Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott (b.1971) is the author of the forthcoming The Adderall Diaries, a memoir to be published in September by Graywolf Press. His six other books include the novel Happy Baby and the story-collection My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up. He founded and edits The Rumpus. Tao Lin interviewed him for MobyLives via email:

Tao Lin: Which writer do you think would produce more work (that is not firstly motivated by money) in their life: a person with no access at all to Adderall or caffeine or a person with unlimited access to Adderall and caffeine?

Stephen Elliott: That’s a great question. I’m really glad you’re going there. And here’s the thing, it’s definitely a person with no access to Adderall and caffeine. Adderall is amphetamine, the same amphetamine they were using in the Haight during the 60s. The same the Nazis and British pilots were using during World War II.

I say that as someone that still takes 10 to 15 milligrams of Adderall most days. But I think I would be more productive if I had never taken any drug. You grow dependent, and soon you can’t do any work without the drugs, and then, of course, the drugs stop working, or work less. That’s what I believe.

How would you structure your days (including what drugs you would take, what you would eat, and what you would be like socially) for maximum productivity in the long term (years)?

For maximum productivity you should be healthy. Look at Hunter Thompson. He burned fast and bright. In six years he wrote at least three enduring classic books. Maybe four, counting The Great Shark Hunt. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail set a standard that no campaign memoir has lived up to yet. But if you look at his lifetime body of work, there’s not very much of it that’s good. I blame the drugs for that. Same thing with Kerouac. On The Road was all about bennies, which are no different really from Adderall.

Then you look at some of our healthier writers, You just know Alice Munro takes care of herself. She wouldn’t still be putting out so much quality stuff otherwise. Dave Eggers is a good example. I bet that guy has never even smoked pot. Tobias Wolff pays attention to his health. He’s a very slow writer but he’s still writing great books in his sixties. People that put out good books their entire lives tend to be healthy.

You are giving away galleys of The Adderall Diaries to people to read and then mail to someone else, which is how I came to read it. What thoughts do you have about this? What pros and cons do you think there are?

There are many pros, they far outweigh the cons. I love this so much. I get to correspond with all these people that have read my book. I’ve never known so many of my readers. For me, and I think many writers, especially people that write a lot from personal experience, writing is so much about connecting. I had no idea this would be so fulfilling. Originally I just wanted to get more mileage out of the galleys I had. I figured for every five galleys I gave away I’d get one reader. I wanted to turn that around so for every one galley I’d get five readers.

I also like that people can read the book, on paper, for just $3.07, the cost of postage, cheaper if the person lives nearby and you drop it off by hand. A hardcover book costs $23 and not everybody can afford that. Plus there are people in Wyoming and places where there are no decent bookstores (there’s probably a good bookstore in Wyoming) that wouldn’t get to see the book first if they wanted to buy it. They’d have to order it online and trust that it was the same book they read about, that they thought they wanted to read.

There are some people that worry that no one will buy the book if you allow them to read it for free, but I don’t believe that. If you like the book, and you can afford it, I think you’ll want to own it. And you’ll tell your friend about it, etc. Though ultimately I have to admit I don’t really care. I want my publisher to stay in business. I love Graywolf. But for me personally I don’t care if people pay for my books. I’d much rather they read it. That kind of attitude is probably why I’m 37 and sharing a one-bedroom apartment with two twenty-seven year old hipsters.

The cons are that people mean well, but they forget to send the book, or they take too long even though they said they would only take a week. In the beginning I just trusted everybody and nobody forwarded the book. Now I send a nagging email every week. That helps a lot. When I hear from the next person I cross the person before them off the list and stop sending them the nagging emails.

The real con is that it takes a lot of time to manage the lending library, keep track of who has the book, who’s getting it next. I have 45 books circulating right now and I’m probably going to put 30 more into circulation. But then, I put so much into writing the book wanting people to read it. I put more into this book than I’ve ever put into anything. Now people are reading it, so I’m not going to complain about a little more work.

In 40-years when someone is writing a biography of you do you think will there be any “surprising” or “unexpected” details, not already in your fiction or non-fiction, that might be in the biography?

Man, you write awesome questions. Can I get you to interview someone for The Rumpus?

Shit, I think the surprising details, if such a book was ever written, and I feel certain that it won’t be, would be all the things I didn’t know about myself. I used to date this dominatrix who said I had split personalities because we’d be in bed and she’d be beating the hell out of me and I’d be crying and speaking in that small child voice but then outside of the bedroom, or sexual play, I’m not like that at all. I think I’m a very inconsistent person and so my great fear would be that I would come off as a hypocrite. But then I guess we all contain multitudes.

Also, I’m a serious coward. I should have like a special parking permit or something. It’s like an illness. Nobody wants to believe you’re a coward, unless they hate you. I tell people I’m a coward and they don’t believe me. But I think a biography would show the truth of it.

I think a person putting some effort into it would come across a lot of fetish and pornographic photos of me, so that would be kind of neat. I’ve been thinking of finding all of them and posting them somewhere. I’m not ashamed of them but I’ve never allowed anybody to attach my name to them.