Who: Ted Gioia
Claim To Fame: Ted Gioia is a musician and author, and has published eleven non-fiction books, including his latest Music: A Subversive History. Gioia has been called “one of the outstanding music historians in America” by the Dallas Morning News. He has served on the faculty of Stanford University, and published in many of the leading newspapers, periodicals and websites, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal. Ted’s most recent book How to Listen to Jazz was selected as the best book of the year by the readers of Jazz Times magazine. previous book Love Songs: The Hidden History, winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, stands out as one of the most influential music history books of recent years. perhaps best known as the author of The History of Jazz, which has sold more than 100,000 copies and ranks as the bestselling survey of jazz published during the last quarter century.
Where To Find Ted: His Website, Amazon, Twitter
Praise For Ted: “He invites the critic’s cliché ‘wonderfully erudite’, and earns it, not to mention the even cheaper critical term ‘provocative’, though he earns that, too.” — The New Yorker
When and where do you like to write? Are you the same-thing-every-day kind of writer or can you write anytime, anywhere?
Over the years, I have tried every possible writing routine. My first book was written longhand while sitting at a desk in a library—and I had to hire a typist to turn my scribblings into a publishable manuscript. By the time, I wrote my second book, I had purchased one of the very first Apple computers, but adapting to the digital age was challenging. The floppy disk containing two chapters of that book somehow got damaged, and I had to recreate the text from various notes and earlier drafts. But I persisted with digital technology, and now can’t imagine working without it. Today I write in a quiet home office with two computers, and my large personal library near at hand for consultation.
Do you have any pre-writing rituals or habits before you sit down to write?
Probably the only essential pre-writing ritual is a cup of coffee—preferably Major Dickason’s Blend from Peet’s. Other pre-writing rituals can easily become distractions, so I avoid them. But the coffee is essential. The fuel for my books is a 50/50 mix of dark roast java and printer toner.
What do you do when the writing doesn’t come easy? Do you struggle at all with that dreaded enemy of writing: writer’s block? Do you think such a thing exists?
I don’t believe in writer’s block. If I waited for inspiration before I began writing, I would never get anything finished, or even started, for that matter. I set aside time every day to write. When I sit down and start, I am prepared—because I have spent much of my life in preparation for the writing projects I undertake.
By the way, that leads me to my most important rule for writing. You must have good input in order to create good output. I can’t stress that too much. I spend more hours reading than I do writing. I also devote a considerable amount of time to a host of other experiences that stimulate thinking and creativity. When I meet people who complain that they lack ideas for writing or suffer from blockages, I find that they invariably spend too much energy fretting about their output, and aren’t sufficiently focused on the inputs any author needs in order to thrive.
Do you have any sort of system for choosing the books you read? Or is there any criteria that tells you ‘this is not good input’ and its time to quit a book?
I read a fairly wide range of books and periodicals. That’s actually the single biggest time commitment in my daily schedule, and has been for years. This is much more than a research program—for me, it’s almost a way of life. Frankly, I am very willing to read far outside the areas I am currently researching. In fact, I insist on it. But I definitely want to make sure that whatever I’m reading is smart, creative and well-written.
Also, I will often spend months focused primarily on a single topic—for example, aesthetic philosophy, or shamanism, or postmodern fiction, or medieval history, or Native American music, or some other subject that doesn’t show up on the bestseller list. I might read a dozen or more books on that subject, then move on to my next topic. This gives me a degree of granular-level expertise and specialization even while allowing me to maintain the overall stance of a generalist.
Or I might choose a specific author and read everything I can get my hands on—primary works, biographies, commentaries, etc. I did that recently with Tolstoy, and last year I spent a huge amount of time digging deeply into Schopenhauer. I am currently engaged in a deep dive into the work of Gregory Bateson. Once again, I don’t want to be locked into a single area of expertise, but I also want to avoid the superficiality of the dilettante. If I do it right, I can constantly expand my comfort zone as a thinker and writer.
Your books are very research intensive. What is your method for researching and organizing material you might want to use for your future writing?
I spend a lot of time on research, as my preceding comments probably make clear. But not all research is equally productive. I would offer three pieces of advice to others who are working on research-intensive projects, especially those dealing with music, culture or history:
First, always make it a high priority to go back to primary or early sources—and when someone tells you that you can skip those original sources, be suspicious.
Second, be aware that every field of inquiry suffers, to some degree (and usually to a great degree), from the groupthink syndrome. Scholars repeat opinions not because they are true, but merely because others are repeating them too. All groups tend to practice imitation and forced consensus-building, and you can’t achieve independent thinking without scrutinizing all of the received opinions and putting them to the test.
Third, I would encourage researchers to look on the fringes of their field and into other related disciplines for new perspectives and information. With each passing decade, researchers are becoming more and more specialized, and although this brings with it obvious benefits, it creates many troubling blind spots. Many of the most important processes in life and culture are holistic, and will disappear if you don’t step back and try to see the bigger picture.
What books or writers have most influenced the way you think and the way you write?
Although I write about music, many of my role models come from other fields. My heroes include Lionel Trilling, Susan Sontag, Isaiah Berlin, Charles Taylor, and Bruce Chatwin. I admire them for their combination of persuasive writing, uncommon wisdom, and intense commitment.
What is your advice to aspiring writers?
Despite what they might have heard, writing is not a glamorous profession. They should only pursue writing if they feel deep in their hearts and souls that it is their calling. If you feel that passion for writing, you won’t worry much about writer’s block and the other obstacles in your way.
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