I truly dont understand why at every Q and A, someone always asks, Do you have a routine? or Do you write every morning? Why those questions remain interesting, I really have no idea. But since no ones putting a gun to their head to ask them, they must compel. Theyre probably necessary on a symbolic level more than a literal one, as people cobble together an imagination of what a life devoted to making might be like.[I think people want a path to follow. They want a checklist so they can say, Alright cool, so if I get up at six and I write for this long and I watch this film and I do that]Its weird, because I might have wanted that, too. I used to dance in New York. My Lower East Side days. Modern dance, or whatever. One thing I learned as a dancer was that people learn combinations different ways. Some people, if they get the right side, they can also get the left side right off the top of their head. Some people need to be taught both right and left. Some people count, some people never count, you know? I noticed then that, for me, it was really watching the whole person dancing, trying to take in the whole combination at once, that helped me learn it. I think Im the same way as a readerI like to take in the whole book, not getting too specific about how they did it, but ride the bigger example.I mean, at the end of the day, the answer to the question How did you do it? is right there, on the page. Theyre showing you how they did it, by doing it. Maybe its different with art, when you dont know if someone had all their sculptures knitted or welded by elves somewhere, but with writing, the answer to the question How do you write a book like this? is usually, Like this [points to book].
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About Maggie Nelson
Maggie Nelson was American writer. Maggie Nelson is an American writer. She has been described as a genre-busting writer defying classification, working in autobiography, art criticism, theory, feminism, queerness, sexual violence, the history of the avant-garde, aesthetic theory, philosophy, scholarship, and poetry. Read more on Wikipedia →