People are bothered by all of this, and I admit I am both irritated and amused by it. I think I like the bother, the trouble. It makes us ask — what is a novel?
Death and So Forth – Gordon Lish
These might be old tricks (for Lish), but they are still good tricks.
But my inner critic is the one who writes in the first place.
This connects to an anxiety I’ve had since childhood about wanting to record everything that’s ever happened, which is perhaps simply a fear of my own mortality, as well as the mortality of everything in this beautiful world.
“I am thinking about the body a lot and all of the time. The body is where the story starts.”
Perhaps this is Fate, in that our interdependence is inescapable, that we always affect each other.
“Illustrated literature hasn’t really been popular since the nineteenth century. I would like to open the discussion around that form again, to see what we can do with it.”
Exposition / The White Dress – Nathalie Léger
Nathalie Leger’s triptych is a balletic interpretation over the line between fiction and criticism.
“Even more than I ever wanted to write a book, I wanted to have health insurance.”
So a good way to make myself write an essay is to nurture and cultivate a small obsession. Like a Chia Pet.