Robert Kolker Motivates Himself By Asking “What if Writing Were Fun?”

Robert Kolker’s new book, The Vanishing Family, is available now from Doubleday, so we asked him a few questions about writer’s block, favorite books, writing practice, and more.

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Who do you most wish would read your book? (your boss, your childhood bully, etc.)
Anyone who is ever tempted to skip to the end of any story (including their own). The Vanishing Family is about people who can do that very thing—see their future—but for them the stakes couldn’t be higher.

How do you tackle writer’s block?
I used to have a little handwritten note posted at my desk—“What if this were fun?”—that I found very useful for unclenching and loosening up and not feeling quite so exposed or onstage when I was struggling. Then my kids saw the note and thought it was pretty bleak and teased me about it, so I took it down. But I swear, this can totally work.

Who is the person, or what is the place or practice that had the most significant impact on your writing education?
I started at a weekly community newspaper in Manhattan where I found myself reporting new chapters of continuing sagas in real time. Everything had a cliffhanger. Will the protesters stop the skyscraper? Will the police stop the crack-dealing on one block? Will the political-club president admit to embezzling? I fell for the narrative aspect of journalism there, and the human aspect, too.

What book has elicited the most intense emotional reaction from you (made you laugh, cry, be angry)?
The World According to Garp did all three. I got mad when I first read it. I was young, and the tragic twists seemed sadistic to me. I read it a few years later and cried because I was starting to get just how random and chaotic life can be. More recently, I laughed with recognition at how much John Irving already understood about the world we’ve come to live in.

What’s a book you recommend to other writers?
I like Stephen King’s On Writing for its tips on making it through a first draft. But I’d pair it with Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up, which is so much more than a memoir. To me, it’s a brilliant description of the discipline and thoughtfulness that’s needed to refine and ratchet up writing into something that, to outsiders, can seem so light and easy.

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The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia by Robert Kolker is available from Doubleday, an imprint of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.