I'll wander around with a camera and a tape recorder, generally sucking down every detail I can. And then I send my New York friends out to do leg work. I ended up living in the city for about three months between my junior and senior year, so that helps, too. I've toyed with it, but frankly, I don't think it'll work. That's a fairly daunting question when you put it like that.
Influence is a strange thing.
I think every writer is effected by everything they read, and moreso by those things they read that they like. Placing that alongside those that have come before, and those that are working alongside, tends to be enough. I'm working at a time when the field is rich with some excellent writers, doing some very inventive things. As for the writing, it is a different process, most notably because of the need to wed image and text as seamlessly as possible. That requires a different sort of awareness.