An Exciting Time
On the Tension Between Making Art and Sharing It
It was not assumed they’d be eager to do AMAs on Goodreads or promos on Book-Tok.
But you don’t get to be famous by being a recluse anymore.
Through an insidious Darwinian winnowing over the last decades, most of the living writers you’ve heard of now tend to be of that freakish breed who take naturally to self-promotion and thrive on social media, like those newly evolved bacteria that eat plastic.
writing is a lonely, obsessive practice, favored by those types who prefer solitude, observation, and long, uninterrupted thoughts to celebrity, performance, and mouthing off on twitter.
It is an unavoidably fraught business, relinquishing a book you’ve been working on for years to the judgment of the public, even more so if your material is your own life
Like a lot of writers, Nell often feels at an involuntary remove from other people, like a researcher observing subjects from behind one-way glass, which can be an advantage as an artist, but is isolating and sad for a human being
I felt as if, by focusing on me as a person, readers fundamentally misunderstood what I was trying to do.
They’d already gotten the best aspect of me in my work; it was a fallacy to imagine that there’s more of the same to be found in the real-life person of me.
I had to not to care at all to keep from caring too much.
You beam your feeble radio signals out into the abyss and then, one morning, years later, the skies are full of starships.
Creative Practice
Art
Wandering Mind
Creative Biz & Career
