Great interview with Updike from Guernica on how art can influence writing and vice versa, and on borrowing moments or angles or perspectives from art in different mediums to create something new.
"John Updike: Yes, often. I think what Eliot said was bad poets, or maybe weak poets imitate, strong poets steal.
Lila Azam Zanganeh: Yes, good poets steal.
John Updike: Yeah, you’re always looking for something. You know, this image I mentioned. There’s an image in one of the first Nabokovs I read, was the pencil sharpener, which said “Ticonderoga, Ticonderoga.” Ticonderoga being the brand of a pencil. But to listen to what a pencil sharpener is saying was a kind of image you would love to have created yourself. I don’t think I would steal that, it’s so special. But I have stolen images, I think, in the course of my work, when I thought nobody would notice. Sure. At first, I think trying to form an approach to writing you look for a model. And I named four or five that meant a lot to me at a formative point in my life. But after you’re formed, then basically you kind of read for things so admirable that you wish you had done them and you’re not above maybe stealing them, if you can find a good place to hide them."
Guernica Magazine
I've been writing a lot lately by doing so very slowly.
"Lila Azam Zanganeh: Are you a slow writer?
John Updike: .." I’m always interested in how other writers do it, what their quota is, if they have a quota, what their hours are. John O’Hara, a writer I admire, worked at night—he worked from midnight till one... I try to do about a thousand words a day. It depends on what you’re writing, of course. In the beginning of a novel, where I am now, you go very slowly because you’re trying to feel your way into the heart of the thing, and also you’re naming characters and trying to create incidents that will resonate through the length of the book."
