Best Ellison Interview Ever

Jon Winokur has posted a sensational interview with Harlan Ellison on AdviceToWriters. Here’s an appetizer:

Have you ever had writer’s block? Oh, I absolutely have.

Really? When? From four until about five o’clock on a Wednesday in January of 1973.

How did you cure it? I went to sleep. Went and got laid. Went and had a Pink’s hot dog. Came back, sat down, finished writing. What’s sad about writer’s block is that you forget what you were going to write about. Sometimes I’ll look at a story and say to myself, “Oh, I’ve got a perfect ending” and then make the mistake of forgetting it. It only happened to me twice with stories I had to finish because I was on deadline. I’ve looked at those stories since and wanted to do them over because I knew I had a better ending. The endings are perfectly fine and nobody notices, but I know the difference between good and bad.

Winokur’s own long list of credits includes his collaboration with James Garner on the actor’s memoir, The Garner Files. I read that last year and wholeheartedly recommend it.

[Via Locus Online.]