And he’s still got a year to go on the next book

It’s apparent that Victor Gischler really ought to change the name of his interview series. World’s Worst? I think not, especially considering what he’s managed to extract from Dennis Lehane’s active brain:

What’s the stupidest thing you ever heard somebody say in a writing workshop? Did fisticuffs ensue?

DL: Oh, man, that’s a long list. I was in a workshop once where the class literally split into two teams on opposite sides of the room and just stared across at each other with bald hatred for the entire semester–“You’re not using that gerund in our house, baby! Not in our house!” It was kinda like that. And there was this one member of the opposing team who began every critique with: “Wouldn’t it be more interesting if…” and then proceeded to rewrite the entire story being workshopped. I remember this person once suggested that a story about two gay waiters in Miami was “cliched,” and wouldn’t it be better if they were, you know, two gay ranchers in Texas. I was sitting beside the author, who was a good friend of mine and a terrific writer, and I finally exploded with, “Or two gay pipefitters in Alaska, or maybe two hermaphrodite coal miners in Ohio, or…” The professor later admitted to me that he would pray before every class for the semester to just end, please end.

What is your darkest secret? Wait … that’s too nosey. What is your 7th darkest secret?

DL: It hurts me that I’ve never lived up my billing as “the next Keanu.” I know, I know, people have made it clear that I’ve done so well on this other path, but, man, I was born to play Johnny Mnemonic. Born for it!

And only at the very end does Lehane reveal more about what he’s working on:

I’m two-plus years into writing my next book and I’ve still got a year to go, so I feel like I need a vacation. But when I try to take one, I spend all my time feeling guilty and thinking about the book. Then I get back to the book and I can’t write because I lost all my momentum

when I tried to take a vacation. So now I’m just deadset on running the table until the beast is put down. It’s a sprawler, though, a mammoth quasi-epic about the Boston Police Strike of 1919 and the Great Influenza Outbreak and WWI and the Red Summer and…man, just talking about makes me queasy again. So, hey, hopefully I don’t fuck it up. If I do, please keep your opinion to yourself.

Man, even if it turns out to be a glorious mess, I still want to read it. When it’s good and ready, of course.