Justin Cronin
The man behind the Passage Trilogy tells us about his process
What is your daily writing routine like?
I’m a midday writer – my best hours are 9.00-3.00, sometimes a little longer. When I’m heading toward the end of a book, I’ll sometimes do a second shift after dinner. One thing I can say: I’ve finished every book I’ve ever written at 2.00 in the morning. I have no idea why this happens, but it always does. Two am, right on the money.
Describe the room in which you typically write.
I live in two places, so I have two offices. One is the third floor of an old house in Massachusetts, not far from the ocean. It’s not especially large, but big enough for a couple of desks and a small couch, and there’s a wall of windows facing south, so there’s plenty of natural light.
My other office, in Houston, is considerably less charming – a tiny, dark bedroom with a view of an alleyway behind an apartment building.
Do you find it helpful to listen to music while writing?
Not usually, but once in a while, I’ll find a song – always something instrumental – that seems to deepen my sense of a particular moment in a book, and I’ll listen to it on repeat while I’m trying to think through the scene. But when
I actually do the writing, I do it in silence.
How do you deal with writers’ block/the urge to procrastinate?
I just go with it. These things pass. If the writing’s stalled, I do something else for a bit, usually exercise – swimming, biking, running.
When my language tanks feel empty, I often go and re-read Ian Mcewan
Which of your books was the most difficult to write?
I’d say The Ferryman was the most challenging in the day-today. It was a different kind of book for me, structurally speaking – a recursive plot with a big twist about two-thirds of the way through. It took me a lot of time to figure out how to do this and correctly align all the details of the story.
Were you a keen reader as a child?
Like every writer I know, I spent a lot of my childhood with my nose in a book, and nearly all of this was the science fiction of the era, by which I mean the ’70s. Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov – I worked my way through the whole buffet of Golden Age greatness, appetisers to dessert.
Is there any particular author whose writing ability makes you envious?
When my language tanks feel empty, I often go back and re-read Ian Mcewan. He writes some of the best sentences I know, and his work reminds me of the infinite possibilities of languages, all those good sentences out there still waiting to be written.
Where’s the oddest place you’ve seen one of your books, either personally or otherwise?
A friend sent me a photo of The Passage on a shelf in the lobby of a hotel in Cairo. My books are definitely better-travelled than I am!
What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve received or read?
The first rule of writing is the first rule of any job: you must show up.
The Ferryman is out on 2 May, published by Orion Fiction.