Chris Bohjalian on Writing

[Retiredgene]

A interview with the author, Chris Bohjalian appeared in yesterday's Boston Globe and I included a small excerpt with his quote in 2nd paragraph below jumped out at me:

Next month, Chris Bohjalian will publish “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands” his seventh novels in eight years. He has written five bestsellers, three books that have been made into films, and one Oprah’s Book Club selection, “Midwives.” Bohjalian lives in Lincoln, Vt., with his wife and five cats.

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Related

• An Excerpt from ‘Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands’

A BEAUTIFUL NIB: I always edit by hand, using fountain pens . . . They are messy, and they force you to think more slowly. Also, it’s fun — a fountain pen nib is beautiful. I always treat myself to a new fountain pen for every book, and that’s the pen with which I sign that book and edit the next book.

Gene

 

[celestino]

Nice to see some writers are still using fountain pens for something!

 

[Snargle]

I'd be interested in hearing what pens he's used and prefers.

From the referenced article, here's a photo of the author and his office. I am VERY impressed! I see at least one Montblanc, and the inkwells/pen holder/blotter set is gorgeous!

 

[Krodor]

Zoom in over behind his computer...he's got like 5 FP's in a clear holder of some kind hiding behind his external drive. I had missed those on first eye-pass.

 

[Snargle]

Plus he's got some in cases to the right by the window. It looks like he prefers thick, chunky barrels.

 

[Retiredgene]

I'd be interested in hearing what pens he's used and prefers.

From the referenced article, here's a photo of the author and his office. I am VERY impressed! I see at least one Montblanc, and the inkwells/pen holder/blotter set is gorgeous!

Zoom in over behind his computer...he's got like 5 FP's in a clear holder of some kind hiding behind his external drive. I had missed those on first eye-pass.

Plus he's got some in cases to the right by the window. It looks like he prefers thick, chunky barrels.

Good catch as I only saw what was in front of him on the desk

I was stopped in the article when he said he writes about 75,000 words in a novel to know what it is about, that is a LOT of paper & ink and with those thick pens

Gene

 

[Snargle]

Good catch as I only saw what was in front of him on the desk

I was stopped in the article when he said he writes about 75,000 words in a novel to know what it is about, that is a LOT of paper & ink and with those thick pens

He does the primary writing on that Apple computer, but he prints everything and edits on paper with the fountain pens. Then he keys in his changes back onto the computer version. I can understand...having done editing on both paper and on computer, the paper method, while much slower, is also much more thorough. For a creative writer (which I was not!), that seems to be the way to go. I generally didn't have the option of slow, deliberative editing.

 

[AllenG]

Zoom in over behind his computer...he's got like 5 FP's in a clear holder of some kind hiding behind his external drive. I had missed those on first eye-pass.

At least two of those are Edisons.

 

[Retiredgene]

He does the primary writing on that Apple computer, but he prints everything and edits on paper with the fountain pens. Then he keys in his changes back onto the computer version. I can understand...having done editing on both paper and on computer, the paper method, while much slower, is also much more thorough. For a creative writer (which I was not!), that seems to be the way to go. I generally didn't have the option of slow, deliberative editing.

I have an Apple setup like that, saw your reference to chunky barrels and was just kidding, I should have put in a

Gene