Chuck Palahniuk: Writing as Eating Disorder, Word Processor as Toilet
Filed under: Scripts
"It's kind of like bulimia," says Chuck Palahniuk, author of the book that spawned David Fincher's Fight Club, in response to a question asked by NPR host Rick Kleffel about the way he modulates social behavoir as material for his writing. Chuck continues:My way of being with people is probably incredibly unhelathy, in that I'll be incredibly social, and I won't write a word for maybe a year, and I'll just be with people, going to parties and soaking up stories, and just sort of recharging all of my ideas. And, in a way, that's like overeating. I will eat everything in the bakery. And then I will sit down and I will vomit it up, alone at home in the toilet - which is my word processor. And then I will go back out and I will overeat everything in the bakery, and I just binge and purge, and binge and purge, and that's my way of being with people.
Kleffel has an MP3 of the entire interview on his site. [via boingboing]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-04-2005 @ 1:10PM
steve said...
as a person who uses the toilet, i am insulted that....
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6-16-2005 @ 4:19PM
Rachel Webb said...
As someone who has spent more than two years working to recover from bulimia nervosa, I am offended and disgusted that a writer would compare his idiosyncratic writing habits to a disease that has nearly killed me.
I am a writer myself, so I understand when writers try to use metaphors, similes and the like to explain certain things, but this statement is the pinnacle of ignorance.
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6-16-2005 @ 4:20PM
keith said...
Oh calm the fuck down pukey, he wasn't promoting bulimia or even debasing it, it was simply a metaphor he came up with on the spot that does, despite how you feel, make sense.
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