How Brian Broome Sits Down & Writes
'Punch Me Up to the Gods' is the searingly honest memoir everyone should read this summer.
Punch Me Up to the Gods introduces a powerful new talent in Brian Broome, whose early years growing up in Ohio as a dark-skinned Black boy harboring crushes on other boys propel forward this gorgeous, aching, and unforgettable debut. Brian’s recounting of his experiences—in all their cringe-worthy, hilarious, and heartbreaking glory—reveal a perpetual outsider awkwardly squirming to find his way in. Indiscriminate sex and escalating drug use help to soothe his hurt, young psyche, usually to uproarious and devastating effect. A no-nonsense mother and broken father play crucial roles in our misfit’s origin story. But it is Brian’s voice in the retelling that shows the true depth of vulnerability for young Black boys that is often quietly near to bursting at the seams.
Cleverly framed around Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool,” the iconic and loving ode to Black boyhood, Punch Me Up to the Gods is at once playful, poignant, and wholly original. Broome’s writing brims with swagger and sensitivity, bringing an exquisite and fresh voice to ongoing cultural conversations about Blackness in America.
Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome is the searingly honest memoir all nonfiction fans need to pick up this summer.
We talked with Brian Broome about plotting out memoirs, finding inspiration in Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem "We Real Cool" and letting your first drafts suck.
Q: Where and when do you like to write the most?
I have to be in specific places in order to feel comfortable enough to write. The most boring is just in my house. I have a quiet room where the lighting is low. No distractions. But the other place I love to write is quite the opposite. It’s on the bus. For some reason, when I’m on the bus, the distractions help. I take little notes about people’s interactions, and I eavesdrop on their conversations and take quotes from them. I must look like a complete maniac but no one has busted me on it so far.
Q: Stephen King has a great line in On Writing that says "the scariest moment is always right before you start. After that, things can only get better." That scary pre-start moment often inspires procrastination in writers. Suddenly, you have to clean your entire house, do the laundry and play Candy Crush for an hour before you can actually start writing. Is there anything you need to do before you can actually sit down and work?
I have to trick myself into it. I do a little psychological fake-out. I sit down at the computer telling myself that I’m just going to check my email and a do a few other things. But then I double-cross myself by pulling up the thing that I’m working on. It starts out slow with me just checking on a few sentences here and there. And, before you know it, I’m immersed and four or five hours will go by. I wish I were the kind of writer who could stick to a schedule. But procrastination feels so good. I don’t know if anyone has ever studied it, but there must be a hit of dopamine involved in telling yourself “It can wait until tomorrow.”
Q: Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what music? Is your choice of music inspired by the project you're working on?
I don’t always listen to music. But when I get to a particularly difficult passage, I’ll definitely put on some music to put me in whatever mood the passage requires. For memoir, it really works to listen to the music from the time you’re writing about. So, for Punch Me Up to the Gods, there was a lot of music from the ’70s and ’80s. Donna Summer, Chaka Khan, This Mortal Coil, The Cocteau Twins, Luther Vandross. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. But I’d definitely say that music is an important tool in my writing.
Q: Do you have writing snacks or drinks you need to have on hand while working?
I can’t eat while writing. It’s weird but I view food as a reward for having completed a passage or a chapter or an essay. The thought of eating while writing feels strange to me. You’ll get your dinner after you’ve finished.
Q: What's one piece of advice you'd give a writer just starting out on their first draft?
Let it suck. This is also advice that I give to myself although I never follow it. Part of the procrastination game that I play with myself is telling myself that it’s going to suck so I shouldn’t even bother. Some part of me seems to have an expectation that the words will fall perfectly out of my head and then onto the page. That rarely happens. So, let it suck and keep writing. You’ll get there.
Q: Punch Me Up To The Gods is your memoir. When drafting a nonfiction story, do you follow traditional plot beats or use an outline? Or are you more of a pantser than a plotter?
I always start out with plot beats and an outline. Then, when my fingers touch the keyboard, it all falls apart. I find that certain things that seemed to work so well in my head don’t work on the page at all. Then it’s back to square one. So, I start out hopefully considering some sort of organization. Then it all goes pants.
Q: Did your experience writing poetry and screenplays influence your approach to tackling a memoir in any way?
Not so much with poetry, But, there’s a chapter in Punch Me Up to the Gods that features a scene with just me and my father that was totally inspired by my first screenplay. The director of the film invited me on set one day. It was my first time on a movie set and I was fascinated by how the crew and actors created this whole little world tucked inside of our reality. The scene is almost wholly inspired by that experience.
Q: Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem "We Real Cool" is vital to Punch Me Up To The Gods. What drew you to this poem?
When I read that poem, I thought immediately that it was a mini treatise on Black masculinity, which was exactly what I was writing about. The poem’s structure was unique and definitely caught my attention. I started looking up interviews with Gwendolyn Brooks and, in them, she never says the word “masculinity” but I still felt strongly that masculinity is what she was talking about. Then I found the bell hooks book We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. Then I knew that I wasn’t the only person who saw a connection between the lines in the poem and the subject of how Black men are taught to conduct ourselves.
Q: Punch Me Up To The Gods moves back and forth through time. Why did you decide to structure the book this way?
In a lot of ways, the poem decided for me. I knew that I had specific stories that I wanted to tell but I had to adhere to the structure of the poem and sometimes the particular line of the poem that I was working on didn’t fit a linear timeline.
Q: You recount many hard-learned lessons and share pieces of personal wisdom with your readers throughout this book, is there anything, in particular, you hope your readers walk away with after finishing Punch Me Up To The Gods?
I feel like one of the themes of the book is the feeling of shame. I’ve felt shame my entire life because of all the things our culture told me I should be. I hope to find others who can connect with that message. My shame led me to behave terribly toward myself and others. I learned to hate myself. My hatred for myself led to my drug and alcohol problem. I hope that the book speaks to all those who have felt like they didn’t fit in and they hated themselves for it. All you can be is yourself. You can fight it for as long as you want. But it will come through. And that’s a wonderful thing.
Grab your copy of Punch Me Up to the Gods from IndieBound, Bookshop.org, or Barnes and Noble.
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