Ask the Author: Jill Alexander Essbaum
Answered Questions (2)
Jill Alexander Essbaum
Why, the honor and the glory of course! (Hee!)
The art must always be the endgame. Honor, glory, money, publication may never come. The best thing about being a writer is having written something that I can step away from and say to myself 'I made this, it pleases me, it is a true thing.' I intend this answer in the least lofty, most sincere way.
The art must always be the endgame. Honor, glory, money, publication may never come. The best thing about being a writer is having written something that I can step away from and say to myself 'I made this, it pleases me, it is a true thing.' I intend this answer in the least lofty, most sincere way.
Jill Alexander Essbaum
Never wait for inspiration to strike. Strike back! Do exercises, weird ones, obnoxious ones, strange ones. I take other people's poems and 'translate' them into English, then 'translate' the translation... If you do that enough times eventually you have something so far removed from the source that it's your own (or, alternately and what usually happens with me, is that a bell dings and I have an entirely unrelated idea and then that's the rabbit I chase). I ask other friends to feed me lines to riff on. I feed them lines. I take single words and meditate on them and write throw-away pieces. It's imperative however to write daily. Even if it's crap. Especially if it's crap.
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