Beatriz Serrano: ‘All writers envy other writers’

Would Joan Didion wear this? 8%

All my wardrobe choices are based solely on whether Joan Didion would approve of my outfit. Since she probably wouldn’t (she was notoriously hard to please) I always end up wearing plain dark clothes, a big trench coat and enormous sunglasses. In other words, I dress like an author caricature rather than an actual author.

Is this man cancelled or not? 7%

Keeping track of cancellations and the reasons behind them is a full-time job these days. Every time I go to the movies, the theatre, or a concert, I find myself wondering: is this actor/director/musician cancelled or not? And why? I don’t even think it’s about the moral issue any more (I recently spent two wonderful hours separating the art from the artist at a Morrissey concert). It’s just that I’ve completely lost track of who’s been cancelled and for what.

Should I drug this character? 30%

When I’m writing, I spend most of the day thinking about the story and the characters. I actually love it, because when I’m writing I feel my anxiety drop, probably because all my mental energy goes into imagining other people’s lives instead of picturing worst-case scenarios for my own. It’s exactly like being in love: I wake up thinking about them and go to bed thinking about them, and throughout the day I catch myself daydreaming about them. I imagine scenes and bits of dialogue, or I try to figure out which trauma from their past made them the way they are now, and if they can still be saved or not. That being said, there’s always a moment when I get stuck, when the story refuses to move forward. And at times like that, the same thought always crosses my mind: should I just drug this character and see what happens? I don’t always do it, but imagining my characters drunk or high helps me uncover their true intentions. Nothing better than imagining my main character into a terrible k-hole to understand everything about her.

A quick recap of every time I’ve embarrassed myself in public: 8%

Like that time I said, “Thanks, you too” to a reader who told me they really admired my work. Or the evening I spent going on about how much I disliked a famous writer… in front of his editor. Or that time I made a joke out loud and absolutely no one laughed. All in all, I spend about 20 minutes a day cringing at things that, probably, no one else even remembers. (I think that editor still remembers.)

Is it too early/too late to eat something? 9%

I think this percentage speaks for itself.

Bitter tears at breakfast: 13%

One of the great afflictions of my profession (one that affects 100% of authors, but that we rarely talk about) is envy. Try to understand: we authors are very sensitive, tormented creatures and being pushed aside from the front tables of bookshops by the latest new release can bring on bitter tears at breakfast. All writers envy other writers, of course, but I actually think envy partly makes us better. It shouldn’t be seen as an emotion to get rid of, but one to embrace… something that can drive us to sit down and write.

The reason I manage to live well: 25%

Look, I don’t know if this has anything to do with that deeply dramatic darkness of the Spanish temperament (the same one that inspired Francisco de Goya’s Black Paintings, Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, or Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou) or if it’s more to do with the current climate, which fills me with a not entirely irrational fear of an imminent end of the world, but I think about death a lot throughout the day. I actually think that thinking so much about death is the reason I live well: fear of death is why I go to the gym, why I eat fewer carbs, why I’ve quit smoking and cut down on how much I drink during the week, and why I stick to my skincare routine every night. In other words, I’m capable of doing burpees just to avoid thinking about death. I’m not so self-absorbed that I only think about my own death. I also spend a good deal of time thinking about the deaths of my loved ones, which is the kind of death that truly terrifies me. Not only that, but I often catch myself imagining their funerals until I end up crying. My family and my boyfriend know this all too well. Sometimes I call them in the middle of the day for no particular reason, and they’ll ask, “What’s wrong? Were you imagining my funeral again, Beatriz?”