Let’s make this short. Being a writer and a part of society is a balancing act, and one aspect is total immersion into art. Words aren’t concerned with the economy and the various stages of emotional change that evolves alongside the passage of growing from a child into an adult, and as your skills get better the editing becomes even more difficult. Writing a novel isn’t easy. The only thing I can think of comparing it to, is space camp.
2
In many ways the novel is a controlled social experiment on a universal scale, and I’ve discovered that a writer can get possessed by the amount of control you are given, and even when the prose represent a work of fiction, the romance is enough for anybody to follow the rabbit for far too long. Some writers have never come back to the world where this book is an object, a product, a purchase, an artifact and a home for the future of dust. Some writers have been completely lost to different worlds and exiled from the home in which they were born.
3
Another reason this book exists is because I was tired but couldn’t, as Ginsberg said, “stand my own mind”.
Something wasn’t right with me. I was anxious about not working on my novel so much I was getting mean. I wanted to relax and look at weeping willows and read for the sake of fun. I wasn’t sure how I could afford to waste time living my life again, and on a long drive at night I saw a minivan that had four or five televisions turned on. A day after Thanksgiving The highway was dark and silent but right there a living room was rolling down the road. One example of many, but for some reason this got me thinking about how to get happier, and I realized that I can do anything I want to do.
Learning how to trust your subjectivity is an important component of art. It’s not a game, its art, and I don’t have to risk going crazy for a bunch of words. Maybe it’s the great cycle of life, the music of existence, maybe it’s just…
4
2013 was over and I was driving because I didn’t feel too good. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but if you’re an artist the concept of time has the tendency of becoming a monster, and when you become afraid of something it is acceptable to change the plan.
ople on different days…
And they were right, because as many good actors already know, you have to walk the line of the mind totally detached from concepts of right or wrong, or crazy mad or peaceful sane, and I don’t know why, but it’s the only way.
8
Lines and boxes in society are confortable (and often functional) but they do not represent the true nature of change. A novel can deconstruct some of these stagnant and artificial characteristics of civilization, while amplifying many of the unheard voices of the streets, but one thing a novel does not share with the global world of commerce is its association with westernized time…
In order to write a book that is true you have to learn how to live in many worlds at the same time. This represents one of the great paradoxes of writing, and may offer insight into why many writers have boozed themselves into oblivion while some have isolated themselves in universities, which (in many ways) is a very different world than the world of the streets.
11
As a writer and a human being, I’m going to find inspiration in the physical, while not placing such a burden on my fictional characters.
12
As head editor of West Vine Press I’m going to spend more time getting other writers into print. I’m going to make books and I’m going to work on my typewriter. I’m going to organize and think and write articles for magazines and newspapers. I’m going to help where I’m needed and get lost on long walks and long country drives…
One month, that’s all.
I need a vacation. I hope that’s ok…
Be cool.
Sincerely,
A.H.K
Adventures In American Writing 