I first became aware of the Brooklyn-based writer Brendan Gillen last month, via his terrific book/author Q&A with Deborah Kalb, about his newly published first novel Static.
The rock music-world theme of the book resonated with me, given my long experience writing about rock and my earlier, minor role in the music business. I reached out to Brendan and asked him to participate in the “Three Questions With…” feature of my blog, and I’m grateful to him for answering my questions below.
Like so many of the people I’ve interviewed for the feature, Brendan has a multiplicity of interests and pursuits. Besides his extensive fiction writing, he is a writer/director for the creative agency Boomshot (including some fantastic sports-related work), as well as a DJ and photographer. He’s even posted a Spotify playlist related to his book.
I hope you will find Brendan’s thoughtful answers about learning, writing, and other forms of creativity to be intriguing and inspirational.
How would you characterize your work, encompassing writing in its various forms, video and agency work, DJing, and how it all fits together?
The most important thing for me in all three endeavors is curiosity. The willingness and courage to get out of my own way and see what emerges, whether that’s developing an ad campaign for a client, writing my debut novel, Static, or putting together a DJ set. The willingness to mess up, basically. Because nothing happens without a first draft. I’m not saying it’s easy. Like anything, it’s a muscle that takes practice and persistence to develop and maintain.
Naturally, there are differences in the writing I do for clients and the writing I do for myself. When I’m writing ads, I feel a little less pressure. Perhaps it’s because the creative assignments come with a brief, an established sandbox to play in. There are rules and guiderails in place. The goal is to try to push the limits of that sandbox, but ultimately, there will be the inevitable rounds of feedback, revisions and compromise until you have a finished piece that (hopefully) everyone feels satisfied with. It’s a team effort at the end of the day.
With fiction, you’re the boss. There are no real limits when you’re staring down that blank page, which can feel overwhelming and intimidating. I would imagine that like most writers, I’m my own worst critic. But if you can just trick yourself into lowering the stakes, into developing a baseline of trust in yourself to just start, beautiful things can emerge. Call it superstition, but I always write my first drafts of a piece of fiction in pencil, because it’s my way of telling my brain, Oh this? This doesn’t matter. It’s impermanent. You can always erase this if it sucks. Which is usually enough for me to scribble something down and see where it goes.
It’s not all that dissimilar to DJing, the notion of starting a journey, and seeing where it takes you, how one record can spark an idea, which sparks another, and before you know it, you’re in a totally different musical landscape from where you started.
Whether it’s ad agency work, fiction, or DJing, the goal is to make someone feel something, to share an energy with another person. And what’s better than that?
How important to you is ongoing/lifelong learning (including building on your MFA from City College of New York} and development of craft (however defined) in your writing and perhaps other creative endeavors?
I love this question. I hope I never stop learning and developing my craft. It’s almost like a shark that stops swimming. This might sound dramatic, but I feel like if I ever stop learning I’ll die. A lot of it is trying, as hard as it is, to stick to a writing routine: doing whatever I can every day to get just a little bit better. Making a personal commitment to the practice. Whether that’s writing a few hundred words, or editing a piece, or doing some research. It all plays a role in developing as a writer.
And reading! Reading is so, so key to learning how to craft a story. When it comes to fiction, I’ve traditionally been a reader of literary novels and short stories, though lately, I’ve pushed myself to read books that fall outside of the literary tradition, specifically crime and mystery, because of the strong knack for pace in these works. I’m hopeful that whatever it is I’m reading, that I can absorb elements of craft and story through osmosis. Let the subconscious do some of the heavy lifting.
And I do have to shout out the MFA program at City College, as well as Elizabeth Gaffney’s workshops at A Public Space, which were all instrumental in the development of the manuscript that ultimately became Static. I’ve been fortunate to find myself in some very generous workshop environments. I know MFAs and workshops aren’t necessarily for every writer, but they’ve helped me tremendously in my growth and confidence.
The characters in your novel Static include rock musicians, as well the ecosystem of people in related areas like music companies, record stores, artist management, production, publicity, social media, etc. In your estimation, is the nature of this ecosystem different from other realms of creativity, such as writing/publishing, visual artists, films, or broadcasting?
What interested me about exploring the trio of musicians at the heart of Static was that it was an examination of a group of people pursuing their dreams together, creating together, seeking a union of spirit, the push and pull of the group dynamic. It’s the same with film and TV: it (usually) takes a team of people creating together to bring the vision to life. On the flip side, writing fiction is, largely, a solitary endeavor, so I think a part of me, in writing Static, was yearning for that collective creative energy, which I think is a very special thing if you’re fortunate enough to find it.
Regardless of discipline, when an artist reaches a certain stature, whether it’s as a writer, a musician, or a filmmaker, there’s often a team of people that surrounds them and helps guide their career. But I think there’s something beautiful about turning the lens on artists who are at the beginning of their journey, scratching and clawing to find an audience, to make something meaningful, a building block in their career. Because in a lot of ways, that’s what I am!
And it seems that the barriers to entry are continuing to fall away. Whether you’re a writer, a musician, or a filmmaker, the traditional systems of gatekeeping no longer hold as much power as they once did. If you’ve got a phone or a laptop, you can make music, make a film, or write your novel or screenplay. And with content/music platforms like TikTok and SoundCloud, and writing platforms like Wattpad, where it seems a lot of young writers are finding audiences with their original and fan fiction, it’s a great time to tell your story.