Lidia Yuknavith on HTML Giant

The force I will heretofore refer to as The Lidia - publisher, writer extraordinaire, whose anti-memoir The Chronology of Water drops today - interviewed by Chris Higgs as part of his 5 Questions on Experimental Writing asked to Women.

I do believe that everyone who complains about the state of writing today should be an activist like Lidia and start their own press, like she has done with Chiasmus (publisher of O Fallen Angel, and honestly the only press I considered sending it to). As she says of the press:

It means that while we DO work to get authors and their words circulating within commodity culture, we do NOT do it to promote commodity. We do it to infiltrate consumer culture with radical little art attacks.

Ergo, Ego

I am in the outlining stage of HEROINES now. The real, oh-my-god, I will soon have an outline that is more than me throwing together words and phrases onto a sort of mood board (like I write my longer blog posts). Right now it's 15 pages which is way too long of an outline but anyway. I have been chipping away at this outline for days, because I know once I start - ATTEMPTING - once I start - ESSAYING - then whatever is in my mind at the time will go into the next draft. That is terrifying to me. I'm not ready, I feel. Although I've been ready for a while. To essay on these women. But what I need I realize is a terrific jolt of ego. I need Henry Miller-style ego. F. Scott Fitzgerald-caliber ego. Andre Breton-matter ego. The tremendous and terrifying ego to say - Yes - I have Something to Write - Yes - Something that I think You should Read.

On his side: ego. On her side: self-indulgence.