The Fault IS in Our Stars

So here we are in November, and my manuscript is with various editors over at Dead Rabbits Publishing (and with a good friend whose thoughts on writing I value and trust), and I’m in this weird in-between time as I await the reactions of these readers, which is making me feel useless. In September and October I was working really hard on the novel, in fact it was the first productive writing period I’ve had in (literally) years, and I experienced a brief glimpse into what life might be like if writing were my JOB, if I were able to give the kind of attention to it that I currently give to the teaching of writing. Because now that the book is briefly out of my hands, I find myself drawn — by habit? by necessity? by guilt? — back toward Thinking All The Time About Students And How To Help Them, which for me means reading student manuscripts with greater ferocity than is likely reasonable, and using these manuscripts as a kind of shield against having to do any writing of my own.

NOTE: I am not complaining about my students or their manuscripts, because they are by and large incredibly gifted and brilliant people, and getting to think about their work is a privilege, one that I don’t take for granted (i.e., I am not blind to my good fortune). But the novel, Anthropica — which no longer even feels like a book that I wrote, exactly… more like a text that I happened to come across one day, and that I really, really like — has probably fed my teaching in ways that are ultimately more meaningful (and genuine) than is the calculus equating the maximum consumption of pages with teaching excellence, precisely because when I’m writing regularly there is a greater feeling of solidarity with a classroom full of writers, whose problems(and triumphs) become felt rather than “understood.” (When I’m not really writing, it seems more like I’m a teacher who acquired some knowledge at some point in the distant past that I’m now imparting so that OTHERS can use it to make something interesting. [Knowing vs. Feeling. Be Here Now vs. Access the Past. Inside vs. Outside. Etc.])

It’ll only be a week or two (or three) before I start hearing back from my readers. Meanwhile, I’m trying to resist giving EVERYTHING to teaching by working to finish the libretto of the musical drama I’m co-writing with my old friend Brion Winston. Have I mentioned this musical here in Poets & Suicides? It’s called The Count. I think we’ll have to commit an entire post to it soon. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever tried to do before. New challenges, new failures, new neuroses, new kinds of fun. Let’s all sit down and chat about it next Thursday at 4, shall we?

And speaking of sitting down and chatting, for those of you who haven’t seen it yet (forgive me for pretending that someone is actually reading this; sometimes our delusions are all we have) I recently did an interview with my friend and former student Parks Kugle, in which I discuss experimental writing, turning over stones, enchantment, and the origins of the universe.

You’re welcome.

I haven’t heard from Fexo in a while, so let’s pretend that storm has been weathered.

And last night I saw a film called The Lighthouse, in which storms are definitely not weathered. It’s a superb work of art… David Lynch meets Herman Melville or something.

I grow weary of this blog post.

(I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.)

Ha ha ha ha!

Poets & Suicides, over and out.