~ 

“In my dreams, I was inventing literature,” he recalled. Month by month the typescript grew, presaging the weight that the great novel and the “solitude of fame,” as he would later put it, would inflict on him.

From 2016, this tale of the history & impact of a book that I (& clearly most of us…) found so meaningful.

By Paul Elie via Vanity Fair

Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how…. The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention…. The not-knowing is not simple, because it’s hedged about with prohibitions, roads that may not be taken. The more serious the artist, the more problems he takes into account and the more considerations limit his possible initiatives.

Via: http://tomconoboy.blogspot.com/2013/09/barthelme-and-not-knowing.html