My guess is that we are all looking for a breakthrough. I was especially desperate last night and it just didn’t come. In fact, as I pushed paint around I only made matters worse. What felt like some sort of compulsion to smooth out rough edges was really the lack of confidence to follow through with the expressive nature of the first stabs, the ones that came from the gut and pack most of the punch. If it sounds like a fight that’s because it feels like one and I know if that struggle was evident in the end I would have a better piece.
Maybe Margaret Explosion will have a breakthrough tonight.
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I think the idea of a breakthrough is a problem. If I wait for one (and I have) I’ll never get there. And I doubt you know you’re having one when you are. I realized that with my new novel that I had one a few weeks ago at a point when I was seriously doubting that what I was doing was readable. You just have to keep smearing that paint around. It worked for Pollock.
Read 10:04 by Ben Lerner. A great novel about art and New York, two subjects that are pretty hard to write about…
The breakthrough will come today!