that's making sense right now, as I'm saying it on the podcast. But it's a. It. It comes from, like, studying people who do this. And this is kind of where I get back to narratology, where you look at like, some masters of this, like Joyce mastered this. And as I said, modern day, like, Zadie Smith does this really well in White Teeth, but it also involves kind of like being able to. For the author to utilize the mind's sense of a story being told, but a story also unfolding out in front of them. And we take it for granted that we can have someone narrate the story other than ourselves, you know, and so that is something that you actually requires a lot of like, deep study. So that would be one, but I got alpha to like a macro there with that. Then I would say another one would be maybe like overused to the habitual, like he would, she would, he would like. And as opposed to at a certain point, the mind begins to think in terms of the present. So once you've gone back into the past, you can then actually study the moment as if it was a present moment. You know, the reader has actually already been switched on to, okay, this was happened in the past. Now I'm looking at this in like a moment. So almost every time you turn look at tense, you'll see that a good writer will actually do the tense like a level down so you have a past tense. Like I'm not gonna know all the tenses. Like blue, perfect, all blue scum, perfecto, all those things. But you'll notice the actor, like he had done this, that might happen for a paragraph and say he went here, he did this, he did that. So you can lose that sort of had done.

[Toure]

Since after you've like blatant exposition and I can notice right away a good movie from a bad movie.

[ZZ Packer]

Oh yes.

[Toure]

Like bad exposition is always present in a bad movie. And in a good movie there's always good exposition.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah.

[Toure]

And just elegant ways of communicating. You know, people don't walk in a room and be like, you've been my secretary for 15 years.

[ZZ Packer]

Exactly.

[Toure]

Like right away. That's a bad movie.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes, exactly.

[Toure]

And a good movie will just find elegant ways of just communicating. Like, that's her boyfriend. Yes, but she's about to break up or whatever. But like elegant ways of communing and like, it's just how much time do you take to figure out how do I elegantly communicate the information and how do I get into the character's head to communicate the information in the way that they would?

[ZZ Packer]

Exactly. Like, I think that this is, well, this is one of the things that Francine Prose had mentioned, like from the very get go. I was before Iowa, I was at the Johns Hopkins writing program, writing seminars. And at that time it was only a year. But she talked about how dialogue, exposition, all of this stuff can't ever be done for one reason. And thus it can't be blatant. You know, and you, you almost have to have five, like, you know, for dialogue, for exposition, you have to have like five good reasons why this is here for, for like blended for you to even have it there at all. If all you're saying is you've been my secretary for 15 years, then that has to go like you just automatically take it out. And then so it's like, okay, secretary, the secretary is here. How do you know the Secretary has been here for 15 years. You know, there's stuff on the walls or this, there's that, there's this like if you're showing it visually, you know, he comes in, he just hands her this without her even having to like say anything to. They have non verbal communication. Like that's like, you know, like the way you'd have a marriage. Like you like over 15 years. You don't even have to say half of this. All of that is something the writer has to. And it takes of course, a long time to do. But the longer you've been a writer, the more naturally comes to you so that you don't have to think like cognitiveise it the entire time.

[Toure]

Do you have a book deal for this book you've been working on for 15 years?

[ZZ Packer]

So I'm gonna tell you how long I've been working on this book. My agent was like, oh, there'll be something between Random House and Penguin Putnam between the two. I've been working as a book for so long that Random House and Penguin Putnam merged into Random Pink Penguin. But I have no fear about it being taken. Actually.

[Toure]

Wait, do you have a deal?

[ZZ Packer]

We shouldn't even say some of this stuff, but no, do I have a deal? I know that it will be taken. The problem I have right now is that my favorite editor, my editor is now completely unattached with and so right now with a publisher. So. So I'm just trying to actually, once I finish.

[Toure]

So you don't have a deal for this?

[ZZ Packer]

I do. This is now getting into a thing where I don't know if I can say what I know.

[Toure]

That's why I keep asking.

[ZZ Packer]

I know, but you can't. Don't force me to lose a bunch of money.

[Toure]

Tori, you're not gonna lose any money. But I was just curious as to how it's been 15 years and nobody's like, come on.

[ZZ Packer]

I know. Well, here's the deal. My agent was sort of like, oh, you know, like, not Jhumpa. Jhumpa is actually very prompt with things. You know, like Jeff Eugenides took this long to do his book.

[Toure]

It's the old book industry.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, you're right.

[Toure]

People used to take 15 years, 10 years, whatever. That's the old now. Like everybody's owned by a conglomerate.

[ZZ Packer]

I know.

[Toure]

And they're like, I'm not owned by any. We have to be. Well, not you, but like the companies. And so we have to make our quarterlies. So if we gave her $50,000, we need to start earning that Back by da da da. Like they're. I find now they're like, you know, a month before they're like, okay, you're gonna turn in, right? Cause it's not like, oh, I need another year. Like, another year. Get the fuck outta here.

[ZZ Packer]

That's true. Here's the deal. I was really lucky when my shirt stores came out, you know, drinking coffee elsewhere, you know, I had. I didn't have to have a two book deal. You know, a lot of people, that's the only way you can enter into a contract. But I got paid for that, that, you know, book. And that was like, almost like still.

[Toure]

Getting money on that book.

[ZZ Packer]

I do get royalties. Yeah, I do. I know that's crazy. I mean, but. But. And part of the thing, I don't know if it's. If this is. I mean, what can I say? I mean, I'm trying to not. Yeah, I do, I get. I do get royalties from it. But I will say that. And it wasn't. I didn't expect to ever get any royalties from. I was like, this book is never gonna. I mean, there's mofos are never gonna get this, their advance out of this. And actually it's sort of worked out that way. I think that it has. But what happened. What happened was that then without a too big deal, there wasn't anyone breathing down my neck for this next book. Now, you know, I've had noises from people who want this, you know, the book. But that's quite different from someone, you know, putting you on a clock, which actually maybe someone should, and saying that this is your deadline. So I've had my own deadlines, which.

[Toure]

Have led to, like, it's been good creatively.

[ZZ Packer]

It has been because I've like, kind of done like all this neurotological stuff that like, I've, you know, it's. It's kind of like its own book. It's subjective voice and consciousness, which I'm very much interested in this kind of stuff on, like, you know, perspective, which is sort of related to that stuff on, you know, plot, story, structure, all that stuff. So those are the creative parts. And in addition to, like, historically, like, you know, one of my friends. So I. Last year I was a Hutchins Fellow here at Harvard. It was formerly the W.E.B. du Bois center for African and African American Research, now also called the Hutchins Center. And, you know, there are a lot of historians who were here with me, and one of them, Mary Hicks, who's an Amherst, she was sort of like, you keep Saying you're not a historian, but you're like, you've become kind of a historian doing a lot of this stuff because it sort of forced you to become. Forced me to become one. So I'm happy, like, I kind of am happy that I've, like, gotten to delve into all of these different subject areas. It just means that I need to.

[Toure]

Do you see the end?

[ZZ Packer]

I do. I feel like I can't keep going on this way, like, if I don't have him.

[Toure]

You sound like an R and B singer. Can't keep going on this way.

[ZZ Packer]

You know, I was thinking about R and B singers when I was thinking about black famous. You know what? That last Twitter thing. We can talk about that later. But yeah, I feel as though it needs to come to an end now because I myself don't want to get tired of this. Like, on the one hand.

[Toure]

Well, what do you need to do?

[ZZ Packer]

I need to get. Right. We need to talk about this after the. After the podcast. No, what do I need to do? I mean, I really need. Part of. It was. Has been just like every year I have to, like, get like a new little fellowship or a new little teaching job or a new little this or a new little that. You know, it keeps me going. And then. But then, you know, when you are trying to work on something that's this big and requires, like, just immense parts of your brain, like, like, you know, spaces of your brain, you're gonna have to do. I was talking about this with Dave Eggers and he was like, you just need to go down in the well. And like, at a certain point, like, it's hard to go down in the well, like the well of just yourself when you have the kids and the this and the that and the right, you know, and you have, like, these little people, you know, demanding things of your time on this sort of daily basis that are sort of semi unimportant, like, oh, lunch with this person or doing this with that person, or, you know, and that kind of stuff does take up a lot of your mental real estate. So, yeah, I mean, so how. Part of my plan is buying my time to do that. So, like, I just sort of like, okay, in the summers I get to do this. Or, you know, sometimes I go to Montalvo, which is this place in California. It's this wonderful sort of artist retreat. Then there's McDowell, that's in New Hampshire. And so these are the things. But, you know, you can't, you know, that's only like a month or so. You know, at a time. So I'm working on it. I am working on it.

[Toure]

But creatively, what do you need to do? Oh, creatively, because you have a thousand pages and it's not done. So, like, there's not an ending.

[ZZ Packer]

There is an ending.

[Toure]

There is an ending.

[ZZ Packer]

There is an ending. And I've actually turned in whole drafts to my writing group. Like, so I used to be part of this writing group is all black women. There are eight of us. We all moved in separate directions after a while.

[Toure]

Like, all published.

[ZZ Packer]

We're all pretty. All of us published. Yeah, all of us are published. So Nichelle is working with Reese Witherspoon now. She. Her thing, her, you know, writing career took off. She's the part she's partners with, you know, romantically and, you know, in other ways with Malcolm Spellman of Empire fame. And, you know, he's. He's doing his stuff. They're doing their stuff. And then there's Lilia Tandemi, who has done, like, Citizen Creek, Red River, Cane river, and she's still riding away. Farai Chideya of npr, you know, who now does, like, she's always has a zillion projects in the work, and I think that she's maybe still with MIT's Media Lab and Renee Swindle, who kind of writes what are considered sort of like, more popular. These sort of, like, more popular sort of women's. You know.

[Toure]

You gave your writing group a thousand pages.

[ZZ Packer]

I. Oh, I've probably given them more than that over the course of the years that we were together, but. Yeah, not at one time. Yeah, but like. Yeah, they. And so they've actually seen, you know, whole drafts. You know, they've seen drafts, and a lot of them were just like, just turn it in. Just turn it in.

[Toure]

You don't want to turn in a thousand page books.

[ZZ Packer]

No, I'm not going to turn it.

[Toure]

That's counterproductive. Right?

[ZZ Packer]

No, I'm not gonna do that. Now we're getting to things. We just make me depressed. Right. You just.

[Toure]

Why?

[ZZ Packer]

Why? Okay. We've known each other for a fairly long time.

[Toure]

A long time.

[ZZ Packer]

I know.

[Toure]

A long time.

[ZZ Packer]

I know. No, but I'm not gonna turn it. A thousand pages. No, I'm not that. Like, another thing about Iowa is it's like, it kind of conditions you. To not being. I'm gonna say Iowa. The workshop. To not being.

[Toure]

That. That. I mean, my God, it just got so much more pretentious when you went from Iowa to the workshop that, like.

[ZZ Packer]

I thought it was like, so much more.

[Toure]

That's like when people say, I would where go to Cambridge. Like, it's fucking Harvard. It's fine.

[ZZ Packer]

We call it the work. We call it the wor. We call it that.

[Toure]

Football players, like the Ohio State University.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, but like, that's what it's called. I mean, okay, amongst us.

[Toure]

I mean, you could turn in a thousand pages and the editor would chop it into probably 4, 500,000.

[ZZ Packer]

Editor. I want to have. I want to have more. Like, here's my idea about what to do when you have an editor. It's like, you know that things are going to be changed and whatever, and they're going to be chopped up and whatever. So I like to have it as close to my vision as possible, which doesn't mean that it's polished. Does it mean that it's even that everything's done or whatever. But it's as close to my vision as possible, you know, so that when the editor or an editor comes to me and says, I want this to be changed, or can you change this? Or can you do that? You then know whether or not you want it to be or not. You then have enough sort of volition based on that. When it's undone or it's not quite the way you want it to. To be yet, then they're, you know, then they become part writer, you know, and they become like. Then you don't know. You're like, okay, they could have a point, you know, it could be that way. Whereas, like, you are more able to discern truthfully if it's that way, you know, according to your own core sense of how it should be, if your vision is already out there, even if other things are not. So that's kind of where I am with it, which I want, like, the vision to be completed, you know? You know, and maybe I'm trying. I have to read all these things sometimes about, like, being a. I'm not. Sometimes people will say, are you being perfectionistic about it? And it's like, no, honey is. It's not like it's all like, you know, polishing a turd or polishing subtle thing, like, you know, insanely to the point of gleaming or something. A lot of it is like, there are just huge swaths of American history and parts of character, you know, development that I want in there before I have an editor, really look at it. But I do need an editor, probably for, like, just deadlines. I mean, that would help.

[Toure]

Are you like, no, I wonder how you have survived. I want to talk about, like, just.

[ZZ Packer]

Just.

[Toure]

Just. Just professionally, like, how you've gotten by with the two kids. And, you know, you're at Harvard and you're at Brown, and you're this and that. You have, like, a million fellowships, but that's not tons of money. And you don't. You're not. You're not. I mean, you get a little bit from drinking coffee elsewhere, but that's not tons of money. Not to dig all into your pocket, but, like, people would wonder, how do you make it as a writer and a parent over many years without actually publishing books?

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, I've done a lot of little bits of, like, other writing. Like, you know, whenever I print out my cv, I realize even though I consider myself a fiction writer, a lot of my stuff now has been nonfiction, you know, so I've written for the Times for a while. Like, at one point, Jake was like, we should have you consider you as a contributing writer. And so for a while, when the Times had. When I say the Times, I mean the Times, New York Times Magazine. I don't want to. Want to say the time is the way. I say the workshop.

[Toure]

You did, and you said Jake, Jake.

[ZZ Packer]

Jake Silverstein. Sorry. But, like, I would say that, you know, I'm so interested in stuff that's also going on that when I have an opportunity to write about it, like, for instance, with a Times magazine, you know, started saying, well, you know, any of these columns, like the words column, which is called first words or letter of recommendation, if you want to maybe contribute, just send us some things your way. And so when, you know, I start looking and thinking about certain words. So, like, one was outrage. Like, I'd been hearing this word, like, over and over again, and there are different types and iterations of outrage. So I wrote about outrage, outrage culture, you know, fake outrage, and, you know, trying to come up with a way to encapsulate, but also let readers explore what, you know, certain words meant beyond the sort of memes that you get and beyond the kind of, like, viral implications of that word. Another one was civility. Like, I kept hearing people talk about civility, and I was like, you know, they're talking about in a way that's kind of like trapping people. Like, oh, well, the civil conversation was like, well, we can't really discuss or have a civil conversation when there's a lot of injustice. That's like, you have to have justice.

[Toure]

Two things are really sort of opposed, right? Because there are certain things that we want to be outraged about, and there are things that we Are outraged about that. We're like, you're maybe performing it, or you're getting a little loud, which then silences people. So then. And others are saying, we have to have a civil conversation. Like, well, we don't want to have a civil conversation about police brutality.

[ZZ Packer]

Exactly.

[Toure]

Or police violence or.

[ZZ Packer]

That's the kind of thing that I love doing. Unfortunately, they got rid of the first words column. So I'm trying to shop around and see if I can do this with other people. Like maybe new yorker.com or there's some other people. I think that we have gotten to a point where there's so many different. We. We live in these. I was gonna say two different realities. Like, they're just totally. So then we have to.

[Toure]

I feel like there's different, separate realities in that we have public opinions and we have private opinions.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes. We have public opinions and private opinions, and then we have the conversations we have. Yeah. Privately amongst ourselves, we all sort of know this wasn't okay or this happened or whatever.

[Toure]

I experienced this a lot over Queen and Slim. Right.

[ZZ Packer]

Okay. Yeah.

[Toure]

Which I loved.

[ZZ Packer]

I still haven't seen it.

[Toure]

Right. You should see it. I love you, of course.

[ZZ Packer]

But I love Lena Waithe.

[Toure]

Yeah. Love Lena Waithe. And I noticed, and I discovered this, that all these people publicly were saying, oh, my God, this is amazing. And privately going, I didn't like it, but didn't feel like I could criticize a black woman's movie because it's black woman director, Lena Waithe, Black woman writer. Like, can't be publicly criticizing them. So I just said I liked it, but privately I'm like, I didn't like.

[ZZ Packer]

It, but I hate that.

[Toure]

Lots of things like that. There's so many situations where we have a public opinion because we're supposed to feel, you know, but then privately we're like, this is how I really feel.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah.

[Toure]

And I don't think that's good for society to have this big separation.

[ZZ Packer]

That part of that woke culture that, like, Obama was talking about, that, like, basically, like, being woke kind of means, oh, you have to have this public opinion about something, or else you're not considered woke and then you're cast out of.

[Toure]

Right.

[ZZ Packer]

The. The group, you know, but the thing is, is that, like, you know, I'm just a big, you know, believer in freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and not in those sort of, like, yeah, they're not in the sort of, like, I'm a white racist white. Like, though that's kind of just. That's so.

[Toure]

That's Hate speech.

[ZZ Packer]

That's hate speech. Exactly. But I think that sometimes, like us, I will say liberals, I consider myself a liberal. We get on this kind of thing where we are on this spectrum. We're not even on the spectrum of things. We looking at things in a sort of mannequin, black and white, you know, no shades of gray kind of way. And I feel like that's just so dangerous. I mean, that's really against liberalism in a way. And so I feel like we need to be having this conversation about, like, okay, what do. What kinds of opinions can we just think about? You know, I feel like, why is that so bad? You know, I mean, so that's like. I mean, definitely, I'm feminist. Believe it in. Me too. And what's that's wrought. But also there's like, stuff that, like, that has wrought that, like, sort of like, I feel like, okay, well, can we have a conversation about all of these different meanings, shades, this, what implications? I feel like this is the. This is dangerous. And so that's why I feel like there are these words. I know I got off the topic of the kids survival, but you have.

[Toure]

Made it by going to different institutions. New Yorker, New York Times, whatever. Hey, can I write something for you? Can I write something for you? Is that part of how you.

[ZZ Packer]

I think so. Because it feels as though I can't extract myself from the need to think about certain issues. And so given that aspect of myself, how can I turn this into something where, like, I'm still writing, you know, I'm still, you know, trying to do.

[Toure]

But you're doing mostly short pieces, right?

[ZZ Packer]

I know I do the short pieces because that's like, that's the easy. That's what I can do and still write this, write the novel and still, like, take care of these kids. So the thing is, the short pieces, to me, though, are interesting. Like, for instance, I did a Samuel L. Jackson interview. No one probably read it. It came out of this magazine called Port, which is a British magazine. And this was right when I think Carvel Wallace did the profile on Samuel L. Jackson in Esquire. So for me, though, like, half of that was an interview. I love that. But half of that was, like, just the transcription of the interview. For me. I had to, like, sit there not just with Sam Jackson, who was fucking hilarious and like, is one of the most intelligent people ever that I've met, but just also. Not just like, going through his whole oof. Which is so Was. It's considerable. But then also just reading about, like, Acting and then the various types of acting and sort of Stanislavski method, this and that, whatever. And then like the types that he does or kind of like what he's doing and embodiment and all of this stuff actually takes a lot of time, you know, but like, that's the kind of stuff that I've done to kind of make it through. Because it's the stuff that also sort of is intellectually fulfilling to me, you know, and still can, like, you know, provide me with a little check here.

[Toure]

Yeah. Not everybody can go to the Times and the New Yorker, but Port may be a little more, you know, like there's a secondary level, a secondary tier of magazines and dot coms that you can go to to get little checks to keep it going.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, I would say that, like, I'm trying to think of who else. What else I've kind of like done besides like the Times. The Times have been the biggest thing thus far. You know, like the 1619 project that I did with them, that was like a. That was great to be a part of. I mean, I was like, okay, this is amazing to be even a part of that.

[Toure]

You see this right wing backlash to it, of course, and saying, oh, the children are being indoctrinated with this 1619 thing. As if slavery has an impact on everything in America. Like, are you kidding me?

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, I think that, that that's a good sign, though. I mean, not that I want it to be there.

[Toure]

Is it? You want? I mean, I don't want it.

[ZZ Packer]

I don't want. Okay, here's what I'm saying. When I say it's a good sign. It means that Hannah, you know, like, I always see this Nicole, Hannah Jones, who masterminded this, and it was her brainchild. I mean, that she. That she struck a nerve means something, you know? Cause that's. You're on the right track. They should be, because that's who they are. These, like, white supremacist groups sort of masquerading themselves as just presenting a sort of objective historical reality. Like those. That's their job. Their job is to be anti black, anti actual history. They have all these. And so I'm not saying that I like that by any means. I'm just saying that. That, you know, when you've woken them, you know, like you've made them see that that history has proceeded in this way in which slavery is the basis of all of America, you know, then. Then. And they're upset about that because they. They know that that's the truth. You know, so the thing what I'm trying to say is they're just playing their part and their role, and that when you see them playing their part, it's like, okay, well, we know this is working. This is like, you know, yes, they're the antagonist. They're the antagonists. You see a play, the protagonist, antagonist. Yeah, you can't have it without, you know, them. So, you know that it's working. You know, I mean, it's like, of course, like, they don't want to acknowledge that slavery is at the root of not even just the American experiment, but the American experience, because that means that they would have to take ownership of their part of. And their inheritance in it. You know, it's their legacy. You know, like, people want to say, you know, white people. When I say people, they want. A lot of women want to say, well, I was a slaveholder or I was an immigrant or what? But.

[Toure]

No, but you benefited.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes, you benefited from it. And so to be able to say that, and then people will also, you know, to sort of, you know, this is the same way in which they will completely ally the Native American presence in the United States and the origins of just theft and genocide.

[Toure]

So let me ask you something else. Cause I was just listening to Andre 3000 talking to Rick Rubin, and Rick was basically like, how come you haven't written? How come you haven't done more? And he was kind of like, every time I think about writing something or I think about rapping something, and he can almost, like, feel the million eyes that will come onto anything that he puts out, because he's already been so lauded and so loved. And, you know, you have been so lauded and so loved for so long. And the name means so much in the writing world. And I imagine, too, you've been to so many different places, from Iowa to Hopkins. So there's, you know, so many people who are, like, have poured into you and expecting a lot out of you. And I wonder if there's some. There's some sense of. I don't know if it's fear or paralysis from. A lot is expected of me. So I have to really deliver a lot.

[ZZ Packer]

I'm gonna think about this because I think that, I mean, you could be right. You're sort of psychoanalyzing my writing career right now. But I will say that some of this is just me. I want to get certain things right, you know, and some of it could just be like. I don't know if it's just like, oh, you expect a lot Like, I wrote a whole. You know, I'm a fan of. You can already see my computer. I'm a fan of the charts and the apps and the. This. I wrote a whole writing block kind of thing. Not to say that, like, I have had writer's block at some. At certain points, but then to get out of it, I've had to, like, write, you know, like, kind of develop, like, little flowcharts of. Well, what does it mean? It's not like, aphasia or, like, whatever or agraphia. Actually. I now look and see if that's what it's called where you just actually can't write. And so the thing is that I feel like, on the one hand, there's a lot of, like, not wanting to let go of something because I feel as though I could always be kind of like, making improvements on it, thinking it out more, you know, in depth and then broader. And I'm a kind of person who, like, I kind of of am addicted to complexity. Like, I feel like there's a difference between being complicated, which I could be too, but. And then being complex, you know, complexity. Like. Like. Like, if I could just say, like, okay, it's just simply this way, you know, and some people have come out with books where it's just like, okay, is this, this, that? Then that would be better maybe for my career, because I'd get more out more quickly. But I feel as though oftentimes when I look at one thing, I sort of see, you know, multiple levels or layers. And sometimes I'm wrong. Like, sometimes I look at those multiple layers and levels, I just get sort of tangled up or, you know, like, I can't make my way out of it. But oftentimes I'm like, you know, discerning something about it, and it just makes me take longer with writing. I mean, I feel like, you know, with some people, it's like they have the problem with character or this. My problems are usually just like, these. These other things that I'm trying to, like, study, you know, and, like, using. One of my one friends said, you're probably using this novel as a lab art experiment for your. All your. Like, all the different things you want to be looking at. And, you know, she was trying to gently say to me, but, like, time to drink. Time to bring the experiment to a close, you know, so there's that. The fear, though, and the responsibility. I think that, you know, I am blessed at least sort of. Like, I don't necessarily think that, like, oh, so many people are looking at Me, or so many people are expecting this of me. So sometimes I like, it'll come to me only when someone says something like, they'll be like, we've been waiting for your book for a long time. Then I'll maybe be thinking about that. But normally I'm just kind of in my zone with the kids trying to do this, trying to do that. You know, Fellowships this, that, getting upset with, like, the current state of the politics, Trump. I think a lot of people have lost a lot of work. Like, they're not even in politics.

[Toure]

Or do you think because we are paying attention to the news or because we are angry about the news?

[ZZ Packer]

Both. Because the thing is, if you're like, if you are just. I mean, if you are at all reading about what happens every day, looking at tv, even those snippets on Twitter a little bit, whatever, you have to be seeing what's happening. And so you like it. It's not even sort of inviting you to engage instead of requiring and hijacking you into a certain type of engagement. And some of it is productive. You know, he has blue wave. And some of this is really unproductive, where you're just like you're saying of angry. You know, you feel like you are maybe powerless to a certain extent, because, like, you know, you have to wait till an election to do something. I mean, the thing that Trump has done that I think is just different from McConnell, Limbaugh, Gingrich, all these people, is that he has developed this. He's mastered framing. You know, George Lakoff talks about this in moral politics and other books, or don't. And don't speak of an Elephant, in which he says, the liberals, you know, Democrats in particular, have a framing problem. They don't have an elevator pitch. They don't have a way in which they can master language. They don't master these memes and what now we could call them memes and such. They don't master them in a way that then gets the people who actually will benefit from their policies on their side, and the Republicans do. The Republicans can turn, you know, like, basically kill these people and have them still applaud it, you know, before they do.

[Toure]

They do have a better way with language. And I argued with somebody once about, was Trump a good campaigner? I thought he was a great campaigner.

[ZZ Packer]

Of course, he's a great brander and campaigner.

[Toure]

He had four or five slogans. Like hooks.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes, like hammer hooks.

[Toure]

Right. Make America great again.

[ZZ Packer]

Make America great again.

[Toure]

I mean, on and on and on.

[ZZ Packer]

Lock her up.

[Toure]

Lock her up. Up. Build the wall.

[ZZ Packer]

Build the wall.

[Toure]

Right.

[ZZ Packer]

And here's the deal.

[Toure]

Hillary had none.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes.

[Toure]

Obama had one.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes.

[Toure]

I mean, like, having won.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah.

[Toure]

Is hard, but it's hard.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes.

[Toure]

He had like five.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah. And this is the thing I kept. I, I wanted to write about this, actually I thought about this a lot, is that, listen to Drain the Swan, which is like all monosyllables, even make America great. Only because America happens to have more. You know, we take it as a monosyllable. But like, you make America great again, you know, like, like these are things where he just mastered these very basic sort of Anglo Saxon words that have already a, A, a metaphor built in, you know, builds a wall. Like, you know, literally people are saying like, oh, well, literally this not a wall. Or it's like these are slats or whatever. The people who are his base are thinking about this metaphorically, you know, that the, a wall means keeping people out no matter how you do it. And actually he's done that because I had a whole immigration piece that I need to eventually send out, but it was basically he overturned with his particular executive order, and I'm gonna have the number here somewhere, his particular executive order where he, he used an anti smuggling law to then basically separate kids from their parents. So the same laws Obama would have, you know, the same law that Obama had where he was sort of like, okay, you can't use this child as a front for you to get in or whatever, any of that kind of stuff. Stuff. And you know, and that thus the quote unquote cages Obama had where he just literally just separating, you know, a random person who's unrelated at all to this child. Obama, Trump used that anti smuggling law to separate families. You know, and this is this thing that I don't think is just really talked about that has. He's using things that were already legislated, they're already laws, they're already, you know, policies. And he's, he and Stephen Miller and Cessna, you know, L. Frank Cessna are just war. These laws to create a kind of bureaucratic wall, you know, or a kind of legislative wall to deny asylum. You know, we're part of these cores from like 1980 and like from the Second World War, which basically say that we're going to accept, you know, people who have credible fear claims. They've been doing this for the. And they've been doing it massively. So even when you had the outrage that using that word, the outrage that occurred last, not this last, was it starting In April of this year's 1918, 2017. 2017. That's when it was beginning, when you had that outrage that had already a whole year had passed where Jeff Sessions have been doing this. He had tried, did a trial run of this. I forgot what the bill was. HR or something that was in Alabama.

[Toure]

These names are so triggering where they.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, but so they've been doing this for. The thing about Trump that is qualitatively different from, as I was saying, from McConnell and all these other people is that he has kind of groomed the American public towards having a dictator who can use the military and deploy it as they wish. You know, like when it was like April 5th or 5th, 6th, 2017, where he had the National Guard there, you know, Ducey, who is like the Arizona. Arizona's governor. Governor able to. Well, not the Ducey of Fox and Friends, but Arizona's governor deploy the military at the border. So he can do this in a lot. We don't even see half of this. So that's what Trump is doing. I think that's qualitatively different. Obviously, he's gotten in 170 plus federal judges. Judges right on these courts. They're gonna be in there for life. But it's mainly what he's done to the institutions and our concept of democracy.

[Toure]

Okay, let me turn you back to writing. Writing. Give me some of your favorite writers who you think folks would be able to read and learn from. Not just folks we love, but I know I read Joan Didion a lot and over and over. And I learned so much about writing from her and from Toni Morrison. And so folks that you think we can learn from, this is really hard.

[ZZ Packer]

Because I would say, not that I can't find some, but I would say that the more masterful someone is, the harder it actually sometimes is to learn from.

[Toure]

Exactly.

[ZZ Packer]

So when you're mentioning Didion, like, I taught a class, which this is way back when, in which, you know, there's this sort of collected Didion. It's like, you know, like a doorstopper book. And even though she's so incredibly lucid and amazing, it's in elegant. As a writer, it's sometimes hard to, like, learn from that. Like, how do you learn when someone's so seamless? And the same with Toni Morrison in this other direction. Almost sort of maximalist or sort of like Nabokov, I think it's sort of very difficult to learn from these masters. It's still imperative for readers to read these people because you are picking up sort of by osmosis. Some of this, you know, so even though you can't quite dissect what they're doing, because they made it so that you can't, you know, that's the point. I would say, yes. Didian Nabokov, you know, Baldwin Morrison, who was on the Dr. O. I was just really. Sometimes I could just like, pick up ragtime, open it up to a random page. A lot of my students sort of make fun of me for being like a big Moby Dick aficionado. And not to say that Melville in other ways isn't great. I mean, he is. Like, there's great books, but, like, I still look at Moby Dick as something that's like a separate piece in of itself that actually, if you do look at it, you can sort of see like, this dude just broke every rule that you could possibly have. You know, sometimes I look at things that I think are like. That I am fascinated by and I like and I read over and over again. But I don't love. Like, I'll say that Ulysses fits into that category. Like, I. I understand why scholars are obsessed with it. I myself don't think it's like, I don't turn to it as a great writing because I just feel like on a line by line level, okay, this is gonna, like, people are gonna hurt me for this, but, like, I feel as though it's doing a lot that I kind of like, look to it as the way I would look at puzzles, you know? And so I think some writers are good for that, you know? Like, some writers I look at because I'm like, how are they doing this? Like, I remember Toni Morrison when she came to San Jose and I went to one of her, I don't know, events there. She talked about Peter Carey, and I became obsessed with Peter Carey. And I kind of think, like, here's this living writer who's doing all this great stuff that, like, I find kind of thrilling and amazing. Zadie. Like, Zadie. I feel as though, like, I feel like there's certain books I'll pick up of hers. I'm just like, okay, there's just such magic here. Like, I mentioned already, white teeth and the Beauty was one that I sort of like. I was like, I just was. I just enjoyed it immensely. But then I think the ones that I just keep turning to again and again are things like True Grit, you know, Charles Portis. I was like, okay, how is. How is he doing this? You know? Or what are some other ones? Like. Like, there are ones that I kind of feel like they're, like, seminal. Like, when I think of, like, Terry McMillan and Mama Day, you know, I think of Naylor, a lot of poetry. I know that sounds weird to say, like, as a fiction writer, but Gwendolyn Brooks is Maude Martha, like, you know, Jamaica Kincaid, obviously fiction writer, but it's sort of hard. Like, she's doing this stuff, and it's like she's like, Diddy and, like, in this way where it's, you know, she's using things that are so just crystal clear, and yet there's incredible images, and you still get this amazing psychological impact from it. I could just keep thinking of people, but then I have my friends who are like, they're doing these things. And I like when I have, like, little short stories and I use them, for example, for students, like, you know, and there'll be maybe even just one short story that I think is perfect for teaching, you know, escalation or what I'd call indirect. Free. Indirect discourse or something like that. So those are, like, themselves, these gems, you know, but there's still, like, these. I don't know. I hesitate to use the word masters. Cause it always is so loaded. But these writers who are just amazingly great at what they do.

[Toure]

You sparked something there for me when you said your students laughing at you.

[ZZ Packer]

For your love of Moby J. Yeah.

[Toure]

But you are like me, central Gen X. And you are, unlike me, constantly interacting with millennials.

[ZZ Packer]

Oh, I am. Yeah, definitely. And some zoomers.

[Toure]

Some zoomers and. Right. Starting to be right. The freshmen are zoomers now. And I wonder if that term will stick. I wonder what advice or what you have learned in terms of dealing with millennials for so, so much for so long. What have you gotten out of that?

[ZZ Packer]

I mean, millennials, they're this thing where, like, they are kind of the purveyors of this sort of digital culture, but they're also sort of captive to it, you know, like, they. They can't understand things without, like, Instagram, whatever. Like, Facebook, of course, is old to them, but, like, all of this stuff is just like, they are captured. You know, I just read this Gia Tolentino piece in the New Yorker about. I think it's Instagram face or something like that. They, you know, this is their lives. Their lives are being watched all the time. They've always lived with this kind of hive mind, you know, Whereas if with. With. With Gen Xers, we're the people who grew up half analog, half digital.

[Toure]

Not native to us.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes, not native to us. We can show our parents what to do with computers or how, how to get, you know, get on it or whatever. But we also remember, like, I remember I was like, like, what should be the, like the lowest, the youngest age I could possibly date and feel okay with. And then I realized it's not really an age or like a, a, A difference in, in years. I mean, obviously not going to date someone like, 20 years younger than me or whatever, although dudes do it all the time. But I realized I was like, you know, if you have not actually watch Captain Kangaroo unironically on YouTube, that is the cutoff. That's the cutoff. Captain Kangaroo, Yeah. You have to have seen Captain Kangaroo, like, in real time, like, when you were a child. And then if you've done that, like, you do that. Yeah. Then we, then we could talk. But, like, other than that, we can't have a. You know, like, they're just things that they don't really understand. Like all Those, like the PSA, the PSAs, those, like, you know, the film strips that we used to have to watch. Like, no, I remember mimeographs. Like, you know, when you get those, like, purple instead of. You're like, you're like, what? The Xerox. Xerox. The purple are like, you know, so all of that kind of stuff is stuff that we remember as Gen Xers. And then, of course, the digital age came. Like, we kind of like, like either were. And I remember high school was when we had computers, and like, we were just starting to get computers. And this is Kentucky in classrooms. And that's sort of like what distinguishes Gen X from millennials. But the millennials, I feel like they have a hard road to hoe. Like, here they are with this debt. You can't, you know, like, it's going to be so hard for you without having gone to college. Like, in the past, boomers and whatever, they could have been like, okay, well, I chose not to go to college. Are people talking about Bill Gates not going to college? Okay, you can't do that in this day and age. And so it's very difficult. You're going to have problems. It's very difficult for them to have to do all these things just to be in society and yet have no safety, no sort of safety net for it, you know, except to, like, what, become an Instagram star? That's not really a safety net. So that's really a problem. And they want some. A lot of things, sort of. And because of that, I think before I used to think of them as Being not selfish or egotistical, but just kind of self centered a little bit, because I thought at first it was just like a failing, but I realized actually they're forced to be that way a little bit because if they're not that way, they're not gonna get anything, you know, and so they have to like carve this, this is. Millennials have to carve this kind of like way for themselves. And they have to do things quickly. They feel. And so when you tell them, oh, you know, just take your time, be a writer, read a lot, do this, they're like, no, I don't have time for this. I have to pay some bills, you know, and that was.

[Toure]

But they also have to move quickly to define themselves because there's so many of them.

[ZZ Packer]

There's so many of them.

[Toure]

Right. We're the smallest generation by far between the boomers and the millennials. There's so many of them that to separate yourself, you have to move quickly.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah. And you have to brand yourself. And this is something that, like, you know, Trump, I'm gonna say, for what is he? Silent generation, whatever. A. Is he a boomer? Yeah, that's right. He's not sound. Yeah.

[Toure]

Like he had four boomer presidents in a row. And it looks like Gen X will be skipped to me.

[ZZ Packer]

I think Gen X. Gen X is always skipped. Like, there's a whole thing where there's.

[Toure]

Like thing of Gen X. Yeah.

[ZZ Packer]

Just getting skipped instead of like, what, what really? And, and part of it is because there's like, if you're a millennial. If you're a millennial, you have. Yeah. You're saying you have to move quickly, you have to brand yourself. If you're a boomer, it's sort of like, like you've, you've gotten a lot of stuff already. You already had like, you know, you could be like, okay, I want this job. And like, okay, here it is. You know, I mean, not for black folks, but like, not for black folks. But. And, but, yeah, with. I think that we're in a time in which if you snooze, you lose. It really is that way. And I regret that. I don't think that. I think it's really bad to have to always be on social media. Always have to be. I mean, I love reading a lot and having more access to that, you know, but I think that it also swamps us, you know, and we're as humans. Like one of the other things I'm interested in, in terms of consciousness, you know, in addition to consciousness, is Just how our minds and our brains work. And as humans, we're not, you know, to have. We're designed for stimuli in certain instances, and then we can react to it, you know, fight or flight this or that or whatever. We. But to have it constantly in streams and to never be able to escape it, you know, that's not how we're built. And so I worry.

[Toure]

I live with two zoomers, but they're babies.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah.

[Toure]

So, you know, I'm not yet able to discern what the character or culture of zoomers are. But you're starting to see them.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah. I have a 12 year old. 15, 14 year old.

[Toure]

Not just at home. Yeah, obviously at home. But I mean, I think if you're 18 or 19, you're really Zoomer. You're really. So are you starting to see differences? A culture, there a difference for millennials?

[ZZ Packer]

I do. Here's one thing I noticed. I was like, I was reading this thing on Quora, which is like this one particular Internet segment.

[Toure]

Yeah. Like freshmen and sophomores are really zoomers.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah.

[Toure]

More than millennials.

[ZZ Packer]

Well, here's what I haven't noticed. Like. Like, you could be. Let's say this is something that they're expressing on Quora that, like, you could be if you're. If you were like, say, highly intelligent, you know, when you're a boomer or whatever, you would look odd compared to, like, the rest of the people who weren't like, you know, whatever. I really quite believe in IQ points, but for the sake of argument, like, you know, you're like Bernie Sanders. Standard dinner. Deviations away from, like, the norm. Yeah. So you would look weird, you know, but then gradually, like, when it comes down to, like, you being sort of acclimated, the closer you are to being a zoomer, the more acclimated you are to looking like everyone else. So that's the thing that I've noticed, like, if you Gen X, a lot of it was like, you know, those John Waters movies and whatever. Am I saying that right? Is it John Waters who did John Hughes? John Hughes, yes. I knew I was doing something.

[Toure]

John Waters was the Baltimore filmmaker. Great, epic. But John Hughes was the ultimate Gen X.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes. John Hughes. Although I've met John Waters, who's amazing and funny. I sat down next to him, I was like, are you John Waters? I am, yes.

[Toure]

It's not even.

[ZZ Packer]

But John Hughes. Our whole thing was angst and like, okay, you didn't fit in. And you're kind of like, no one kind of quite fit in. And it was Hard to, you know, and, you know, whatever. But like, with the zoomers, it's sort of like, okay, everyone kind of, of can look a little bit like everyone else. And, and the other thing I've noticed is that they can. You can. Sometimes I'll be like, how are my kids even knowing some of the stuff they know?

[Toure]

Sure.

[ZZ Packer]

You know, and I, I don't say just like endless YouTube I should know, but like endless YouTube videos or whatever they're doing. They are finding these ways of finding what they're interested in and, and absorbing all that information in ways that were just completely alien to us, you know, and that's, I think, you know, interesting and odd and, and I kind of feel like, in terms of, like teaching them, in terms of like the, the, the new kids coming about and teaching them writing, it makes it easier and harder. Like, the easier is like once they're interested in something, they'll go off and they'll find it. You'll be like, well, how did you discover this? Because you don't even pick up books. They'll find it. They'll find these interviews, they'll find whatever. They'll find stuff. Like they'll like, read on their, you know, whatever device, Kindle thing or whatever, or their computers or their phones and then, and then other thing. Times that it's harder is it's sort of like the mindset of reading is just qualitatively different than the mindset of social media. Like, even though we get content quote unquote from social media, the experience of actually having a book and then turning these pages and sitting with it and not having to finish it in like one sitting, you know, like a, you know, the way you would even like a long form piece, you know, that is different. And millennials are this way too, where you, you see that they, it's harder for them to do this unless they're in an environment like college where they're made to do it. And that is hard because once you're out of college, you still have to be able to, if you're a writer, to be trained enough to like, not just pick up a book, but to experience a book in the way that it's like, it's a part of your life. It's taking up this discrete amount of energy and you, you're going back to it in a certain way and interacting it with it in a certain way. That's on a slower pace than social media would allow you to interact.

[Toure]

It's very external.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, right, I read exactly. That's Really?

[Toure]

I read a book and I'm listening to what you have to say.

[ZZ Packer]

That's exactly social.

[Toure]

I'm constantly thinking about what you're gonna say.

[ZZ Packer]

Yes, it's exactly it you said. Yeah, yeah, it's. Yes, that's precisely it. And I. I don't know, I. I don't even wanna call it nostalgia, you know, for. For books or like when the New York Times Magazine got rid of the first word section. And you know, Jake Silverstein is wonderful. He's in so many wonderful things with the magazine. But I was so disappointed, you know, I don't even know who. Whose decision it was ultimately. But because we need a kind of way in which we can meditate and ruminate about things. Ruminate sounds, maybe negative, but meditate and absorb information and not constantly be in a position to have to retort, you know, or reply or do this clap back. Like, even though it's great, when you see people do it, like Nancy Pelosi goat just seems. This is like. Like. But you shouldn't have to be. That shouldn't have to be. It shouldn't have to be all the time, you know, and. But that's the. The society that we're in now. Forces that, you know, you're not anything unless you have this like, clever, quick comeback clapback, you know, response, you know, and that's it, you know, like, we need people who believe in expertise and things taking their time and really being really absorbing the world rather than regurgitating it.

[Toure]

So what do we gotta do?

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, that's a good question.

[Toure]

To get this novel done.

[ZZ Packer]

Oh, I thought you were talking about what we gotta do as a society. Dude, you're still on this.

[Toure]

I'm coming to you.

[ZZ Packer]

The focus is on the novel. Doctor. Yeah. Oh, my God, Tere. We needed to like, just have a couple gins. Talk about. I got all of our. All of the. Yeah. What are we gonna do? That's a good. That's a. You know, you're putting me on the spot. Here's what I'm gonna do. Like, I have this year in which basically I feel like if I can't do it this year, it's like it's a sort of shit or get off the pot kind of thing. I hate to use a cliche, but. Because I can't. Can't have it dominating my thoughts anymore. Because it's. And it's not because I hate it.

[Toure]

Sick of it after a while.

[ZZ Packer]

It's. It's not just that. It's not like it's because so much of it is related to what is happening right now currently. You know, it's just the precursor to all of that, that I feel as though if it doesn't get out, if I'm not able to get it out, like, I've missed the moment in which I can. I don't want to be didactic and say, educate like the American public, but just. Just sort of display it and let it all be out there. And it's not to say that I'm not pro characters and character development either. I'm making it sound like it's just a nonfiction book. I don't want to say not just, but. But I need for it to be. I need for it to be out. Yeah, we'll talk about how that's going to happen later. This is hilarious. I can't believe you. You put me on blast right now.

[Toure]

I mean, it's important. I think it's important. I think it's important. I always ask everybody, what is your superpower?

[ZZ Packer]

Oh, my God.

[Toure]

And, like, there's some ability or talent that you have that has allowed you to be successful. And, you know, you can furrow the brow all you want, but you are a famous writer. You write for. I mean, like, you're talking about the writing that I did for the New Yorker and the writing I did for the New York Times while we're sitting at Harvard, where you're about to be a teacher and you're working on your book that Penguin Random House will take right away. And you were unquestionably a successful writer. What is the superpower that has allowed you to make the career, make the life that you've wanted to have? And don't give me that look of terror.

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, it is a look of terror because you're not even stopping the tape or anything. I call it a tape for what? It's just like some digital. Whatever's going past, like, nanoseconds or whatever. But that's a good. A superpower. I mean, I feel as though whatever someone could call my superpower, like, I. I don't feel like I myself can call it that, but, like, the things that make me. And I don't like the word successful because that sort of implies a goal. Like, it seems too goal oriented to me, and I. I just like things that are more processy or something. Like, you know, but the thing that, like, when. When people say, oh, you've had this or that, these accolades or whatever, those are just, like. Those are just the. The end results of, like, a Process. It's not the thing itself. But getting back, I feel as though, like, I know this sounds really lame to be one of those people, like I'm an entp, like to. To put a kind of label on yourself, like a sort of Jungian psychological. Psychological label or something like that. But I would say that the kinds of ways in which I like to explore the world and it's like think about awareness and being awake, which is, I think, different from woke in the world and observing it like you're being in touch with what it means to be the most human you can be. Right. And it has to do with like. Like a sort of absenting. Let me. I didn't even say that word correctly. Absenting. How do you say it? To be absent of ego. But is it how that. Absent. I don't know. I can't believe I'm saying any of this. I feel as though you. You end up having to. I, I may have to think, but I feel as though you end up having to divulge yourself of a lot of ego and you still have to keep a lot of just esteem, you know. And that sounds like, you know, almost antithetical, like one to the other, you know. But that's, I think, what it means to be a writer. It's like you're always balancing these extremes that sometimes even seem like they cancel each other out. You have to be humble in terms of when you come to your work, you know, but you have to be. Have enough ego to know that, like, your. What you're saying and what you mean is actually valuable and should be heard, you know, so. And it's often a matter of, like, which position it's going to be in. Like that, like humility and that. I don't want to call it egotism, but confidence, you know. And so what. What superpower do I have? It's just. It's hard for me to say it's a superpower, but I feel as though awareness and a sort of dogged determination to kind of like, be aware, even though it can initially be to my detriment, you know, that's why I was talking about, when I talked about, you know, freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Like, I feel as though that's a hard position to take, you know, because a lot of people are like, saying, yeah, you shouldn't have to say this or should. There's a lot of, like, as I said, woke culture. It was like, you can't do this or can't say this and still be, you know, otherwise. You'll be canceled, quote, unquote. But we have to come to every problem bearing our own minds and not be afraid of some of these consequences, you know, and, like, the consequences that, like, society will, like, heap upon you. And I think maybe my superpowers, maybe, like, you know, like, in a sort of way, I don't want to just curse about it and say, but just sort of not giving a. About, like, certain stuff, you know, you have to kind of, as a real writer, you know, not give a. You know, I don't want to. Maybe that sounds horrible. I remember Issa Rae was talking about, like, at one point, she's like, she was on one show. Like, you have to be a. I know that sounds weird, but I give a.

[Toure]

About what?

[ZZ Packer]

Yeah, not giving a. About. Like, someone is saying, oh, I feel as though in this piece you did this or that or whatever, or you said this or that or whatever. And as I said before about vision, like, it's not to say that. That I can't change my mind, but once I have a sort of vision of something, then it's like, okay, I can now then safely defend that vision, you know, like, you can have your opinions. I'm not afraid of that, you know, but, like, I feel as though, like a lot of people, we live. We live in a sort of fear. As long as things are okay, as long as your career is fine and everybody's paying attention to you and whatever, whatever, then they're kind of cool. But anytime something just starts to kind of like, you know, get messed up or wrong, or you say something like, I've had things where I've said to a university, okay, you don't have any black people here in this department. And then it's sort of like silence, and you will, like. Or actually, should I have said people of color? No. After a while, no, I actually. I did mean that I met black people, you know, and so the thing is that kind of thing where, like, then you can, like, you can start losing over that. That you can start losing positions in this and that and jobs and whatever, and you have to kind of be at a point where, yes, you.

[Toure]

You.

[ZZ Packer]

You want to live, you want to survive, you want. You still want those jobs and stuff, but the not giving a. It's sort of like, okay, I said. I said Nene leaks. I said what I said, you know, and. And being cool with that, you know, as long as you initially were cool with it. I'm not talking about, like, you mentioned a mistake or something like that. If you Made no mistakes. And you meant this, then you shouldn't have to walk back, you know, your position. I mean, and that, you know, like, I've had, you know, a year of just a lot of bad stuff happening, you know, and. And I shouldn't say that in the passive sense. You know, there are things that I have done which then have caused bad things to occur. So then. But the thing is, those are things that, like, I'm not ashamed of. The consequences are not great, you know, But I can't say, oh, I, you know, I messed up. And so that's what I mean by not giving a fuck. You have to be like, look, I did this, I said it, it was right. I'm standing by it, you know, and that's hard. But that is kind of, I think, a superpower, because I think that there are other people who, who they, you know, they would have to give in or they would have to acquiesce. And I feel like, you know, you have to. I don't like, you know, these maxims, like, live your truth or whatever, empower or stuff like that, but you have to be true to yourself. And then as long as that's the case. Okay, bring it on.

[Toure]

Thanks so much for listening to Toray Show. Toray show gives you fuel to power your dreams, because you can use your dreams like a rocket ship to blast you into a life you never imagined. You can make your dreams a reality. Maybe this show could help. You can find me on bluesky ore, and on Instagram orayshow, and of course, on TikTok orayshow. Torre show is written by me, Torre, and produced by Ashley Hobbs. Our editor is Ryan Woodhull. Our booker is Ray Holiday, and we're distributed by DCP Entertainment. And we will be back next Wednesday with more amazing guests because the man can't shut us down.