I tell them to get an exercise book.. If you haven’t got any ideas just copy out something that you’ve liked in someone else’s book… But copying is what artitsts do; it’s often how they start, I think. And, I know (if) because I still use a pen quite a lot, I know that if I copy something out, there’s a sense that, you’re sensing with, sensing with your body the sort’ve joints of the sentence and how the, the weight of the sentence is gathered and carried and how it’s kind’ve slung from one end of the sentence structure to another. That always gives me a great deal of pleasure. You have to write slowly, and you can see how it’s done, even though you don’t know how to do it — but you can — you can see the joints of the thing.
- Transcribed from ABC Radio National coverage of Sydney Writers’ Festival 2008, Helen Garner
November 27, 2008 at 11:13 am
Speaking of which, please feel free to do “remixes” of any material you might find of interest on either ‘Voltaire’s Monkey’ or ‘I Shot Frida Kahlo’ for your own blog.
Recombine, augment, deconstruct – whatever. No rules, no limitations.
November 27, 2008 at 11:28 am
Will do.
As it goes, the working title of this post was This is What I’m Doing, and should probably be where I should direct people when they first click upon this blog.
Share n’ care. ひ*
* This is not an emoticon, but the hiragana character for hi, best remembered as someone cracking an accidental smile. In context it can also mean sun, or day, which all-round makes for happy fun times.**
** Will ease up on DFW*** imitation soon.
*** Including acronyms and usage of shorthand titles.
November 27, 2008 at 3:34 pm
There are days when all my smiles are accidental, when I am possessed by a kind of naive authenticity – a slightly idiotic integrity that, I believe, cannot be feigned.
I had many more such days when I took drugs. Now, they are comfortably few and far between.
Voila! Yet another benefit to sobriety!