Interview with Daniel Price, author of Slick

Interview by Mehroo Siddiqui

Born in Manhattan in 1970, Daniel Price has lived in Brooklyn, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. While attending Colby College in Waterville, Maine, Daniel shifted his focus to playwriting and wrote and directed some one-act plays. After college, he moved to Los Angeles to become a screenwriter. He also worked as a graphic designer for 12 years. Now he is a full-time author, a fact which makes him "very happy." The idea of framing oneself to exonerate oneself and the presidential election standoff in 2000 became the basis for Slick, and he decided to write a story about the "many machinations that occur behind the scenes in the media." It took him two years to write the novel, which was rejected by 35 different publishers before Random House stepped in and decided to publish it. Daniel still lives in Los Angeles, and when he is not promoting Slick or researching his second novel, he writes for his website, Abused by the News. He's also the director of media education for Loud and Clear, a non-profit, non-partisan group dedicated to providing informational tools to voters. Starting in November, he'll be co-instructing a crash course in disinformation at the Center for Inquiry.

From what I read about you on your website it seems as if writing was always your first love, as far as work goes I mean! So what was it like working as a graphic artist for a while instead of as a writer?

It varied between tolerable and terrible. But as a graphics guy, I got to work in many different industries-- legal, healthcare, government, you name it-- and a lot of what I've witnessed has become grist for my writing. So it wasn't all bad. The downer part is that I'm back to doing freelance graphic work now that my book advance has dried up (it'll be at least a year before I see any royalties). My co-workers find it intensely strange that the guy in the next cubicle is a published novelist. But such is the state of book industry today, and such is the life of the first-time writer.

Was it difficult balancing both your job as a graphic artist and writing when you began Slick?

Yes. I couldn't do both at the same time, so I ended up freelancing 80 hours a week for six weeks at a time and then using the extra income to take six-week "sabbaticals." That's how I wrote the first half of the book. After that, I did the independent filmmaker thing and financed my project on credit cards. It took about a year of full-time writing to finish the first draft of Slick. By the time I'd finally reached the end, I had over $30,000 in credit card debt. Fortunately, I managed to work my way out of it, thanks to the book advance, but I do NOT recommend that approach for the faint of heart or wallet.

How did it feel to finally become a full-time writer?

It felt terrific while it lasted. But I have high hopes that it'll happen again. I'm not out to get rich, just self-sufficient.

How did Slick happen? As in, how did you come up with the story, the characters, everything?

I've always been fascinated by the desperate "look at me!" style of the mainstream media. But sometime between the Monica Lewinsky brouhaha of 1998 and the Columbine tizzy of 1999, it became clear to me that our news has gone nuts. I wanted to write a story about the people who worked behind the scenes in that environment: the journalists, their editors, and everyone else who helps define reality for the masses. But then I started digging into the publicist side of the equation, and that was it for me. It was so fascinating and so unexplored in popular fiction that I knew my first book would be set in the PR world. I did over a year of research into that area, and with every new trick or tidbit I read about, the story kind of shaped itself.

Still, despite my personal disgust for some of the tricks that spin doctors use, it was important to me that nobody in Slick is demonized. Everyone in the story has some redeeming qualities to go with their flaws, and everyone in their own way is a victim of the media culture they helped create.

Did you ever encounter any obstacles, at any point, during the writing of the novel? Did you ever feel completely at a loss as to how to go on with the story, or were any of the characters unmanageable? How did you overcome this and manage to go on?
 

About ten chapters into the story, 9/11 happened, which pretty much derailed Slick for five months. It was kind of hard to write about the shlocky, sensationalist tendencies of the news media when they were suddenly producing some of the most thoughtful journalism we'd seen in decades.

Fortunately for Slick (and unfortunately for the rest of us), it didn't take long for the press to fall back into their usual manic, profit-driven patterns. And as the media snapped back to form, so did I.

What kind of a writing schedule did you follow? Since writing is a somewhat solitary activity, was it difficult to discipline yourself to keep at it?

No. When I really get into a story, I have to discipline myself to be social, otherwise my friends and family would putting my face on milk cartons. During Slick, I was pretty much at my iBook for fourteen hours a day. When I wasn't at my keyboard, I was taking brisk walks, working out scenes in my head. I get nutty when I'm working on a book. Amazingly, I was more stable as a screenwriter. You don't hear that very often.

It took you about two years to complete Slick; would you say that is the average time one would, or should, spend on a novel that size or do you think you could have spent more or less time on it?

Well, I took several breaks during those two years, so I don't know the total number of man hours I spent on Slick... somewhere between "a lot" and "a hell of a lot." I can't say if it was too much or too little. Some authors can crank out a similar-sized novel in four months. Some might take ten years. In the end, you have the give the story as much time as it needs. And I feel I gave Slick the time it needed.

What do you think is the best part about writing and what is the worst? What about writer’s block? How do you deal with that?
 

There are many great parts about writing. One is when a scene clicks so well, you can't stop grinning whenever you read it. Another is when your own characters surprise you with the things they say or do, to the point where you actually go, "Wow. I would have never thought of that."

On the minus side, there are many times when a scene or passage doesn't work, and it shorts out the whole story like a bad fuse. And there are times when you come up with something really clever, only to learn that someone else did it better in another book.

In terms of writer's block, I've never had a case of it that I couldn't cure with a good two or three days off from whatever it is I'm writing. Sometimes you become lost in your own story and need to get a little distance before moving on. That happened lots of times during Slick.

Was it difficult to draft a proposal for the publishers? Did you have any help in that from your agent or someone else?

In the case of Slick, the proposal was the manuscript itself. I wrote the novel completely "on spec," which I hope to never have to do again. I basically gambled two years of my life.

In pushing Slick, I had two agents doing all the legwork: my longtime screenwriting agent, Stuart M. Miller, and a book agent he essentially subcontracted to help shoot Slick all over town. And like I tell other writers often, my book was rejected at 35 different publishers before Random House finally picked it up. Since then I've met other authors who scored even more rejections before eventually finding a publisher.

How does it feel when you read or hear reviews about the book?

The reviews for Slick have been very positive so far. Even the critics with bones to pick have done so in an informed and constructive way. The only one that annoyed me was a mini-review in a London paper where the critic feigned omnipotence and told his readers all about my motives and rationales for writing Slick. Naturally, he only had my book to judge me from. And naturally, he was way off-base.

A lot of publishers rejected Slick; did that discourage you in any way? Did you ever think you should have written something or some character (like Scott Singer, for example) differently so it would have appealed to the publishers?

No. One thing I learned from my experience shopping Slick around is that editors don't know what they want until they see it. So to try to tailor your book to what you think they'll like is a phenomenally bad idea. It's an even worse idea to model your book off of a recent literary hit, because by the time you finish the book and shop it around the publishers, that hit won't be so recent.

As cheesy as it sounds, you just have to write the best story you possibly can, and then leave the rest to fate. It really is a lottery in that your manuscript has to catch the right people in the right mood at the right time in the publishing market.

You had an agent; do you think it is important for a new writer to approach publishers through one? Can you give a reason for your answer please?

There's no way in hell I could have gotten Slick to all the people who rejected it (and the one person who accepted it) all by myself. If you're an unknown writer, and you don't have relatives high up the food chain at a major publishing house, you need an agent. Forget that "one in a million" story where the author somehow got through without representation. That wasn't me and it won't be you. Get an agent. It's much easier than getting a publisher.

Tell us about the editing process of the book. How did that happen?

As I was writing the first draft of Slick, I sent fresh chapters to three people: my mother, my agent, and a very good friend of mine from college. These were my "alpha-testers," and they each had different strengths in the way they analyzed my story (and if you think I went to my mother because she was an easy critic, then you don't know my mother). Once I had a complete first draft, I handed it out to over forty other friends, relatives, and casual acquaintances. You can't be shy about your work, and you can't be hesitant to solicit as much feedback as humanly possible.

Did their comments and the comments and suggestions of your editor surprise you in any way?

All the time. Obviously I didn't agree with every comment I got, nor did I incorporate every change that was suggested. But I got a lot of smart feedback from a lot of smart people. More that that, I got a great sense of the passages or plot developments that weren't as clear as they could be. That's a crucial thing because as the author, you understand every hint and nuance of your own story. So the things that seem painfully obvious to you might be completely lost on others.

Did that lead you to change anything in the book and were you satisfied by the end result if you did?

Slick originally had a forty-page epilogue that wrapped everything up in a neat little bow and gave some added weight to the whole story. I felt it was the best writing I'd ever done, but it didn't fit the tone or the pace of the story that came before it. It took the combined feedback of at least ten trusted friends to convince me to kill that particular darling, and they were proven right. The shorter manuscript was the one that Random House moved on. It was six months later that I'd finally sent the excised epilogue to my editor, who read it and said, "Yeesh. What the hell were you thinking?"

Who are the writers that you admire? Did you ever try to consciously or unconsciously emulate their style? If not, then why?

My favorite author, hands down, is Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.  His stories are all original, beautiful, hysterically funny, and so painfully human. The Sirens of Titan is still my favorite book in existence. If I had more time and less sanity, I'd read it once a week.

Still, I wouldn't dare try to become Kurt Vonnegut the Third. I'd rather find my own style. Plus, most of Vonnegut's stories bend the fabric of existence in one way or another (to wonderful effect). Slick is completely based in modern reality. If there's anything I adopted from Vonnegut, it's a penchant for taking on flawed characters without ever judging them. Like nobody else, Vonnegut could do satire with a heart, which is something I tried with Slick and will keep trying with all my future works.

You have also written plays and screenplays in the past. Any plans on doing anything like that again in the future? Why or why not?

I'll probably return to screenplays at some point, even though they're far more limiting in scope and construct. It all depends on the story I come up with. Some work better as scripts. Some work better as novels. And some could take a completely new form. I'm still waiting for someone to successfully use the Internet as a storytelling medium. I can't believe it hasn't happened already.

Is there anything like a dream project in your mind? Any half-developed idea that you are really looking forward to developing, or any famous piece of work that you would like your own to be like?

I always have story ideas floating around in that kooky head of mine, but nothing I'm ready to move on or discuss just yet. I will say that my agent and I have been shopping around the idea for a "Slick" TV series, which would focus on the continuing adventures (so to speak) of Scott Singer: publicist, crisis manager, and all-around media operative. The public is more conscious than ever of spin and misinformation in the news, thanks to a contentious election and a slew of recent media scandals. I think a "Slick" series could really strike a chord with people. We've had meetings so far at Showtime, HBO, and FX, and will be pitching the broadcast networks this summer. I'm also developing a crash course in disinformation that'll walk people through the roots and usage of 21st century propaganda. I hope to be teaching that by June.

Where do you plan on going from here? What about the novel you are planning to write? Have you started working on it? Is their something about it that you would like to share with us? Anything about the plot, how you plan to write it, or anything else?

I'm still working out the rough sketches, but I do know it won't feature any of the characters from Slick and it won't revolve around PR. It'll be told in third-person omniscient, unlike Slick, which was narrated. It was fun as hell to write as Scott Singer, but it was also frustrating in its limits. Next time around, I'll be jumping into lots of people's heads.

Any advice for other people planning to write their first novel?

Write the book you always wanted to write. Write it well. Then get an agent. Repeat as necessary.

Originally from Pakistan, where she worked in the publications department of an organization, Mehroo Siddiqui is currently doing her Masters from George Mason University in Virginia.

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