After a certain lapse in our correspondence—of which I am mostly to blame—he wrote, “What are you doing?” And I wrote back, “Gaining weight.” Which is true.
HER : I love you. HIM : (Nods. Pause.) Finish the thought. HER : I did. HIM : You didn’t. HER : I did. That was all. I love you — HIM : Like a brother — Like. A. Brother.
A: This is just pissing the wall. B: And? A: And? It’s all we ever do. B: Yes. We’re accomplished. A: Accomplished? B: At something. A: At pissing the wall. B: That’s right. What's more? We’ve great aim. A: Yes. Mentally and physically. B: Yes.
Writing is dwelling, but better than simply dwelling. Writing is the purging of the plaguing thought. Although the sickness—a virus, if you will, of conscious and perhaps unconscious and certainly continuous Agony —can never be fully expelled from the system. Or maybe I just need drugs.
The aim (now) is to write plays no one, in their right mind, would produce; to write short stories and novels no one, in their right mind, would publish. This way, the pressure’s off. And all that’s left is the “fun.”
“…to be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail, that failure is his world and the shrink from it desertion, art and craft, good housekeeping.” —Samuel Beckett