An Interview with Tao Lin

The following interview took place via Gchat.

INTERVIEWER: Are you currently in NY? or elsewhere.

TAO LIN: I’m in NY. I’m in my apartment. Where are you?

INTERVIEWER: I am also in NY, also in my apartment.

LIN: Nice Nice.

(going to use full sentences to make it easier to edit)

INTERVIEWER: Thank you.

Is travel disruptive or helpful to your writing process?

Travel in a big sense or in a more minute sense (going to the store, etc.).

LIN: Going to the store and traveling around my room and walking around outside, and traveling between my room and the library, seem like they’ve helped my writing process. Or seem like they’re part of my writing process at this point. So in that sense it’s helpful, it’s a kind of structure added to the amorphous thing of my writing process, a structure that, instead of, for example, the 9-5 structure, fits naturally, to me, with the writing process, or at least the writing process for Taipei. Travel in the other sense, like visiting my parents in Taiwan, stops my writing process, I think.

But traveling can be part of the writing process that occurs away from writing or typing, like thinking or remembering.

INTERVIEWER:  Is working ‘on the go’ unappealing? I think it’s strange seeing people in airports/on the train who are visibly doing some sort of work.

LIN:  I work ‘on the go’ often. When I’m in the last stages of a book I’ll have a print-out of it or part of it with me and be reading it and editing it while on the train or walking to and from somewhere. I like it. But it’s hard to be motivated enough to be doing something like that. I haven’t done it in an airport, not regularly. It does seem strange in an airport, especially for creative work maybe.

Have you ever seen a known writer in an airport?

INTERVIEWER: I haven’t. I think I saw someone I vaguely recognized from a reality TV show (?) once at LGA, but.

LIN: I haven’t either.

What are the books that all the NYU students in writing classes are excited about, if any, that you can remember, recently?

INTERVIEWER: A girl in one of my classes was talking very enthusiastically about a new Eileen Myles book, I remember, the other day, but I haven’t read it. Someone in my class last semester brought up Taipei as an example of, I think she said, ‘internet-related’ fiction. Does that sound accurate?

LIN: It’s internet-related, in that the internet exists in it. In that sense it’s accurate. I just typed a long answer and it wasn’t making any sense. I feel like there must be such a disconnect between students and professors (in their 40s or older) right now in terms of perspective on the internet. That I didn’t experience, being born in 1983, didn’t experience nearly as much at least I feel.

INTERVIEWER: Has the internet changed for you in, say, the past year?

LIN: It’s changed but I don’t know how. I could probably read my emails from a year ago and discern some changes in how I view the internet or use it. I’ve noticed that I feel like I’m watching TV commercials or reading ads when I look at my Facebook news feed, and that if I’m on Facebook I’ll inevitably start scrolling down the news feed unconsciously reading strangers’ status updates that have seemed to me like extensions of what I usually try to avoid reading or viewing, like the news or newspaper.

But I have 5,000 Facebook friends also.

INTERVIEWER: Can I ask about a recent tweet of yours?

LIN: Yes, sure.

INTERVIEWER: I like your Twitter very much, also. It’s thorough.

A few days ago, you tweeted ‘My favorite books of poetry by ppl older than me: all have MFAs. ~90% (?) my favorite books of poetry by ppl younger than me: no college.’

LIN: Thanks, I’m glad you like my Twitter.

INTERVIEWER: What is an example from each of these groups?

LIN: Poetry books by people older than me with MFAs: A Green Light by Matthew Rohrer, Can You Relax In My House by Michael Earl Craig, Bad Bad by Chelsey Minnis. Younger than me with no college degree: i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together by Mira Gonzalez, YOU HEAR AMBULANCE SOUNDS AND THINK THEY ARE FOR YOU by Sam Pink. Younger than me with college degree (I’m ~95% sure): Brandon Scott Gorrell’s book published by Muumuu House. Realizing now you asked for an example each.

Has anything been confusing or unclear on my Twitter recently?

INTERVIEWER: Let me look.

I think your ‘internet presence’ is consistent, which seems it would be difficult. Or maybe some things would be easy. All your user icons are light teal, why light teal?

Okay I’m looking at your Twitter right now.

LIN: I’ve never thought of it as teal, I’ve always thought of it as just light blue. I think I thought it would be calming, or maybe the least non-calming color.

INTERVIEWER: It’s calming but also very bright, so maybe a energizing/ calming combination.

I liked this series of tweets about oranges.

A lot of your tweets seem to be ‘honing in’ on a specific thing in a way that is not redundant or repetitive.

LIN: That sounds good, I might’ve had something like that in mind also when choosing it. I didn’t want a light tan color, for example, which would also be calming probably. Oh yeah, I was going for neutral, I’m pretty sure, something neutral. White is too non-neutral to be neutral though.

I like that analysis. I try not to be redundant, it’s a problem in life, to me, I feel.

INTERVIEWER: Repetition seems important in a lot of your writing. Not as in ‘repetitive’ but more as in sequenced.

I’m thinking of the index at the end of Richard Yates, which seems like a tool for identifying the first mentionings of things.

LIN: Thank you for thinking of that, you’re probably the 1st or 2nd or 3rd person who has mentioned the index like that to me.

I repeat things a lot in my work actually, I like recreating the effect of what in real life is a reoccurring joke, or just a reoccurring thing that gains new meaning as its context changes, you might have with a friend over years.

My main inspiration for this kind of thing is the novel Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie.

Lorrie Moore does it also, sometimes in indirect ways that I find pleasing, in almost all her short stories, I think.

INTERVIEWER: Repeats things?

LIN: Repeat images or words or ideas.

I guess every writer does it, or most books do.

Sequence is important also, yes, thanks for noticing that. For example the mentions of Richard Yates in Richard Yates have a sequence telling a story that I like to think of as having a relation to the main story.

INTERVIEWER: I have Richard Yates in my room, I’m going to look at the index right now.

LIN: Sweet, thanks, read the mentions of Richard Yates and see if it has any effect.

INTERVIEWER: Okay so six mentions, more or less distributed evenly in terms of their distance to each other.

Or I guess some are closer. 32, 94, 98, 142, 150, 177.

LIN: I remember feeling satisfied with that distribution.

I think I like books that are in something like a fractal form, in that examining parts of it will tell you the same information, but in smaller scale, as examining the whole.

But also with a non-scrutable aspect to it. Not as predictable as a fractal. 

INTERVIEWER: I’m understanding it as a portion of something producing maybe the same effect, potentially even with more saturation, as the whole. I remember liking the ‘facial expression’ part of the index, it’s very long.

LIN: Like how with a drop of water you can get an idea of what a glass of water might feel like.

I’m glad you like that part.

I think I was surprised how many different kinds of facial expressions I felt the need to use to describe people’s faces, I feel, simply.

INTERVIEWER: Where do you keep notes?

LIN: In many places, it’s been a problem. In my Gmail on a ‘Tasks’ thing, in an email draft in Gmail, in multiple files in Google Drive, in like 10 different files in ‘Notes’ on my iPhone, on pieces of paper taped to my wall, in little notebooks, on pieces of paper, in text files opened on my computer in TextEdit sometimes. I still feel sometimes like I don’t know where to type or write something if I get an idea. Like I’ll frantically try to open a new file in Google Drive if I think the idea deserves its own file, then I’ll remember I already started a file for this kind of idea, and I’ll also remember that I should just put all notes in the same place, and not write down notes that don’t seem notable.

INTERVIEWER: Do you delete things in any of these places if you feel they aren’t going to ‘go anywhere’ or if you get tired of seeing them?

LIN: I’ve felt like I’m in a transition period the past year maybe, during which I haven’t been rereading notes and feel like I don’t trust myself to delete anything yet, at this point. I’m envisioning some point in the future where I stop taking notes and organize everything, I’m kind of dreading it maybe.

I’m also increasingly interested in studying my own experience and thought processes, so I’m interested in notes that haven’t been edited.

But I’m also interested in deleting certain notes and focusing my attention more on certain other notes, and in viewing the world in that way.

I go back and forth a lot. I haven’t separated those two desires into two different systems of note-keeping. 

INTERVIEWER: Does Twitter function as a note-taking device for you? Do you delete tweets?

I’m sorry that I’m talking about Twitter this much.

LIN: Yes, I also take notes on Twitter actually by typing my note (on my iPhone) in Twitter and saving it as a draft. Sometimes I’m frantically searching for the correct place to note whatever idea I’ve had, to do it before I forget it, but do it in the ideal place so that I can find it later and know its context, and the place that’s apparently easiest for me to access and use for this is Twitter. I also kind of view http://twitter.com/tao_lin3 as a place for me to take notes. By ‘notes’ I mean to-do lists and to-do items also, I’ve been meaning that also. Sometimes I think I want to make all my notes public, if only so it’s easier for me to organize them and reference them and use them, but then I’m not sure about that.

I like how much you’re talking about Twitter, we could talk about it even more.

INTERVIEWER: Twitter almost demands to be a note-taking place. I think Twitter is my favorite internet thing maybe for that reason.

LIN: I delete tweets also, yes. If I’m rereading my tweets I’ll read it as if I’m reading a book of poetry, or something, and edit it down by deleting certain lines.

You use Twitter to take notes?

Or have you seen other people use it like that?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah I think the majority of things I tweet are things to mostly myself.

I don’t like the notes app on the iPhone, so it seems like the most logical phone place.

LIN: I want to make it so I’m tweeting mostly to myself.

LIN: I make notes on Facebook also. I’ll post something as a note to myself. 

INTERVIEWER: Really? That surprises me. That seems like it would get messy.

LIN: That seems good, but I think I’ve noticed that it can be hard for me to discern if I’m posting something as a note for myself, or if I’m thinking about who will see it at what time and what they’ll think, etc. The two seem inseparable for me.

INTERVIEWER: That is a good point.

LIN: I’ll post something on Facebook to structure my life . . . like I’ll post that I have a reading in 2 weeks and that’ll structure my life.

Because I’ll see it every day.

INTERVIEWER: What is the most anxiety-provoking situation you can think of right now?

LIN: I’m thinking for a long time, feel like I’m daydreaming trying to think of something.

Maybe just having some kind of obligation that I’m dreading, having multiple obligations that I’m dreading, spread out evenly in the future. Or trying to sleep and not being able to sleep while also feeling dread of some future obligation.

INTERVIEWER: Have you written a poem recently?

LIN: I have a Gmail draft titled ‘poems’ in which I’ve been sometimes weakly working on a poem, for like the past 4 months.

Tao Lin is the author of novels, poems, essays, and short stories. The unpredictable range of his work spans from written to visual art, printed material to writing published across various avenues of the internet. His most recent novel is Taipei.