Tuesday, August 02, 2005

8

JH: I write with a pencil on a spiral notebook, usually sitting at a table. I wait for the lightning bolt, as it were. I usually write during the day. That's pretty much my routine. What are your writing habits? What kind of writing would you like to do more often (or do at all)? I would like to write more verse-plays. I've written maybe three in all, and the longest is six pages. I want to write much longer verse-plays, vast unstageable works. I enjoy reading novels, but have never wanted to write prose fiction, lengthy or otherwise. Is there any writing you have never really been interested in? I sometimes idly think of writing essays, but am listless about it. I'm not listless about huge verse-plays, just unthunderbolted.


AHB: I like the idea of projects, any work that takes a while to produce. I get ideas, like somehow using a romance novel that I found as the basis of a work, but I never seem to identify exactly what I want to do, nor have I ever begun such a project. Maybe someday. A biographical (the baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander interests me) or historical work interests me, I'd love to do the research, but such would demand a real commitment, which I have yet to make. As a matter of habit, I write 2-3 times a day at least, in the morning and evening particularly. My blog gathers more of my time perhaps than ought, but on the other hand, I take it seriously, see it as a viable effort. I also have a habit of writing in notebooks while in bed, just before I turn out the light: final scrapings of the brain for the day. I'm also interested in memoir, in some way. By memoir I mean ones like Tony Towle's, or Ron Padgett's bio of Ted Berrigan, but also journals (like Thoreau's), diaries (Anais Nin), and what seems to be large autobiographical flow from Burroughs and Henry Miller. So maybe I'd go that way...Plays are perhaps a form that I am least interested in. I am not well read in the genre outside of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans (I love Marlowe, the wildman) and Synge, who I also love. You put me on to Strindberg. Would his works represent inspiration for the sort of verse-plays you have in mind? I really like dialogue, but the trappings of plays, likewise the trappings of novels, weary me some. Would there be plot involved in your plays, as you envision? Have you read the work of Stacy Doris? She writes a playlike form of verse, a widly imaginative gust of exuberance. Gary Sullivan and other Flarfists do playlike creations. Does what you imagine in any way fit such descriptions? Our collaboration shows playlike signs, voices you might say. Plays sound like a good direction for you.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home