It started with food. I sat there with a rather large pile of food in front of me considering it only cost me five dollars. Sitting there in the English Society lounge, I waited for Andrew Weiglein to finish his lunch. I looked around the room which was occupied by three people aside from Andy and me. I noticed the game Taboo sitting atop the tall bookcase on the right side of the room, and I hoped no subject of our future discussion would fall into that category. I wanted to know how this writer worked. I wanted to be able to imitate him so I could improve my own work.

Andy was born in Turlock, California in 1984 and is a current student at San Jose State University. This sounded like golden information to me. I, too, was born in 1984 and I am a SJSU student, so I felt that I would be able to understand the way Andy thinks more easily. As a point of bragging rights, he also claimed that the “bad guy” from the film American Graffiti, also known as Harrison Ford, was from Turlock. As of yet I have found no additional information to back up that claim. However, it was this kind of mentality that interested me. It was clear that Andy was not a strictly serious person. He was more relaxed, or laid back if you will. I liked that. I started by asking him about his normal daily routine. He said that he simply wakes up, goes to class, goes to work, and goes back home. Seeing this as a rather boring response, I asked him about his recreational activities. He told me that he liked to play tackle football with a group of his friends. I found these responses odd. He at no point mentioned writing as any part of his day. I found myself wondering when he did write, since throughout the course of our conversation it became clear that he writes often. He then added, “I love Jack Daniels. I love whiskey. That’s when I get my best inspiration.” Ah-ha! The path of the great writer begins with booze. Of course it was apparent that he was joking; however, there must have been some truth behind the statement or he would not have made it.

It was about this time that another student in the room inquired about the tape recorder in my hand. I explained that I wanted to capture the essence of a writer, and the student claimed that Andy is not a writer. He replied laughingly, “Hey, I’ve got one thing published.” Well isn’t just a great approach (or self-defeating, whichever you prefer). I know several people who would have been seriously offended by a comment like that. Andy took it gracefully, though. It seemed further proof to me that Andy is a great writer; only a person with actual talent will deny his abilities. Before their auditions, the only people on American Idol who claim that they will definitely “make it to Hollywood” are the people who are terrible singers. This was the same kind of response from Andy. I hope to be able to broach the subject some day with this kind of playfulness.

I then began to get into the thick of it. I asked Andy how he became interested in writing. Established authors always have a ready made answer to that question. They touch upon some event in their childhood or some other writer that they feel the need to emulate. For the most part, these are padded answers. Andy, on the other hand, answered directly and honestly. “Shit, I don’t know.” That is perhaps the most beautiful answer to that question ever heard. He went on to explain that he had always been good at writing so he just kept doing it. Then, we became interrupted by the intrusion of another student carrying goodies. She brought in with her a small box full of cookies. Showing his fun loving nature, Andy said, “Somebody kicks ass!” Andy proved once again that to be a writer you don’t have to be a stiff. I enjoyed the idea of being able to keep my personality intact when pursuing a career in writing. Essentially what Andy was saying is you don’t have to be serious to be a serious writer.

I asked Andy about how he writes, the process he goes through. His response was discouraging yet honest. “If I’m not inspired I can’t write.” Then after a short pause, “It sucks.” I soon found out that whenever Andy gets an idea he writes it down on a small notepad that he always carries around with him. I wish I was smart enough to do that. If I did I would probably have enough ideas to fill a 500-page book. However, since I don’t write my ideas down, I usually forget what it was I was planning to write about. So, Andy’s notepad idea seemed very practical to me. It’s an idea I may just steal. He also explained that his inspiration comes logically. Everything he does gives him experience; therefore, every single event in any day can be material. He made it importantly clear that he does no research for any of his writing. “You never get inspired to write something that you have absolutely no idea about.” Hence, Andy’s primary audience is his peers. By his own admission, he can’t write for people older than him because he doesn’t see the world through their perspective (he hasn’t been around long enough). And, “I can’t write for people younger than me because they’re stupid.” This sounds limiting (or specifically referencing his last point, demeaning), but having read his work in the past, I can say it’s not prohibiting the worth of his writing.

The inspiration idea led us into the realm of style. “I love cussing in literature. It makes it more personal. Whenever you read literature it’s all so literary, and that’s crap. I don’t talk like that. I don’t know anybody that talks like the Great Gatsby. I know people who say shit, fuck, god dammit, piss on that motherfucker’s face.” What a concept. I have never heard any other writer admit something like that. Though it was clear that Andy is just a goofball at heart, that is the most serious thing I heard the man say. If that’s the way to make writing realistic, that’s what I’ll have to adopt—it does, after all, make perfect sense.

Andy explained that it’s important to have several different styles as a background for writing. Having done journalism in high school, he rejects the common teacher’s comments about school newspapers. Andy opposes the fact that teachers point to school newspapers as examples of bad literature, by stating that it is a completely different style of writing and it is impossible to compare the two. This is a view I found it very easy to agree with. I have seen for myself many English teachers bashing the newspapers which I have read and have seen no fault in.

After crediting journalism, Andy discredited poetic meter. He admits that it takes skill to write poetry in meter, and he can appreciate the effort; he added, however, that it does not change the poem in any way nor does it give the poem content. “It’s just something for the writer to flex his nuts about.” This is one place I disagree with Andy. Though it may just be caused by the fact that when I write poetry I attempt—the key word here is attempt—to write it in carefully constructed meter. I like the fact that I disagree with him. People tend to dislike other people that are most like themselves. So if I agreed with everything the man said, it would soon become annoying, and I would grow to hate him, instead of admire him. His detest for meter may also be because of his self-admitted lack of ability. “I don’t have a poetry bone in my body,” he said earlier in the conversation. And considering my earlier point, this probably means that he is quite good at writing poetry (I admit that I cannot attest). I was, however, administered a small dose of Andy’s poetry. On some previous day, Andy was trying to help a fellow student rhyme. He couldn’t remember the word, but he remembered that the rhyme was on “ade.” It was at that point, when Andy came up with a wonderful imagery ridden poem. “Come to me, you dirty bar maid/Or a slap on the ass, you shall not evade.” He even planned to eventually expand on those two lines. “It’s going to be a villanelle, and those two lines are going to be the repeaters.”

At this point I wanted to talk about some of his work that I was familiar with. I had read his hilarious short story called “Blargalargum.” Andy gave a very good description of that story. “You can tell where that inspiration came from. It was about a guy who ate nachos and had a massive case of diarrhea in the middle of work.” That seemed to be a rather vague description but fitting nonetheless. He also explained to me that he chose the title carefully. “Titles are incredibly important.” According to Andy, a title adds or takes away meaning from the text, that is why “Blargalargum” is an appropriate title. He said that because the title is a just a string of random letters it reflects the story, which is a stream of random events. If he had given it a meaningful title, the reader would have searched for meaning in the story when there was none to be found.

Then, perhaps the most important part of our conversation took place. We discussed how Andy actually goes about writing. He frowned upon my style of writing (though he didn’t know it was my style of writing) by saying that the story should never be completely thought out before the writing process begins. “I don’t choose the plot. The characters go and do what they do. I have no control over them.” Seeing how that may cause problems within the story, I asked Andy about how edits his work. He said that he basically just edits for continuity because when characters do random things sometimes it doesn’t add up. I then asked him if he ever made major changes. He replied, “The most drastic thing I did was when I was in high school. I wrote pretty much a whole novel; I think it was like 150 pages on Word. I left it there for a year, and I went back to edit it. And I just thought it was such crap that I just deleted it altogether. Now that I’m in college I’m thinking, ‘Wow, I really shouldn’t have done that; I could have actually worked with it.’” Though it seems to be true that he should not have thrown the work away, I have to give him credit for admitting fault in his work. I never have the guts to admit that there is anything wrong with anything I write (I have several things lying around at my house to prove it).

Near the end of our conversation, Andy pointed out that “There is no definite answer to any question, so the only right answer is, ‘Shit I don’t fucking know.’” That statement is a well rounded philosophy that describes the writer in question, Andy, very well. He then concluded our conversation before running out of the room with, “Shit, I’m late for work.”