Pleasantness Was The Machismo Of The Midwest.

What Little Reality Television I've Seen Seems To Be About Economic Desperation. Like The Marathon Dancing Of The Great Depression, Which Should Give Us Pause. People Willing To Eat Flies And Worms For A Sum That Is Less Than The Weekly Paycheck Of The Show's Producer. I Haven't Seen "reality Television" That Is Other Than This Kind Of Painful, Sadistic Exploitation Of Fit Young People Looking For Agents.

Editing Is Just Ongoing. I Don't Count Drafts, Or Know What Would Fully Constitute A Draft. But I Try To Fix As I Go. And There's Always More To Fix.

The Detachment Of The Artist Is Kind Of Creepy. It's Kind Of Rude, And Yet Really It's Where Art Comes From. It's Not The Same As Courage. It's Closer To Bad Manners Than To Courage. If You're Going To Be A Writer, You Basically Have To Say, 'this Is Just Who I Am'. There's A Certain Indefensibility About It. It's Not About Loving Your Community And Taking Care Of It — You're Not Attached To The Chamber Of Commerce. It's A Little Unsafe. You Have To Be Willing To Have Only Four Friends, Not 11.

Rather Than A Teaching Tool, I Think A Novel Is More Of A Witnessing Entity. A Witnessing Entity? What Is That? I Just Want The Reader To Step In And Experience It As A Story.

But Family Life Sometimes Had A Vortex, Like Weather. It Could Be Like A Tornado In A Quiet Zigzag: Get Close Enough And You Might See Within It A Spinning Eighteen-wheeler And A Woman.