Tom Bissell is a journalist, critic, video game writer, and author of The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made. His latest book is Magic Hours.

“I kind of have come around to maybe not as monkish or fanatical devotion to sentence idolatry as I was when I was a younger writer, earlier in my career. I think I’m coming around to a place where a lot of middle-aged writers get to, which is: I tried to rewire and change the world with the beauty of language alone—it didn’t work. Now how about I try to write stuff that’s true, or that’s not determined to show people I am a Great Writer. Like a lot of young writers, you’re driven by that. Then at a certain point you realize A) you’re not going to be the Great Writer you wanted to be, and B) the determination of that is completely beyond your power to control, so best that you just write as best you can and as honestly as you can, and everything else just sort of becomes gravy.”

Thanks to MailChimp and Tripping.com for sponsoring this week's episode.

Bissell on Longform

[00:50] The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam (Pantheon • 2007)

[01:25] "Cinema Crudité" (Harper’s Magazine • Aug 2010)

[01:40] The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made (Simon & Schuster • 2013)

[02:40] "Loch Ness Memoir" (VQR • March 2007)

[03:15] " Video Games: The Addiction " (The Guardian • March 2010)

[04:25] Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia (Pantheon • 2016)

[05:25] Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (Vintage • 2011)

[21:55] "Escanaba’s Magic Hour" (Harper’s Magazine • Sep 2000)

[22:50] Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia (Pantheon • 2003)

[23:45] "Euphorias of Perrier: The Case Against Robert D. Kaplan" (VQR • June 2006)

[42:40] "How to Get Rich Playing Video Games Online" (Taylor Clark • The New Yorker • Nov 2017)

[52:15] Magic Hours (Vintage • 2018)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices