the primary concern of the writer should revolve around the aesthetic elements of the work which are ultimately a way of containing / directing what emerges from the darkness of the writers interior.

lately I’ve been thinking of great writing as work that emerges from a very distinctive, very deep subjectivity; and “craft” is about finding the ideal... See more

This is a book about following associations—and about how they cohere into something tangible. And, in retrospect, this string (how my mind was looking to put something together before I was aware of it) was this book’s genesis: If I could somehow make the process legible, I might find making art myself less intimidating and begin to make headway.

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To write in a real voice, an alive voice, I have to trust my own eyes, what I see before I start to think. Of course my observations will be flawed—all individual perspectives are partial and distorted—but the only way I can gain autonomy is to write from my incomplete point of view. Put like that, autonomy comes from trust in the self, in subjecti... See more