Fuck Writer's Block

Josh,

I should be working on something else but I feel compelled to post a blog, mainly so I can push Bruce down, get him out of my face. With each word, he goes down.

Yeah, you like that Bruce. Don't you?

I have to disagree with your assessment of blog-writing. Actually, I don't even really understand the whole real writing vs. everything else battle. What makes blog writing un-real?

Of course, you might feel blog-writing is un-real because you don't edit blogs as you do your more serious work. Editing, most writers will say, is real writing. And editing, after all, was the notion that launched this blog--the seventh draft. I remember reading a letter from my uncle Deano:

"You should be glad Neal didn't hear you say 'I felt the need to go back and re-write the novel I am working on.' Right now she is finishing hers which means working through a SEVENTH substantial re-write, some parts re-written more than that. It's not my field but doesn't just writing a novel from beginning to end seem a bit naive? Writing IS revision. Do the work."

Do the work.

I understand this and live this, not just because my uncle, my mentor, told it to me. I understand it because I feel it--I feel this desperate need to go back, to re-work. I'm not sure whether this just isn't something in my psyche trying to show itself to me or whether it's just a weird manic behavior. Perhaps I indulge my urge to re-write because I can't figure out any other way to spend my time. But more likely, I own weird constellations, urging expression.

Whatever, it makes sense. When I re-write, I roll up my sleeves, get into the nitty-gritty, and I start figuring things out. Working on a sentence, to me, is like working on a specific weirdo meme in my body--when it's figured out, the meme is actualized and I move on to the next weirdo meme. This is everything to me. This is why I quite literally need to write.

To me though, it's all work, good life-giving work. The writing, the re-writing.

Sometimes I'll spend an hour re-working a paragraph and then, suddenly, I'll realize I've just recovered from my parent's divorce.

Sometimes I'll write a sentence out of the blue and realize I've just pardoned myself for bad behavior.

Sometimes nothing.

And, of course, you work through the nothing to get to something. The problem is, you can't sustain inspiration, you can only court it. And here's the thing: it happens WHILE you work, it's not something you wait around for.

Blogs, letters, e-mails--to me, they're part of it, just as important as the "real" work. Your writing life is just that, your life. When you write a blog, it's not like the blog is not you--it is you. I mean do you really look at your writing as something outside your life? You move from one to the other. You write. You figure things out. Without the blogs, you'd be itching to write elsewhere--you'd be sending mad e-mails; you'd take up letter-writing, you'd deliberately fog your bathroom mirror just so you could finger a few lines on the glass.

Remember my "Season of Triumph" blog? Well, I'm currently writing a short-story called "Season of Triumph." The blog led to the story and now I'm blogging about the story. My last blog, that piece of fiction, that goes into my next packet for school. The other recent blog, the Miranda July blog, well that blog was basically a direct quote of my latest annotation for school.

Writer's block is a bullshit dictum created by THE MAN to hold us down. Fuck writer's block.

Blogs are important. But now I have to go, because I really should be working on something else--my real work.

Less Wine, Less Seth

Josh,

Sorry for my inexcusable absence from our blog. I've met a shark. We're in love. Our shark meets human romance is strange and tantalizing and very, very time-consuming.

Also, I've met Miranda July. We're in love too. She doesn't know me, but that doesn't matter. We're in love and our romance too is strange and tantalizing and very, very time-consuming.

Plus, there's The Season of Triumph. You would simply not believe how much extra time it takes each day to perform 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups. Even when I'm not on the floor, grunting, I'm thinking about them: the push-ups, the the sit-ups (and Miranda July and the shark for that matter.) It's a considerable commitment. Plus, I've vowed to only drink wine four or fewer nights a week and I've learned, by accident, that wine was the source of my power. I am no longer the exuberant wino of yesterday who over-drank out of a lust for life. I am no longer the guy capable of writing a blog in a single leap. I am now sober and boring and triumphant.

Which is to say: sorry.

I had wanted to write immediately after reading your last post. To be honest, I was in hysterics. You said you once had a medium-sized Season of Triumph. That was funny. Then you said you chewed like a cow. That was funny too. And then you talked about your upstairs neighbor in the city:

"As far as I can tell, he and I are the only people in New York who get up before eight o’clock on Saturdays, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes the thought of this fills me with a feeling of tenderness for him that makes me want to get the stepladder out of our closet and press my cheek to the ceiling as a sign of solidarity."

That was funny.

By the way, I feel much differently about my upstairs neighbor. Keep in mind, I don't live in the city. Every noise around here, in Ambler, startles me. I jump when a car starts. And I'm not a big fan of hearing other people's intimate movements. An old neighbor, a surgeon or something crucial like that, used to make love to his girlfriend just above our living room. We'd be watching baseball and suddenly someone's moaning (him? her? I could never tell and so never felt any sense of voyeuristic excitement at all) and something's creaking and as far as I can tell the guy lasts about two minutes.

So, yeah, I'd rather just watch baseball.

I appreciate your appreciation of marginal literature and I will certainly read the Season of Triumph sounding book by Terz. The only books for me are the ones that burn! Just kidding (been reading a lot of Kerouac retrospectives lately...) But seriously your endorsement is the exact endorsement I look for in a book: "a primer, an instruction manual on how to turn your own life into a book of great beauty and potency."

I feel the same way about the Miranda July book, probably for completely opposing, ridiculous reasons. But still.

So the semester ambles. Who are you doing? Any luck with “Essay on Dogs as a Unit of Breath"? I've started a story about a guy who can't stop talking about sharks. It's called "The Season of Triumph." That's not a joke. I have such high hopes for the story I'm starting to get delusions of grandeur. It won't just be a story. It'll be a novella! No, a novel! I'll illustrate it. No, someone else will illustrate it! Someone with verve and talent!

I'll check out all the books you mentioned. Promise me you'll seek out Miranda July.

I'm coming to NYC this weekend, gonna see George Saunders at the New Yorker Festival. I'd ask if you were gonna be around, but most likely I'm outta there on Saturday afternoon (festival happening is Friday...)