Jason Isbell and George Saunders Have an Epic Conversation | GQ Style

of writers and especially if the writer has the agenda of the agenda and then sticks to it, yeah, like the agenda is what they're going to dominate you a little bit. and I realized that it was a city with a speed trap. It didn't even occur to me that it's the same material, this country, you know, is a bad country until you said that it feels like it's the case and it's a good piece of fiction, the writer's intention is to move. In search of the Afro energy of the song, he goes into the meaning and the images, but also the melody.

When you get to that song and you think about the title, you know, yeah, that's the trapped city of it, but it's about that from such a point. interesting variety of angles, I guess I would say yes and I used to think it was a flaw in my composition that sometimes I didn't

have

an end point, but then after I read enough and really liked it, I discovered what I really liked in terms of The details and the narrative were so I thought no, maybe that's a good thing, that I and I don't necessarily

have

a reason to make each of these songs, but I realized that the point is often much more complex and ambiguous than any point.

One could imagine from the beginning, yes, and that's the trick. I think you know the trick in a title and you also know that if we were vampires, it seems like it would be very, very different from the title, even when we went in to record it in the studio that Dave Cobb was producing, the record discouraged us every time I said yes that's the song called if we were vampires, it was his idea of ​​what it was going to be with something very, very different from what turned out because if someone told me a composer, that's the title, I would work on it until I was tired.

There would be five different varieties of that, but it actually appears like once and this is just one time and I liked it. I liked. I like it. a title with, you know, a lyric that only happens once, I guess for that reason, because it doesn't fixate you on anything, as far as you know, an agenda like you're saying what I'm trying to convey from myself to the audience. very often you just know that life is many things, well I think one thing the listener feels with your music is that you are as involved in the mystery of it as they are, you are not, you are not determining it and then get rid of it everything definitely, yeah, exactly, yeah, and I've read where you talked about that in regards to writing prose and writing fiction, I mean, you know you don't start writing a song about this and you're done. write a song about it and have something beautiful in the middle, not really specific ways that you can get away from it because I know it would be a lot better if I could decide to write a story about X and then I would do it, but my work life would be a lot less stressful, but part of the art of fiction for me, you know, is identifying when I start phoning and then shooing me away, what are the techniques that are out there and, sorry, I mean. oh yeah, yeah, sometimes you can use the musical composition of something to push you in that direction or to keep you from going where you would normally go on autopilot.

You also know we'll write a song without a chorus, you know, I mean if we were vampires. It doesn't have a chorus, there's a song I wrote called Live Oak, which is a bit of an allegory and you know about this kind of split in my personality and my identity when I got sober and you know the person I left. behind and wondering about the validity of that person and you know, but there's no chorus there and then if I had put a chorus in that song, I feel like it could have become very, you know, very like something planned.

I want to tell people what is that? I mean, because internally the conventionality of the structure would allow you to go back to the shore a little bit. I mean, totally another. Yes, come on, yes, let's get out of the water, rest for a second and fish. you breathe and you don't you don't need to catch your breath right you know catching your breath is a mistake it's like why waste your time you know if a chorus is necessary and usually it is necessary because there's a part of a song that you know no other type of writing really has and there's that part where you want people to get energized by singing along, you know certain lyrics over and over again, which is really weird, if you ask me, it's very unnatural, but it is also.

There is a part of your brain that likes to repeat things. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent in my kitchen thinking that God was an architect now you know, oh yeah, like a pipe bomb ready to go off and I just find myself doing what am I saying that, oh yeah, it's in that, you know I had that being that chorus had to be there and you know I changed it a little bit at the end and sometimes you change things, but like 24 frames, that song was one that started very, very differently and with the intention of what it became, what You know because it started about how to become a better person and how little time you have to do it, you know that you have to recognize your own opportunities for maturity.

Like, oh, this is, you know, this is the world that's having a parenting moment for me right now and I have to take advantage of it, but it turned into a you know, the pain and, you know, the grieving of a relationship. the same way you mourned a death, you know. And you know, I think that was one of the really cool things about that song because there's a way to be lazy without being lazy. You know a way to be very detailed and very specific and still be vague in a way that is really beautiful.

I think it's there at the end of us, I mean, is there a moment where you say it's done? I mean, there must be, but does it feel like that? Because in fiction you can know that you can go through that so many times and you're basically painting yourself out of the room, yeah, and you look back and you're like, well, I approve of all those messages right now, so I might as well leave at this point. right now, it's for me, it's when I'm in the booth, like when it goes to the mastering lab, you know, I mean, I'll come back.

I want to change this line after we've already recorded a song and everyone's parts on it and you know it's a last minute for me, not the songs and sometimes still after. that there are some lyrics that I changed live now, you know, because I still can't, I mean, I can't change the one that's on the record, but yeah, I can sing it differently every night if I think of a better way to say something , you know, damn. right, I'm going to sing it that way and maybe you'll forget the first one right now. I finished the book and I'm in that sort of in-between region, so I guess you saw our two years.

So how do you know that these last three albums have been incredibly popular and loved? Everything, how does your mind work when you start contemplating? The next thing I want to say is that I guess I'm thinking specifically about that. there's some kind of feeling that there's still something to do or there's something that I haven't done to my own satisfaction or that's just the way it works, yeah, there's definitely room, there's definitely things that I like to listen to that I haven't done. You know, there's kinds of music I listen to that I haven't even tried to create, and you know a lot of it is me using the devices I've given myself to work with the pressure instead of allowing it. to get anxious, you know, and that for the last two records I really had to because Southeastern was already done and people reacted very, very well and it sold better than anything that has worked in the past, okay, if that that's all.

As it goes, that's great. I can make a living with this work. Some theaters. We traveled by bus for a while. It's going to be incredible. Then when that happened again with the record, I found myself saying, "Oh, what am I going to do?" You know, because everyone will expect that this is how my records are for the rest of my life, but something intervened that told me that this is how it's supposed to be. I think gratitude came in, you know, which is usually what helps me. outside of any of those situations and it was like no, no, you've been given a lot here and yeah, that's it, okay, but that's not even a question where the question worth asking is how to take advantage of it. and actually saying things to people that mean something to them now that you have the microphone you know now that you said something smart enough to get the microphone passed to you you have an opportunity instead of pressure you know yeah because I mean, you know I could live with forgetting, you know, that's not a big deal to me, but what I couldn't live with is thinking that I had this, I had this platform and I didn't use it to really, you know, explain myself, definitely, look at me, look when you started to talking about your grandfather and it sounded like he, the way he, the tradition that the music came out of and the way he approached it, was like bowing as if music was something to be reverent about. , yeah, and now It sounds like you're holding onto that idea that now that you've had success and people loved your music so much that the functional response is to say it's still our space of reverence, you know I wouldn't like to demean it or let it out. from my point of view right and I'm not, I'm never very determined and I never use it for any purpose other than the actual creative artistic purpose of making it because it needs to exist and because it makes me happy and because it makes other people feel like they don't they are alone.

I've heard you talk about this distinction between artist and artist. Can you talk a little bit about what the arts are supposed to do and maybe especially in a time like ours? a little crazy, first of all, is it anything more than academic to ask that question? What is our duty? And if it's more than academic, what do you think it is? It's a tough question, you know, I didn't, I didn't. I considered myself an artist for a long time because I think I was thinking about it, since you know art is really, really good entertainment, you know, and it's like when you entertain people really well, all of a sudden you're an artist, but that's not It's like that. exactly true I don't think I feel like I feel like art exists because it's necessary, you know, and I think a lot of that has to do with how you aim the work that you're doing if you don't aim.

If you're just throwing chickens out the window, then I think in some ways you're making art because it's more important for you to say something, even if that's something complicated and hard to understand. than to attract something or sell something, then I think you could be making art, yes, and I like to say that they are saying something because it needs to be said and I also feel like for me there was a big leap when I said I need to say it, but I also need to include the listener in that communication in a non-condescending, perhaps even loving way, where although I say it, I also say it to appeal to the higher part of that. person or so you know not to patronize her at all, which is very critical in itself, I think you know, I think she's a narcissist, okay, but what is an artist if she's not a narcissist?

I think a lot of us spend our whole lives trying to pay off that, yeah, trying to pay off that debt and, you know, all the times we think, well, I'm going to be allowed to do something great, which when you say it out loud sounds absolutely ridiculous, but you know that you have done something great and you know that some people would say that I have done something great at some point or another and then once that happens, then you think well, you know how justified my thinking was. before and you know what I can do to leave only traces, so to speak, you know what I can do to refill the extra water that I drank, you know, my students sometimes, you know, at least in fiction, there are types of a little bit of aversion to entertainment or yes, the idea of ​​entertainment and I always feel that if a person has ambition, which would certainly have comically high levels and you know it's late to like to think about that, but if you have You know, you guys are going to expend a lot of energy into nine and suppress it or they're going to say, "Okay, I accept you, come on, let's have fun together and then you can purify that intention as you talk, you know, being grateful." and aiming for something higher but if you deny it then you're like you knew you had true love and you didn't quite show up and I'm sure you probably had moments in your life where you felt like this is a time where I have to rising to the occasion, yeah, you know, I've had a lot of those and you know, I have most of the night on stage, it's a long series of that, what a great opportunity.

Because I don't have those moments, I tend to just hit rock bottom and be stuck on my best self like Ritz, you know it's really good for a certain part of you, you know, if you don't do it. You get it if you don't get bored with the gifts, you know, if you work hard to avoid getting too used to it. I think that's the most important thing for a performing artist, it's very, very easy to get used to. and think that they owe you and think that because you've made great art, you know that even if it's great art, you know that it's probably not for the Creator to say, but even if you feel like you've made something that's going to the next level , you're not yet, you can't do it, it's not a right, you know, it's not just because you did thing of course, completely created by ourselves and that's the problem.

I think that's the problem we're dealing with the most.than anything else at the moment. Know? The American dream gives people an idea. that the bottom they started from was the bottom and the absolute bottom and it's very important as an American to feel like you earned what you have, yeah, you know, and that to me is very, very dangerous, very dangerous because it was. Reading something you said about traveling to parts of Asia, I think Singapore, where you know, you said you saw what it was really like for someone to be poor and have no other options, you know, and now in this country. we have so many people who think you know legal naturalization is an option for everyone you know, they don't understand how you can be in a place where you can't legally become an American, you know, or how you can be in a place where you can't I can't leave Houston before the hurricane, it just does that to them, that will happen, yeah, I've been poor, so you know, so I could have done well, but that's that American idea that says it makes that weird connection. between the good. luck and individual virtue you know that you are born a certain way with certain gifts and you forget that you just came out of heaven that way you know, yeah and yeah, you forget about that time you won the lottery, that's how you forgot about winning the law I want it because you know, I've heard people say well, at least I played early, you know, that was my yes, they're there, I'm thinking about this, are there songs that you, first of all, do your Faith in the Power of music ever diminishes, you know, for example, you wake up and the idea of ​​music is a little stale or it doesn't speak to you, it always beats you, it does and I don't listen to as much music as a lot of my peers, I don't know, My wife listens a lot more, so that's something I have to work on doing, you know?

And last week I bought like five or six records and, you know, I work hard to stay up to date. Wife it's very important to know what's going on after the question offered yesterday, yes, but are there songs from your past that you turn to and like? It's a good song, you know? or the ones I have read. Yes that's fine. and also others as reference points that you would soften each time, go back and look and wow, okay, this is the first thing, but you know what we're on, what are your three favorites, am I yeah?

Right now I think Elephant is probably my best song, probably my best song, but Vampires on the new record is that good. I think they're quite nice, even as far as you know, I can't find anything fat, although my and it better sound like that and go back and listen to it or it feels like you did it or there's a feeling of wow, that's not really , yeah, you're right, it's kind of like, I mean, I could, I cried, you know. They both have the empire. I couldn't sing it to my wife to show her. I just had to stop and wait ten minutes and start again and stop again and in the studio, you know, I choked, you know, and yeah, that.

I think I felt embarrassed by that whole scene because it's such a horrible thing to be moved by something you just made up, but at the same time it was all that went into it and it was that feeling of you know. That channel that composers sometimes talk about and it's true. I don't want it to be true. I want everything to be because you know I sit there and work really hard, but that didn't take long. Know? It's just that you're holding on, you know, and I saw it. I wrote called Dress Blues years ago, which isn't very mature lyrically.

You know, the art of the song is not where I am now, but I wrote it at the time I took it down on a piece of paper and you know, it was another one of those that I just tore up when I was done because it was about someone I knew, you know something , then it really happened and I just felt like I was holding on and trying to get it out before it moved on to the next station because you know, I haven't had the feeling that one of the reasons we get so addicted to this creative stuff is that It frees us, it frees us.

I temporarily from this guy you know that you are in the middle of a process somehow you get access to something that must be you but it is also not you and to me that is the most wonderful thing is when you discover that you are better than this person and then that thing comes out and it connects with a part of the audience that is also better than them undated, yeah, so it makes sense to me that you can write a song and move with it because you're not actually writing it, it's something else true, yeah, yes, you have accessed something that you do not live with, you know something that you are not closely connected with all day, it is something that you are not tired of, but a part of you does not reveal itself.

It's enough to make you irritated, that's a dream, yeah, it's like your nephews or something, you know, oh, I'm so happy to see you, you know, I don't have to clean up after you, right? What are the three best guitar solos? the account of your personal life from other people who like that is fine and what makes one good I guess is fine. I think the stairway to heaven at the end is quite difficult to overcome. I think Hendrix was along the watchtower, so I was, as you know, something that just no one had ever heard anything like that before and I really loved playing David Lindley.

I like to play the violin too, but I think what did you do when you came up empty with the Jackson Browne song? I think that little bit is, you know, so spontaneous musical. The creation is really very very good, there is ingenuity in it and you know, I think I think that a solo that you are improvising you know that you have to trust, you have to be really thinking on your feet and you have to do it, it's almost like a game of chess because you have to see the steps forward as you play, you have to see an output that makes sense, that has bookends, you know and you're thinking melodically or in shapes, you know, I'm very aquatic, yeah, yeah.

Melodically I usually sing in my head or actually sometimes sing it. You know, I think it's a really good thing for improvising musicians to sing along with what you're playing while you're improvising because that gives you more direction. out of the physical and into the emotional into the melodic world instead of looking at where your hands land on the instrument, let me jump to something else. I think we both come from places that are probably biased Trump inside. the last election, so can you give me your? I mean, this is a totally unfair question, but what is your opinion on what is happening in our country in the last 300 years?

Well, no, no, no, no. I think we've looked in the closet enough, you know? I guess I think the fact that we've avoided

conversation

s for so long is catching up to us now that those

conversation

s are inevitable since we're all in such close contact because of cell phones. Phones, the Internet, and social media force us to talk about things we should have talked about 50 60 70 a hundred years ago. That makes me happy. I'm glad to see the conversations finally happening but it's like having an intervention with someone you know who's been addicted for 15 years it's like I should have done this it would have been so much easier if you had done it 10 years ago you know I'm just not convinced that our country has elected Donald Trump president.

I'm still not convinced that I haven't seen definitive evidence yet that that happened, you know, without some kind of outside influence and you know. I think probably a lot of people don't put their money where their mouth is and a lot of people say one thing and vote another way and I think a lot of people, more than I assumed, feel like the system doesn't represent them, so they were prepared for anything. anything other than the system, now that I could understand if it did. It doesn't include sexism and racism and you know a general disdain for anyone who isn't white and male, but when you throw that stuff in there, I don't feel sorry for anyone who felt left out and voted that way now because you know they should have.

I should have gotten over those things. I feel sorry for a two-year-old who uses the n-word, but you know, not for a 20, 30, 40-year-old, it's like I feel like there's a yes, that Lincoln book. I had so much stuff from the civil war and I finished it before the election and I thought, oh, somehow we've never concluded this civil war and then, yeah, we really didn't now, we hope you're sure that's true, yeah , I love it. your song White Man's World and there's a really beautiful idea that it's not the line. I'll probably misquote her, but no war is what doesn't exist like someone else, yeah, and I think for me, you know, I've been thinking about this. many things and to think that, you know, I refer to racism as a white person's sin in our country and that those of us who may be stupid thought that all of that was in the past, I feel like now is the time for me to really start thinking about it and try to explain any trace of it and be a leader that way instead of you, someone says oh yeah, I definitely think racism sucks, but I'm an aggressive advocate of the opposite, which is an idea so American that we really believe in.

We are all equal and we are really going to live that way, yes, that is what it seems. I mean, I don't know if that's what the founding fathers had in mind, but that's what I always grew up thinking that's what there's a yes, yes and yes, I know some of them definitely didn't, but it What American has always meant to me is that you know the dream is available to all of us and you know that none of us are free. You know, like that song, who doesn't? I know who was originally responsible for that, maybe Curtis Mayfield, but you know, I know he did it.

If there's a hell below, we'll all go, but I don't think any of us are free. It could have been before that, but if one of us has chained any of us. We are free and you know it. I think I think inclusion helps everything when you realize that you know this is our fault. You know and of course my family didn't have slaves, they were pretty broke, but that's not the case. matter, it doesn't matter and I think people find it difficult why people who believe racism can work both ways don't understand the connection to power, they don't understand that you have to be in a place of power to really be racist. systematically, it's not just that you meet an angry kid who calls you a cookie or a white boy, you know that you have to be able to exert force in one way or another on the person you're sitting next to. yeah, yeah, you know, a mouse sitting on an elf and it's not the same as an elephant sitting, yeah, but I'm a mouse, right, yeah, so do you have an idea what's next?

I mean, you're on tour, but are there songs? We wrote our lineup Laura, there are songs in the lineup, yeah, I'm always taking notes and you know, writing little riffs on the guitar and then when I get into the process, when I have a deadline set for me, thank God I have the seal and nobody's. breathing down my neck and you know I'm a publisher now and all that, so when I have it in mind and I want to make a record and set a deadline, I'll go through all the notes and I'll really dig in, you know, start spending five or six hours a day or more, you know, working and I don't consider this part to be working, touring, you know, traveling is not easy, but it's a lot easier than it used to be. be because sometimes I did 200 shows in a van in a year and yeah that's brutal for you when you go to play here there's a rush I mean it's every night yeah there's definitely an illan drain every time I go out and if there is I don't think I did wrong today that I slept last night or what you know because the people that you know, the people that I know that love your music, they really love it, I mean, it's not just like oh yeah, I really like their song, but Those songs really speak to them deeply, you should feel like yes, I do.

I'm very grateful for that and I feel like that's because I didn't set out to make music that would be consumed while you were doing something else. I know this because a lot of music is for that and there is a place for it. You know I love you. You know, bubblegum pop music sometimes, if it's done the right way, most of my favorite pop music is ESL, what I call ESL pop. English has said yes, because I think they don't really understand the way the English language is perceived to someone who is not from the United States or the United Kingdom.

It's very interesting to me and a pop song I think it just makes the lyrics better because they don't quite understand. they're not trying to mean as much now, that's just in pop music, but back to my point, I really try a lot to make music that's supposed to be heard while you're listening to music, you know, maybe you're driving a car maybe you're jogging but you're socializing with nothing but the song and you don't know it, hanging out at the grill, hanging out with your friends and talking while the elephant plays in the background, it's nothing more than you know, people say it's sad . to say it's sad and it drives me crazy the two things that drive me crazy the most you know people's attitudes towards the music I make are it's sad you know what it means it's moving you know it's not just sad you know the mornings are the mornings are sad and funny and then life is sad and so is all this, but it's sad and also when they assume that every first person narrator is me, yes, and that's very frustrating, but I find a song or a piece of art that is really sad that it doesn't.

Engage with the whole range of things we write for propaganda purposes or that sort of thing.Americans or if you like it, don't take it so seriously, you know, yeah, yeah, if you could look back at the song, at the composer when you were 20 or 21 years old. Will you tell him or I guess what I really want to know is how your aesthetic sense has changed since then? What do you value now that you didn't value then or vice versa? I edit more now, that's for sure, time must have been editing. It's grown a lot over the years, um, that's a tough question, it's tough for me because I feel like I'm in such a good place now, creatively and personally, that you know, I wouldn't want to curse, yeah, I just would. .

I wouldn't even, besides, I wouldn't want to have a conversation with that jerk, no, he wouldn't listen to me, that's funny to me, how much of the process that you go through after doing something, where sometimes you talk about it in middle of a conversation. about I'm like that it's not really yours I'm right now I'm saying something that's theoretically true but in actual practice it's not true yeah, yeah, I do that, I catch myself and yeah, actually, it's just just a big deal, you know, and if that process wasn't what it was, this process wouldn't be what it is, you know, and I wasn't in a rush to get to my peak, you know, and now I'm in no rush to get there. better, I mean, I want you to know what I mean, I want to improve, but I want to know what it takes to improve and I know that it takes that amount of time to really refine, why do I like this and why is it necessary?

I go back and play a lot of those songs, you know, a couple of them a night that I wrote when I was 21 or 22 and for the most part I think they're good, you know, I can still sing them. without being ashamed and that's okay, and sometimes they move more they have more energy maybe than I have now, but I think you know, try to be probably more empathetic, that's all, just try to see other perspectives than the narrator's point that you're trying to drive home in these songs, you know, because I look back at the song that I wrote for the truckers that were passing by and that song meant a lot to a lot of those that were passing by. trucker fans and a lot of people who have close relationships with his father, but now that I think about it now I think there's something about that that he said that's a little exclusive, it's a little bit, you know, he was trying to convey my personality. father and I say it with humor, and you know, I might have even seemed a little homophobic to someone and for a long time that I was with him, it never occurred to me and then, like Terry Gross, he asked me something about it and I was like, oh.

Terry Gross Terry Gross knows what's up and I'm in trouble. You know you have to watch out for the Terry Grosses of the world. There is one of them, but it's funny how when you arrive today you know what's in the middle or at some point. you and your writing you look back and see it, it's almost like books that are a little crooked on the shelf, like they're not all in order and maybe if you want them to straighten them again, they lose some essential energy, yes. I think it seems like you have a lot of faith in the kind of thing that I always call the subconscious, maybe that's the wrong term, but that kind of thing that you have no control over, but you seem to be quite intelligent and seem determined to progress in some way. and so you know I feel like if I honor it by showing up to work every day that thing is smarter than me and somehow guides you a little bit, I mean, yeah, and it might cause some mistakes, but in the end, it causes growth, whether you want it or not, and all you have to do is honor it without forgetting that it is there and that you have to serve it through work or something, yeah, I think it's like the muse likes to find you. working well, but you also know I've gotten better at switching between that and the front, the frontal lobe, you know, and I think that's a big part of the editing process, figuring out how to get in and out of that coat, you know? put on that suit very quickly, it goes back and forth between the suit that you don't necessarily have control over and the suit that you make, that's because it's totally fine today, both suits are you and they're completely, yeah, yeah, yeah. as long as you know, as long as you don't ignore either of them and you know, keep them in good shape and they'll both fit together forever, you know, but I just think sometimes when I write I think.

Okay, now it's time to shift into another gear and fix this. Yes, your lyrics are amazing to other poets you read. Are you a poetry reader? Yes, not as much as current poets. I was a big fan of Mark Strand and you know. Louise Glick and one of the things I read in college I kept reading afterwards and you know, with the two-year-old and the touring schedule, it's all I can do to get to fiction and I really enjoy it a lot. You know, and I went through a period there, I think Jennifer Egan hit me in a way that really made me feel the closest I've ever been to a panic attack.

She was on a plane reading a visit from the goon squad and it just hit a part of me so hard it was almost like I was taking LSD or something. I had the same thing on a plane with David Foster Wallace's oblivion and I realized that she was hitting me in a really agitated and not entirely pleasant way, yes, with Darien it was done. I felt nauseous now, you know, I felt like I was breaking out in a kind of cold sweat, the truth sucks, the truth sucks and I felt like I couldn't lose it with what I was, like I was being judged for something I couldn't make excuses for.

For this, she had a new reading gallery and I'll call it Manhattan Beach and it was really great, almost everything I've read about her. I really loved even the story she made in a similar tweet, yeah yeah. That was great, but you know I really like Peter Madison's work. Dennis Johnson. I think you wrote fiction? Are you tempted? First. I'm tempted and I've tried. I don't like. You know, I just don't like it. and when I start writing a song in a few minutes I can find something that makes me happy, something that is the reward that you just wrote a good line, but with fiction I can't, I can't do that, huh, I know it's It's a matter of something I should work on and at some point I think I'll do it and keep working and try to write a page a day for a year and then figure it out and try to find a good editor and all that kind of stuff. of things, but right now I can't get to that release, you know, I can't get that serotonin shot, oh right, you just made an amazing ROM, carry on, I have a theory, this may not be correct, but I feel like He I've talked to a lot of people about this and there's a moment in your young life when you champion some form of art, you know where you're going, okay, I have to be fully involved in this, I'm not going to be who I am.

I want to be one and I think that for me that was professional. I used to play guitar and stuff. I was never able to make any decision about it. Yes, that's a good thing, but with professionals I always knew what I believed in and that resulted in this shot of serotonin. if you see something that you wrote that sucks and if you fix it and then you get that little thing so yeah, it seems like a lot of what we do has to do with that split second gut reaction. I love it, I hate it and then and then also that authority of knowing what to do next to make it better or something oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, knowing where to go, also you know sometimes and I know this happens as a musician and I don't I'm sure it happens in other types of writing too, but I feel like over time you start to discover what mistakes can be followed and what mistakes could end up giving you a voice that you know well may not be unique and may still be something that you belongs, yes.

I know this because I go back and hear, for example, there's a Wurlitzer piano there and if we plugged it in and played it, it wouldn't sound like a piano at all, you know, but the intention was to recreate an acoustic piano in a small portable unit, the The sound it makes is probably just as good and really very, very useful in popular music, rock and roll, sometimes it's better than a piano for that, but it's nothing like what they were filming, you know? I listen to the Rolling Stones and I think you know they were just trying to be black American blues musicians and they failed, you know splendidly, yeah, and then they kept failing the same way, it's almost like they know that's the mistake to make, so I say, sometimes in the process you look for perfection and you don't get it, but then by recognizing it and then using it, it becomes a different kind of process, right, yeah, right, and I think that's what I'm trying.

I ask you that question because when I read your work I feel like I have an idea of ​​who you are, but I also think it's a little impossible that you could have so many interests because sometimes I read something like just a girl's diary. That seems like science fiction in a way, but then it extends far beyond what you know and a lot of the stories in that collection are like that to me, it's like you can have the time and have different interests. All of that seems to tell me how you see the world, how you see your is right because all those things start to be something else and I lift them up, yeah, and then instead of denying them, I go right and you figure out what.

Yeah, in fiction, what you do is you, I mean, you rework so many times that it starts to teach you its own logic and those first few times it's like um, I guess maybe like a diamond is forming, there's shit in it. , You know? that the diamond would form around shit, yeah, and if it formed enough, you'd forget there was shit in it, which might not be the most elegant, right, but no, but yeah, but in a way I think That's the confidence you have. We were talking about following the error because how else do you do something?

And I think, oh, this would be such a nice story about go to law school or something, but now I think okay, you made a mistake, but a mistake is only a mistake if you don't acknowledge it and except me write the bill. with that, yeah, like Duane Allman playing the wrong note again, right, that's what he would say, you know, it's never no, it's the one right after that that's right or wrong, if you play the wrong note, you just Play it again, yeah, and then see where it goes. and you know you're always half a step away from the right thing, you know you'll find it and you insist on it a few more times, then yes, yes, it becomes the right note.

I love talking to you. Thank you so much. I loved it. Also and I tell you like with Lincoln and the Bardo. I can't even describe that book to people without getting emotional. Trying to tell people what the book is about. It's hard for me, but it was such a beautiful story. Tweet about it. Oh well, well, I loved it. I'm glad it's succeeding because it's a great book. From now on, thank you. I enjoyed it and then here's the tattoo my wife and I got on her 30th birthday in New Zealand. Really fun. Intelligence is needed.