The bestselling author of 11 books, including the eighties defining Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney, took a break to chat with me about his new book, the writing process, and some timeless tips from his mentor, Raymond Carver. Vanity Fair called Mr. McInerney “Our modern-day Fitzgerald,” and his most recent book — Bright, Precious Days — is described as “… a sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story — a literary and commercial triumph of the highest order.” The author is a renowned short story writer, screenwriter, and actor, who has lived in New York for three decades and rubbed elbows with a laundry list of literary lions, including his mentors Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver. In addition to fiction, Jay writes a highly regarded wine column for Town & Country magazine, and has written several essay collections on wine. The author most recently joined the Prince Street podcast as a culinary and arts correspondent and has interviewed director Francis Ford Coppola, author Stephanie Danler, and celebrity chefs including Eric Ripert, to name a few. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please subscribe in iTunes to automatically get new interviews, and help other writers find us. In Part One of the file Jay McInerney and I discuss: Why It’s Not a Bad Thing to Be Compared to Your Betters How to Incorporate Your Passions into Your Writing Why You Need to Sit at Your Desk Every Day and Listen to the Voices in Your Head The Author’s Process of Discovery at the Level of Language How the Right Soundtrack Can Inspire Your Writing Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes How Bestselling Author Jay McInerney Writes: Part Two JayMcInerney.com Bright, Precious Days: A novel – Jay McInerney Prince Street Podcast Jay McInerney: why Gatsby is so great Book Excerpt: Jay McInerney on Joy Division’s Heyday Jay McInerney on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Bestselling Author Jay McInerney Writes: Part One Kelton Reid: The Writer Files is brought to you by StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins. Built on the Genesis Framework, StudioPress delivers state of the art SEO tools, beautiful and fully responsive design, air-tight security, instant updates, and much more. If you re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 177,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/studiopress right now. That s Rainmaker.FM/studiopress. These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I m your host, Kelton Reid, writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week we ll discover how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer s block. The best selling author of eleven books, including the ’80s defining Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney took a break this week to chat with me about his new book, the writing process, and some timeless tips from his mentor Raymond Carver. Vanity Fair called McInerney “Our modern-day F. Scott Fitzgerald.” His most recent work Bright, Precious Days is a novel that’s described as “…a sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story a literary and commercial triumph of the highest order.” The author is a renown short story writer, screenwriter and actor, who’s lived in New York for three decades and rubbed elbows with a laundry list of literary lions including his mentors Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver. In addition to fiction Jay writes a highly regarded wine column for Town & Country Magazine and has written several essay collections on wine. The author recently recently joined the Prince Street podcast as a culinary and arts correspondent and has interviewed director Francis Ford Coppola, author Stephanie Danler and celebri