October 5, 2023

"When I start writing I never feel sure that I will be able to write a new work. I never plan anything in advance."

"I just sit down and start writing. And at a certain point, I have the feeling that the work is already written and I just have to write it down before it disappears."

10 comments:

Dave Begley said...

That’s helpful!

Owen said...

"I just have to write it down before it disappears." Much hinges on the meaning of that "just." In one reading it's emphatic, underlining the existential imperative, the moral duty, to capture the work as it hangs in mid-air. In another reading it's more light-heartedly reverential and fill with wonder--there's the work, all I need to do is transcribe!

It could be both; neither; something else.

Words are like that.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Sometimes I get what sounds like an idea for a movie.

the setting is an alien world and the aliens are transitioning from cancer kills to cancer is manageable, not a death sentence. That would be why aliens always look cancerous. No hair, too thin like our models, gray skin color and bug eyes.

They need to transition because they want to become a space travel specie.

Some of the aliens are chosen to transition first by their dalai llama. That’s where the story begins.

rcocean said...

Interesting choice by the committee. I may read his books after reading some of the reviews on Goodreads. Someone there said reading Fosse reminded of an Ezra Pound quote:

Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

I hope he's as good as Knut Hamsun, another great Norwegian Writer. I enjoyed "Hunger" and look for to reading his Wanderer triology. Growth of the Soil is good too.

Oligonicella said...

That may work for an opinion piece which is what a lot of that style of writing is. The dreamer wondering out what life's meaning is, how to live, what values to have, etc.

Especially the "values to have" thing.

A good tell is sentences like "The book should be a ball of light in one's hand." The explosion that obliterates your hand starts out as a ball of light.

This is about a specific genre or set of. Whole different thing than "writing".

Oligonicella said...

@Lem the misspeller:

Sounds interesting for a frame.

"Some of the aliens are chosen"...

Now you have a cast. They need backgrounds and an antagonist preventing (or wanting to) the transition. Reasons, motivations and actions. Oh, and an entire society that sets it up.

I iterate, sounds interesting.

Jamie said...

So often I've heard of creative people's describe their process this way: capturing their art as it flutters by rather than creating it.

I believe I've heard Jordan Peterson cite this phenomenon in defense of the existence of some kind of God. I am not sure how I feel (or, FWIW, how Peterson feels) about what God is or does in the present and in individual lives, but that argument does have some appeal for me. I've even felt the phenomenon myself on occasion - those liminal moments...

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The ability to live with cancer is a life extension transformation. The aliens can live thousands of years, another reason why space travel becomes more appealing.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

They have to choose the aliens more likely to survive the transition from cancer causes death to cancer extends life. Until they perfect the technology. Naturally in the attempt to extend life some aliens are going to die.

The idea for how it could be accomplished, in theory, I believe is found here.

Hint: the question has been thought about for a long time now.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The reason why the story has to be an alien world is so that certain ethical hurdles preventing an audience from accepting certain questions would be perhaps put aside more easily than if they were asked to identify with people like themselves.