Ned Vizzini

FAQ - Last updated 1/1/08

0. Guide

1-5 are general questions
6 - 13 => It's Kind of a Funny Story
14 - 21 => Be More Chill
22 - 30 => Teen Angst? Naaah...
31 - 33 are writing questions

1. Who are you?

Please see the bio on the front page.

2. Can you give me more info?

I was born 04/04/1981.

I was born in Manhattan, right near 53rd St. & 3rd Ave., like the Ramones song.

I grew up in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which was not the official home of Brooklyn writers at that time (1988-1999).

My hobbies are reading, writing, cleaning, keeping up with my online responsibilities and making mistakes.

I'm engaged to be married; I got engaged October 2007.

I have a degree in computer science that I got because I never thought writing would make me any money.

I went to Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan (1995-1999).

In 1996, I started writing for New York Press, a local alternative paper. I wrote stories for them about my high school experiences that they printed every month or so.

In 1998 I wrote something for the New York Times Magazine.

That essay caught the eye of Free Spirit Publishing in Minnesota. In 2000, they put out my first book Teen Angst? Naaah..., a collection of stories from New York Press with some new ones added in.

In 2000 I had my first speaking engagement at a high school in New York City. Since then, I have spoken at high schools, colleges, and symposiums about writing, gifted education and, later, mental health.

In 2002, Random House bought the mass-market rights to Teen Angst and put out a the mass-market paperback edition.

I entered Hunter College in Manhattan in 2000 and graduated in 2003 with a computer science degree and an English minor, honors, Phi Beta Kappa.

While in college, I wrote my second book and first novel, Be More Chill.

I first explored the idea of the book with a short story about a man who gets a radio installed in his shoe to tell him how to be cool all the time. I wrote this story for a class; the instructor was the writer Regina McBride.

In 2003 BMC was sold to Hyperion/Miramax books.

In 2004 the Be More Chill hardcover edition was published.

In the fall of 2004, suicidal with a lot of stress and depression that was later diagnosed and treated as manic depression, I spent a few days in the psych unit at Methodist Hospital, Park Slope, Brooklyn.

In late 2004/early 2005 I wrote a book based on my hospital experience called It's Kind of a Funny Story. This was convenient, because the pressure that got me into the hospital in the first place was the pressure to write a follow-up to Be More Chill.

IKOAFS was released in spring 2006 in hardcover.

IKOAFS was released in spring 2007 in paperback and we had a great party in downtown Manhattan that I'll remember for the rest of my life--friends, colleagues, and the girlfriend who later became my fiancee.

The jobs that I have had that I can remember include:
1. dirt-bagger at a plant store
2. apprentice house painter
3. all-purpose gofer at my parents' company
4. ColdFusion programmer for an internet startup
5. founder of a internet firm that resists simple description
6. 9-5er at Computer Associates (more specifically, the Computer Associates headquarters in Islandia, Long Island, which bears a striking resemblance to the psych unit at Methodist )
7. bike messenger
8. food service

I try to read a book a week like Stephen King. I never manage to, but it's a good goal. Recently I have read Underworld by Don DeLillo and The Travels of Marco Polo.

I am currently working on a new novel. At this point my resume is too screwed up in everything else for me to be anything else.

3. How can I reach you by mail?

Ned Vizzini
PO Box 459
NY, NY 10276

4. Can you sign my book?

Yes. PLEASE FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY:

Take the book.

Put it in a blank envelope. DO NOT SEAL THIS ENVELOPE.

Write your address on the envelope as if you were sending the book to yourself. For the return address, write:
Ned Vizzini
PO Box 459
New York, NY 10276

Weigh this envelope and put on it as many stamps as it needs to travel across the US. (If you're from outside the US, email me.) DO NOT SEAL THE ENVELOPE.

Take the book out of the envelope.

Fold that envelope up and put it and the book in ANOTHER envelope. This envelope should have the same number of stamps plus one.

Send that envelope to:
Ned Vizzini
PO Box 459
New York, NY 10276

This is called sending a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and it is a dying art. But it's the only way I can sign books because I can't pay for shipping.

5. Are they making a movie of [insert book here]?

The movie world is a very fickle place and this answer is always changing. Please scroll down for answers to this question about each individual book and note that the information posted is subject to change w/o notice.

6. IKOAFS: Are they making an It's Kind of a Funny Story movie?

Paramount has optioned IKOAFS for a feature film. The script is being developed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who wrote and directed the 2006 film Half Nelson with Ryan Gosling. No financing or release date yet.

7. IKOAFS: How much of It's Kind of a Funny Story is true?

IKOAFS is 85% true. What I did was:

change the names of the characters

change the age of Craig, who is 15 when he goes into the hospital (I was 23)

add the love triangle

8. IKOAFS: How does Craig get better so quickly in IKOAFS?

This is everyone's chief criticism of It's Kind of A Funny Story; they feel that the ending is too tidy and that nobody beats depression that quickly and "gets better."

My argument is that Craig didn't get "better" as in "better--his depression is cured." He got better as in "better--I'm not going to consider suicide again."

The point of the end of the book is that Craig now has a will to live. He didn't have that at the beginning.

As to why he changed, that's up for you to judge.

9. IKOAFS: Are the characters in the hospital in IKOAFS real?

Yes, they were based on real people. In some cases I changed races around, or combined two people into one character.

10. IKOAFS: Did you really want to kill yourself?

Absolutely.

11. IKOAFS: Are you better now?

Yes, lots.

12. IKOAFS: What made you better?

I started taking a drug for manic depression instead of depression. It turns out that a lot of people who are diagnosed with depression are actually manic-depressives with really short manic phases, and it looks like that was me. The stuff I'm on now is making things a lot better for me.

I realized that I can't kill myself for three reasons:
1. my mom
2. I wrote a book about triumphing over suicide, so if I killed myself, that would be pretty bad for the readers
3. I have this money from my books in a retirement account that I can't withdrawal from until I'm 59 1/2--I do not want to lose this money!

13. IKOAFS: Did it really take you like a month to write IKOAFS, as it says in the back of the book?

Yes.

14. BMC: Is there going to be a Be More Chill movie?

Be More Chill is currently in development with Depth of Field productions, who are bringing Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist to the screen in 2008. I have co-written a BMC script that we're working with. No financing or release date yet.

15. BMC: Where did you get the idea for the squip?

I saw so many products being advertised around me, and all they did, basically, was promise to make you cooler in some way. So I thought, "What if we just made it the ultimate? What if there were just a pill that made you cool?"

Also, there is a band called Drunk Horse that has a song called "AM/FM Shoes" about a guy who feels like a loser, except when he puts his special AM/FM shoes on and they play his radio right into his brain. That helped give me the idea too.

16. BMC: What is/was the "Squip Campaign"?

When BMC came out, we ran a fairly insane publicity campaign where we invented a whole universe of websites that made it seem as if the squip were real.

The websites, which included squippersagainstsquips.com and iwanttobecool.com, were coupled with "Squip? Google It" stickers that we gave away. Readers put these stickers up and took pictures of them to add to the sites and tell their stories of being "squipped" and "squipless."

The squip campaign ran into some problems:

people criticized us for exploiting kids, because in many cases the people signing up for squips on websites thought they were real

managing the "Squip? Google It" t-shirts and stickers and the large amount of email proved very difficult

we didn't really understand the government COPPA laws when we launched, and so we misstepped, missing the chance to get thousands of people on board with the campaign because we couldn't legally ask for their email addresses

I got very depressed (this was the summer before I went into the hospital)

For those reasons, and maybe more, the squip campaign never quite "tipped" into the phenomenon we hoped it would be and closed in 2005.

However, it had some positive results:

we were featured in this New York Times article

we compiled this great video of the campaign highlights, with many of the early adopters and loyal squippers

on the message boards, the highest-posting members have the status of "Squip Sherrif" (we gave out Squip Sherrif pins at one point)

17. BMC: Is the squip real? Is Jeremy Heere a real person?

No, and no. Both of these conceits were part of the "Squip? Google It" campaign (see above).

But there's no question in my mind that we'll have squip technology some day.

18. BMC: At the end of Be More Chill, do Christine and Jeremy hook up?

The open ending of the book is tough for many people. I left it open-ended for a reason, to keep you thinking, and to not have an obvious ending.

But in my mind, yes, they hook up. I hope they do.

They don't necessarily stay together, though.

19. BMC: Is there going to be a Be More Chill sequel?

No.

20. BMC: How much of Be More Chill is based on your real life?

65%. The infected nipple-ring incident happened to me.

21. BMC: How long did it take to write Be More Chill?

9 months and 9 days. I finished Nov. 6, 2002.

22. TA?N: Are you still with Judith from Teen Angst? Naaah...?

No.

23. TA?N: Teen Angst? Naaah... comes in two editions -- a black one and a yellow one. What is the difference between the two editions?

Black one (guy with a box on his head)

published by Random House

mass-market paperback

published in 2002

footnotes are on the bottom of each page

some dates are removed from the stories to make sure they age well

Yellow one

original version

published by Free Spirit Publishing

published in 2000

trade paperback

larger

footnotes on the sides of the pages

no longer in print

many library-bound versions are floating around

24. TA?N: Is there going to be a Teen Angst? Naaah... movie/TV show?

Not presently.

25. TA?N: Did you ever meet the girl who kicked your backpack down the stairs? Did she read the book?

No, and I have no idea.

26. TA?N: Can I have a Wormwhole demo?

No need to ask. Both Wormwhole songs are available for download:

Pants in the Mail

Lumber

27. TA?N: Did you do the pictures in Teen Angst?

No, the cartoons were done by a Christopher Schons, who now does Big Rig Comics.

28. TA?N: Can I get Uncle Tumba?

Not now, but I'll put them up as giveaways someday.

29. TA?N: Can I see Attack of the Killer Turtle?

My cousin apparently has it and is transferring to DVD! We'll see how that develops.

30. TA?N: What ever happened to the band "Shrivel" in Teen Angst?

Chris Maher, the lead singer of "Shrivel" (real band name: "Out of Whack") is now a successful singer-songwriter with his own record label: Recommednded If You Like Records.

31. Can you publish my book/story/comic?

No, but I can give you advice.

32. How can I be a better writer?

The number one thing that beginning writers mess up with is writing things that are interesting only to them, not their readers.

So take this advice. It's not mine, it's William Faulkner's: kill your darlings.

I think you understand what it means.

33. How can I start writing professionally?

Here comes some ridiculously lengthy advice.

Don't try to write a book.
Many people want to start writing by writing a book. Not a good idea. Especially if you're young, you're not going to have the discipline to follow through on a complete work of fiction, which has to be on your mind all the time for months. Start small.

Figure out your market.
Who are you trying to write for? Are you trying to write stories about gardening to help people garden better? Or stories about vampires for people who need an introduction to vampires? It doesn't matter, so long as you know.

Know the potential of your market.
Once you know the kind of writing you want to do, check it out below:
- Poetry
  There's not really a market for poetry outside of academia. Poetry books sell very little and poems appear in magazines rarely. If you want to be a poet, you have to stay in school indefinitely, writing your poetry while teaching poetry classes at a university. It's not a bad life by any means. Just know that's what you're getting into. You have to LOVE books. Unless... you want to risk it and try to be a kick-ass non-academic dangerous rock-star poet like Poe or Bukowski. In that case you shouldn't even be reading this; you should be out causing trouble.
- Funny Little Stories
  Times have changed. If you're reading this, then maybe you know that this is how I got started: by sending my funny stories to a local newspaper. Unfortunately, that doesn't work any more. Now, if you want to write funny, observant, witty, biting stories about your life, you have to put them on a blog--no one will pay for them. Therefore you have to be a blogger and figure out how to make money off of the ads. People do it. No reason you can't. Here is the breakdown: stevepavlina.com.
- Magazine Stuff
  Here, I don't just mean journalism. I mean everything from investigative war coverage to the captions under the items in Maxim. They all appear in magazines, and magazines are still alive. If you want to write for them, check it out: at the front of every newspaper and magazine (sometimes on page 2 or 3) is something called a masthead.
  
  The masthead lists the names and occupations of all the writers and editors who work for the paper. At the bottom of the masthead is an address called the "slush mail" address. You will probably see it in tiny letters down there and really have to struggle to read it. This is the address that unknown writers can send their work to.
  
  You know what? It's not like trying to be a model or a rock star. You don't have to sleep with anybody.
  
  Newspapers/magazines need to run copy every month/week/day so they eventually read the slush mail because hey, if there's talent in there, they want to use it for copy. Send your articles and essays again and again and again.
  
  Be specialized. Whatever you enjoy reading, you should send your writing to. If you like cars, send to Road and Track. If you've got a crazy story about homeless people or music, look for a local alternative paper in your city (like New York Press, it'll come out every week and have listings for all the concerts/parties going on); you will, at least, get a response and get an idea how good your stuff is.
- Novels
  Now, if you want to tackle the big fish and write books, first, like we said, start small. Start with stories, personal essays, a seriously updated blog that you treat like a job. Once you've gotten yourself to the point where you think you have the discipline to write a novel, you have two choices:
  1. Go and get a degree in creative writing after college.
  2. Get a job and experience "real life" and try to write based on that.
  The purpose of #1 is to, after you're done with school, have an agent. And a book. Then the agent can try and sell your book. However, an MFA costs--you know what, by the time I write it, the cost will have gone up, so I'll just say it's "market price." Even if you get an agent and sell a book, you might be in the red. (However, you can teach creative writing courses and workshops, which brings in some money.)
  
  With #2, you're going to have to do it yourself. You won't be taken seriously by any of the #1 people until you get something published. Get a copy of THIS BOOK:
  
  Writer's Market 2008
  
  It's like the yellow pages for writers. It'll list every agent and publisher you can imagine. This year's edition even has a section for greeting cards--someone has to write those too.
  
  So if you're with option #2, you need to finish your book (FINISH it, don't write 2/3) and then look in Writer's Market for an agent who will be interested in it (say, the guy who specializes in mermaid romance tales). Send him the manuscript, properly formatted, with a nice cover letter, and do that over and over and over again until you hear something back.
  
  People who go through #1 should have an easier time of this--their years in graduate school should have given them the connections to get an agent. (By the way, an agent is optional for independent publishers but necessary for major publishers.)
  
  Ultimately, what's better, #1 or #2? I say #2. You meet stranger people.

Make a database of everyone you know in publishing and watch it grow.
You probably know someone, somehow, who is connected with the writing world. So start a database or a spreadsheet and put in their information: name, position, when you last talked to them, what happened the last time you talked to them... Ask them if they know anyone else in the writing world--editors, freelance journalists, people who put out small poetry chapbooks--and get their asses into the chart.

At all stages of the game, be honest. Don't pretend that you're not trying to get a leg up on things when you talk to a person who can help you. Tell them: "I wrote this article that I really want to get published, can you help me?" And just keep watching that chart grow.

Finally, if you're in high school, check out the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. These are the folks who do the Scholastic Writing Awards. They are dedicated to and serious about helping young writers.

WRITE IT program (<-- go here first)

application for the Scholastic Writing Awards 2008

rules for the application process

34. Who were your influences?

In rough chronological order, up until I was 19:

Judy Blume

C.S. Lewis

Gary Paulsen

George Orwell

Michael Crichton

Guy Kawasaki (when he wrote for MacWorld, not this new, "Rich Dad Poor Dad" incarnation)

Mike Lupica

Chris Rock

Jim Knipfel

Jonathan Ames

Amy Sohn

R.A. Salvatore

Jerry Stahl

George Tabb

Lord of the Rings

Frank Miller (specifically, The Fall of the Kingpin)

Garth Ennis

NOT Sandman--hated it

Nowadays I take my inspiration from contemporary novelists mostly.

35. Isn't it hard to write about your family and friends? Did your friends read the book? What did they think? etc.

It is hard to write about real people--they get offended. The best way to deal with that is to write fiction and change the people up a little bit.

My friends who have read my books are split--some are happy to see themselves in a character, some feel betrayed.

37. Are you on MySpace? Facebook? AIM? Yahoo Messenger? etc.

No.

However, It's Kind of A Funny Story has a myspace: http://myspace.com/ikoafs

38. What countries are your books available in?

As of this writing:

It's Kind of A Funny Story

Italy

Holland

Germany

China

Be More Chill

Germany

France

Israel

Indonesia (not sure where exactly, definitely the Philippines)

China

Italy

Holland

All books should be available in US/Canada.

If you are in a country that is supposed to have one of the books but you cannot find it, please email me! You'd really be helping out. Thanks.

Â© Ned Vizzini 2000-2008