{"id":1597893,"date":"2024-04-09T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecreativeindependent.com\/people\/writer-vanessa-chan-on-enjoying-the-time-you-spend-not-working"},"modified":"2024-04-09T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T07:00:00","slug":"writer-vanessa-chan-on-enjoying-the-time-you-spend-not-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/09\/writer-vanessa-chan-on-enjoying-the-time-you-spend-not-working\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer Vanessa Chan on enjoying the time you spend not working"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were talking about the things you do to relax when you\u2019re not writing, and you said television is very important for you in that realm.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

People say that they love TV, but I watch so much<\/i> TV, probably four hours a day, or more. I watch an immense amount of television. There are two genres that I chill out to, and one of them is a very good detective narrative. If you give me an unlikely crime busting, mystery-solving person or duo, I love that shit. I have some conflicts about it, because usually, detectives are connected to law enforcement and the world\u2019s realities don\u2019t reflect the clean way that crime is solved and mysteries are fixed in TV, but that\u2019s probably what I love about it, because everything is handled. There are boundaries between good and bad and everything\u2019s tied up, and I love it, which is the opposite of the way that I write. I don\u2019t tie anything up when I write. The work that I write ends quite open-endedly. So it\u2019s just foundationally different than what I write and what I believe in, but I love it. I watch that shit all the time.<\/p>\n\n

Do you have a particular show that you like?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

There was one that\u2019s set in Australia, Miss Fisher\u2019s Murder Mysteries<\/a><\/i>. She\u2019s supposed to be like a 1920s liberated woman called Miss Phryne Fisher and she solves mysteries. There were six seasons of this.<\/p>\n\n

Then there\u2019s another show called Grantchester<\/i>, which the writer Brandon Taylor also loves. I watched that show. There are so many seasons, and I watched all of it. It\u2019s about a vicar, and a country detective who work together to solve crime, and it\u2019s so stupid. I love it; it\u2019s ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n

What do you love about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I like unlikely duos, because there\u2019s instantly built in conflict, but again, they solve crimes. They have backstories, but then every episode, some crime is solved or some mystery is handled, and it just feels very complete in a way, I think, that the world isn\u2019t. It\u2019s great. There\u2019s probably six seasons of those and I probably watched that in two weeks. I\u2019m crazy.<\/p>\n\n

People ask sometimes, \u201cWould you ever consider writing for TV?\u201d Never say never, but I worry that writing for TV might ruin not-great television for me. I love not-great television. I\u2019m quite finicky about my literary tastes, it has to be well written. But TV? There is no standard.<\/p>\n\n

Why do you think that\u2019s different?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Because I know less about it, maybe. You know how the most enthusiastic readers are young people on social media \u2013 that is because they\u2019re just impassioned about the story and they\u2019re not trying to emulate it in any way.<\/span> They\u2019re not trying to be writers. I think, by the same token, I am just obsessed with TV, I\u2019m obsessed with detective narratives. I\u2019m also obsessed with period dramas about plucky English heroines. It\u2019s escapism. It\u2019s a world that I don\u2019t know. And it\u2019s solved. It\u2019s great.<\/p>\n\n

So, how does this work for you? Are you controlled and regimented about it? Is it a reward, or is it throughout the day?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

All the time. Over lunch, taking breaks in the middle, before bed. I also watch TV alone. Television is not social for me. I don\u2019t like being interrupted, I do not like to have it in the background. I have to focus on it, which is hilarious, because these are not the most complicated plots to follow. In fact, they are intentionally uncomplicated, but I like being immersed in the lack of complexity.<\/span> I don\u2019t enjoy any company [laughs]<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s my meditation. This is how I clear my brain.<\/span> I often turn my phone to do not disturb, too, if I\u2019m really into my TV at the time.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s a chance for you to just sit and be fully focused on this. You\u2019re not trying to do anything else or be productive.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Not at all. It\u2019s completely the opposite of productivity.<\/p>\n\n

Do you have guilt around watching so much television, outside of sometimes not agreeing ideologically with the content?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I was recently in London for over two weeks and didn\u2019t really watch TV there, because I was staying in a hotel and I just had hotel channels, so nothing to watch. I definitely had more time. I\u2019m sure that there are many more things that I could be doing, but I don\u2019t know if my brain would be as healthy, honestly.<\/span> It\u2019s funny, because they don\u2019t worry about this anymore, but back when we were growing up, it was like, \u201cTelevision will melt your brain. Television destroys your brain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

I think television sometimes is what keeps my brain tethered, because it gets me out of my own head, out of my own stories, and into someone else\u2019s world entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

When the writing and the narrative is bad, I\u2019m like, \u201cThey could have done better with that,\u201d but I\u2019m able to overlook that much more in a visual form than I can when it is written out, maybe because I am a writer. I\u2019m more likely to abandon a book, but I\u2019m willing to watch another four episodes of bad TV to see if they redeem themselves.<\/p>\n\n

That\u2019s so generous. When did this start for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Probably it got more intense when I was still working in corporate, because it helped me turn off my brain. When I was younger, I didn\u2019t watch as much TV, but mostly because I think TV was different then. We would have one show and you\u2019d watch it every week but it wasn\u2019t like you sat there and just endlessly watched hours of it. I like to think television is my endless scroll, the way that people think about social media. Except that I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a doom scroll, I think it\u2019s more fun than that.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

In my teens, I watched a lot of spy narratives too. I loved Alias<\/a><\/i>. Covert Affairs<\/i>. All the pointlessly expensive female double agent shows that were shot on location for no reason at all. Every episode, they\u2019d be in a different city, wearing a different bad wig, and it was great.<\/p>\n\n

Did you ever have fantasies of doing that for your work when you got older?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

No, I have no athleticism. But my novel has a spy at the center of it. I was writing my novel in the earliest part of 2020, and it was a bad time in New York. We were still spraying our groceries. We thought if you stepped outside, you would die. Also, my mom and my uncle died within two weeks of each other and I was stuck, I couldn\u2019t go anywhere. I felt like I had no agency, so I needed to give myself some agency, and I did it through a character.<\/span> I wrote a main character, a spy, just to give myself something joyful.<\/p>\n\n

Then it turned out to be the main engine of the whole novel, because the novel was about three sad children living through a war. There\u2019s a time and place for that, and it\u2019s very important that we are able to write sad stories. I just needed a bit more joy in that particular moment<\/span>, so I wrote their mother and gave her a job, and she was a spy.<\/p>\n\n

She heralded back to my love of spies, detectives, mysteries, and double agent stuff.<\/p>\n\n

That makes so much sense. When you\u2019re watching, are you often feeling strong emotions? Do you cry? Do you laugh, or what\u2019s the state of your emotional world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It actually depends. In some cases, I am fairly emotionally engaged. If I\u2019ve been watching it for a while, I\u2019m fairly emotional. I do get a little teary or laugh, because I\u2019m very focused on it. Again, I don\u2019t have anyone there. I turn off all the lights and don\u2019t do anything else, so I\u2019m almost in a movie theater. I don\u2019t even sit up, I lie down and I watch my show.<\/p>\n\n

You have a whole ritual around it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s very ritualized.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s interesting\u2014I\u2019ve heard a lot of people say the same thing\u2014about how they feel like they could get more done if they didn\u2019t do whatever the thing is that they do to relax. But I\u2019ve started to think, maybe not, because maybe our brains just need a certain amount of downtime each day.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Yes. I believe in hard work. I\u2019m one of those people that tries to write every day or every other day. But also, I don\u2019t think we need to keep doing more, I think we just do what we can do.<\/span> I think my brain, it\u2019s done after a certain amount of words. Or back when I was in corporate, after a certain amount of emails. TV, essentially, it\u2019s a very intense hobby. I don\u2019t know, some people have beehives, or whatever engrossing thing that they do. Running? Not for me.<\/p>\n\n

You do strength training though, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I do, but that is not a passion. That is purely for health reasons and I resent it all the time. It\u2019s not meditative. I do like the way that I feel stronger and all that, but it\u2019s not a passion, no.<\/p>\n\n

I totally had a projection on you that you really enjoyed it, from Instagram.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I\u2019m proud that I\u2019m pretty fit now, but no. I don\u2019t like the outdoors, I don\u2019t like direct sunlight, and I really don\u2019t love exercise, but I will do it.<\/p>\n\n

I do really like clothes, I love clothes, which is unlikely for a person who\u2019s\u2026I\u2019m a big person, I\u2019m heavy. I love fashion.<\/p>\n\n

What do you love about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It scratches the same interest as writing a sentence. Putting together a particularly becoming outfit just feels like fulfilling an equation the same way that writing a perfect, complex sentence does.<\/span> When I put together textures or colors that may not work together. The body that I have doesn\u2019t always look traditionally great in everything, and it requires more work to think things up. It\u2019s like art to me, I enjoy it. Both writing and fashion would\u2019ve felt inaccessible to a younger me who scribbled in the dark and was a fat kid.<\/p>\n\n

Do you enjoy the process of shopping as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Only online, because I hate shopping in stores. It\u2019s very overwhelming. My brain is very linear, I like categories, I like lists, and I like filters. Also, a lot of fashion for bigger women is not available in the store, so we\u2019ve all been trained to look for stuff online.<\/p>\n\n

I enjoy style. I\u2019m never going to be someone who\u2019s a stylist, to do it for influence, or anything like that, but I do like it when I put a nice outfit together, and take a little photo of myself.<\/p>\n\n

I have noticed that you pay attention to how you dress, it seems like you\u2019re paying attention to the composition of the entire outfit, the look and color and how it all works together.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I think there\u2019s a pride associated with being a rumpled writer. There\u2019s an idea that the vanity of style and fashion is not something an intellectual bothers themselves with, which I think is nonsense.<\/span> I think that\u2019s a very uniquely white masculine thing. They\u2019re like, \u201cErnest Hemingway was a rumpled alcoholic and look how well he did.\u201d Good for Ernest Hemingway, but it\u2019s not for me. I like clothes.<\/p>\n\n

Totally. I also am very aesthetically-oriented with clothes, with jewelry. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with makeup. And there is such a strong thing within the literary world, that sees that as antithetical to\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Being intellectual.<\/p>\n\n

Exactly. Going back to the television thing, I feel like a lot of people that I know have a lot more internal conflict about their ritualized, just-for-me trash or not-somehow-feeding-their-art thing. Why do you think you\u2019re free of that, or as free as you are?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I do not believe in feeling guilty about things that bring joy. As long as they\u2019re not illegal, or destructive to someone else, I don\u2019t see the need to feel guilty.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

That\u2019s beautiful.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I have guilt about other things! I worry whether I\u2019m spending enough time with my family or taking care of my friends. There are bigger things to be guilty about. I think that people think time is finite and you have to fill it with so many productive things, but I\u2019m a great believer in joy.<\/span> I just like to fill my time with things that I enjoy. I spent many years where my time was not my own and it was filled with stuff I didn\u2019t always enjoy. I would advocate for things where I did not care for the outcome, being a communications person at work. Now that my time belongs to me, I just want to fill it up with things I enjoy.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s really quite a compelling idea.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Life is too short to just be productive all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Vanessa Chan recommends:<\/b>
<\/p>\n\n

Mangosteen.<\/b> This is a Southeast Asian fruit and one of the truly best gifts for one\u2019s tastebuds.
<\/p>\n\n

The novels Cinema Love<\/a><\/i> by Jiaming Tang and The Ministry of Time<\/a><\/i> by Kaliane Bradley.<\/b> Both are publishing the first week of May and both are exceptional in different ways. Cinema Love<\/i> is about gay men in rural China and the women who marry them, and The Ministry of Time<\/i> is about a 21st century millennial and a 19th century polar explorer who fall in love because the British government has bureaucratized time travel.
<\/p>\n\n

Water.<\/b> Hydration is important. Often when I start feeling really lethargic and exhausted, and think I\u2019m dying, I realize I\u2019m just dehydrated.
<\/p>\n\n

Damansara.<\/a><\/b> I am currently in Malaysia so I\u2019m getting my fill of Malaysian food, but if you need to scratch this craving (or try something new) while you are in San Francisco, Damansara is the restaurant for you, started by chef Tracy Goh.
<\/p>\n\n

Celine Dion.<\/b> Everyone should have a Celine Dion power ballad on their musical rotation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This post was originally published on The Creative Independent<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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