Jennifer Spiegel author of And So We Die, Having First Slept

Jennifer Spiegel's latest book has received a wealth of fabulous reviews. Get a copy on Amazon.

What is your favorite thing about writing?

Here are TEN things I love: 

The coffee. 

The couch.  

The cat.  

Reading books by other people. 

Being done. 

Touting eccentricity as a way of being irresponsible and weird. 

Vigilantly pursuing an agenda that promulgates Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. 

Exposing the nakedness of our buried lives, à la Matthew Arnold in “The Buried Life.” 

Rolling up my trousers like Prufrock, buying whores like Holden, and going back to the family beach house over and over like Sedaris. 

Not pursuing money, like, at all. 

Some notes: I can’t say, I love the creative process because I don’t even know what that means. I’ve noticed that touting my eccentricity doesn’t quite work the way I wish it did. I love the people; I don’t love them. I am not really one of them. I’m too uncool. I still eat red meat, listen to U2, and buy clothes at Kohl’s. I love crashing syllables and images together; I love the sound of words like Madagascar and fluid and Chicken Tikka and pshaw; I hate my own inadequacies as a writer and artist and bohemian and businesswoman; I hate my lack of savvy sophistication, my disregard for reality, my inability to “play the game,” my dependency on my spouse to put food on the table, and my hunger for validation and affirmation from strangers.  

Alas, I’m a writer of fiction, pompous and full-bodied prose, and I’ll blow it all off. Touting my eccentricity as a way of being irresponsible. 

Leave a comment