I really like this article about Fugue State Press.

David Peak has a new poetry ebook called The Dead Space of April published by Pangur Ban Party. Give it a look.

J.A Tyler is a nice guy so checkout what he's doing with his novella THE ZOO, A GOING

This is a re-post from J.A. Tyler's blog from 7/26/09:

THE ZOO, A GOING & free free reading I have been inspired by stephen elliott, shya scanlon, & others letting folks read their full manuscripts, books, etc. for free, for the love of lit, because in the end I think we are all just looking for readers.

so in that spirit, THE ZOO, A GOING, my recently completed novel(la), will be posted at this new blog, one piece at a time, each piece up for only 24 hrs. & then deleted. just follow the blog & read one a day, like taking a vitamin. a chalky delicious fruity flavored flintstones vitamin.

I will post the entire novel(la) from a-z starting in a week or two: 76 pieces total, 76 days of reading. so spread the word, get people on board, the reading is about to begin. hope you enjoy.

I watched Moon last night, I liked it. I think that it was a little over simplified or explained, but that's only a small complaint. Sam Rockwell does a wonderful job.

Interview with author/ editor Blake Butler

Blake Butler was kind enough to do an interview with me at his home in Atlanta.
The interview took place mid-June of his year.

SPIVEY: How have you been sleeping lately?

BUTLER: Actually up until about three weeks ago I'd been sleeping beautifully for about six months. Perfect for probably the longest time in my life. Then about three weeks ago something, maybe it's just the summer and the heat, but I'm starting to sleep pretty bad again. Which is frustrating after sleeping for six months pretty normal; I thought I had gotten past it or something. That time when you're laying down expecting to go to sleep and then you don't, the period between that and accepting you're not going to fall asleep is the worst time.

SPIVEY: Is Inland Empire by David Lynch similar to how you dream?

BUTLER: Inland Empire is what it feels like to be awake. I have really violent and fucked up dreams. But when I'm awake, when I haven't slept, that's when it kind of feels like Inland Empire. It even crosses the line [between awake and dreaming] because when you're in that area you'll fall asleep and you'll have two hours of really dead sleep that kind of blurs in that area of not being asleep and that's why I love that movie. It's because there's never really been a movie that's caught those weird blank spaces as well as that movie did. So, it felt like a lot of regular days even though it's such a fucking weird movie. Watching it, I felt like I've walked out of my house and done that, or at least experienced what that felt like, which is a strange thing to think. I don't know, a lot of people didn't connect to it at all, even people who love Lynch, but that one had it all for me.

SPIVEY: Is EVER autobiographical at all?

BUTLER: One of my really good friends, my first friend, besides literary friends, that bought the book and read it said, 'This is your life. I see so much of your life in this and you're just trying to hide it.' Which I can see. I think it always comes into your writing without you controlling it at all. I try not to think about it in that way at all. I'm never thinking: I'm going to write a veiled version of when daddy beat me too hard that one time, but you're a filter for what's coming through your head, so you kind of have to, whether you meant to or not; things are going to come out that are you, so in a way, yeah. During the time that I wrote that I was basically living with my parents and all my stuff was in boxes from the tornado. I was kind of displaced from all of my stuff. So I guess that maybe that had, probably had, a lot to do with it. That period of not really having anything that I'm used to living with around me.

SPIVEY: I know you have a secret word, a comfort word, that you keep to yourself, but is that word in EVER?

BUTLER: No. I've never written it down. But I often talk in gibberish to myself. So even though there's a lot of gibberish in the book, even though it's not necessarily stuff I say to myself on a regular basis, I think that gibberish is important to me, but I really can't say why. And comfort word, that's interesting you call it that. It is a stress reliever. Maybe it's like speaking in tongues, without making it a religious context, maybe it's just a release. I don't even know where it started, but I really wish I could stop saying it. I try really hard, but it's gotten more complex, like things get added to it, and at this point the word kind of has an evolution, it started off just as this gibberish word, but I append it in all these ways, I don't know if I should ever tell anyone what they are. Instead of being able to control it, it just keeps getting more convoluted. But then I can't stop doing it in the convoluted way either. I don't really know what it means. Or what that means, or why it's a thing except a habit.

SPIVEY: It's a habit you control?

BUTLER: It's a habit I control, but it's a weird double, I know that I'm saying it when I say it, but I also continue to say it without wanting to. It's like an unconsciously conscious choice or something.

SPIVEY: Lynch has said that he is a fan of the absurd. Would you consider yourself a fan of the absurd?

BUTLER: Yeah definitely. I think that his absurdity is absurd in a way that it doesn't really compare to Monty Python absurd; it's scary absurd. And I think I like the scary, the terrible. Or one word that describes it, the sublime, it's scary but pleasing at the same time. All of my favorite art has that double effect; it's funny but it also takes you back in a way that you can't really say why. Since I respond to that most, that's mostly what I want to create. I think things have to have a sense of humor at the same time they are serious, if you take away from either side, you kind of-- I don't like the word earned because people love to say in writing, 'you need to earn this moment,' which I think is fucking bullshit; it either works or it doesn't, you don't have to earn shit. But with this, there's a certain level of, it either works or it doesn't, and in that context of the sublime, it's either the thing is supposed to exist or it's not.

SPIVEY: Is writing a selfish act or purely for self-fulfillment?

BUTLER: I don't know. I was actually talking with someone about this recently. Someone was asking if you're supposed to have a certain reason for what you make, and I think it's just kind of a violent thing for me. It's an outlet to a point. It's selfish but, a lot of the times I don't even feel like I'm writing what I write. The things that I've felt most proud of, or that I felt did the most or the most well honed would be better than proud of; the best objects I've made either a) I don't remember even doing, or b) had so little influence on, in making them.

SPIVEY: Influence you mean something outside?

BUTLER: When I'm typing I get into this mode where I'm not even thinking about the words and I'm more thinking about the rhythm or the sound of it over the meaning. And the meaning is derived from those things. So in that way when the story ends up having impact it seems secondary to the way it was created. So in that way I don't think I wrote it. Sometimes I'll go back and read something I wrote and be surprised at what it says, because I don't remember saying that. And I don't even know, I can glean what it means from reading the context, but it's like, I couldn't have thought that while I was making it. That happens a lot with Beckett; a lot of the things that are more based on sentences and sound a lot of those are just channeling. Which can go too far. Like sometimes Beckett can be boring, and particularly derivatives of Beckett can be really boring. When it's just all sound. But I think that learning to control that mode without-- another duality, control it without controlling it. Have it have some relevance to a reader, and to yourself, control it within that, but really let it come out of you without knowing why.

SPIVEY: Sounds like a hard place to be.

BUTLER: You just have to get in the mode, it's more of being a conduit like connecting or connectivity rather than learning the rules of writing. Sometimes I'll feel like I just get in the zone and I can just keep going for a long time without even knowing what I'm talking about until I'm done. And then in revision a lot of that will get fixed, because no one is perfect, as a medium, but, maybe people have been, but revision helps that out a lot.

SPIVEY: When I write I want to get to where all I'm doing is revision, that's where I want to be. Do you like that first initial draft, is revision a pain, or do you like the revision?

BUTLER: I used to be, or I guess when I was doing my MFA one of the big things was all my professors said, 'bust out that first draft,' and then you can revise it to death, and that works, that's a great model, but recently I think I've been more in the idea of getting it right the first time. Which isn't going to happen across the board. No matter how hard you try to get it right the first time it's still going to get better in revision. But the more attention you pay to each sentence while you're making it the first time-- I've written things that were long and that I went through paying attention on that level and then didn't even feel like I had to revise, again that's a place that can be hard to reach and it certainly won't happen all the time, but I think most of the best things I’ve written took me the least amount of time.

SPIVEY: How long did it take you to write EVER?

BUTLER: I didn't even mean to write EVER as a book. I was writing stories when I wrote it that I thought were going to connect eventually, but I didn't really know when. There were four big sections that I wrote pretty much straight through. I guess the whole book took about a month or a month and a half to write, but there wasn't a lot of revision besides really tacky things, like little minor details; the sentences I wrote on the first draft probably and besides me being obsessive about the sentences, a lot of people wouldn't have found errors in those sentences. Even since then I've gotten more into the idea of getting it right the first time. I think there's a big question in writing where people think it should take you a really long time, and it should be this labor of love and take you five years to write. Well how many books took a week to write? Sure there can be flaws in that book, but I also think capturing a certain time in your mind, and getting it out in a certain time has as much value as laboring over it, as long as it's worth while in the end to the reader or as an object.

SPIVEY: It seems like there's a trend where writers are creating novels in short sections, and completing novella or novel length works in just a couple of sittings.

BUTLER: Last year I wrote a book in I think ten days, it's still the best thing I've written I think.

SPIVEY: What is it?

BUTLER: Right now it's called, Where am I Where Have I Been and Where are You, it's not published, it's being looked at at a couple of places but I haven't really pursued it that much. I didn't really revise that much either, I wrote it in about fifteen hours a day for ten days straight and then I was done. Jesse Ball was a big inspiration for that, after I read his first book Samedi the Deafness, and read about how he'd written it so fast, the way he did it got me interested in writing things more quickly. I think that that's something, especially with the popularity of short books and books in short sections; writing books in short sections allows you to go quicker and it's more associative over the way books were built. Even when I'm writing something longer, that's not in short sections like that, I continually get up and get away from the computer every five or ten minutes or I look at a website or I check my e-mail or write an e-mail. I think that writing in short periods like that allows your brain to keep refreshing. As much as I like to sometimes write in long sittings, I think there's a real value to letting yourself take a breath every few minutes. As soon as you feel like you don't know what to do next. You'll write in a certain mode for a minute and then you'll hit that point where you think, 'OK now what am I going to do?' If you get up and walk around, go for a run, or go in the other room and eat some nachos, or fucking look at g-mail and talk to someone on g-mail for two minutes; then when you come back and look at it again, it's almost without having to think about it, the next idea connects itself. I don't know what other people’s processes are, but that to me, I don't think I could do it another way at this point.

SPIVEY: Is that a normal day of writing for you? Is fifteen hours a day a normal sitting?

BUTLER: No, I was definitely in a zone I hope happens again, but that was rare. But I do spend a lot of time everyday: basically I sit down in front of the computer sometime between 11 and 12 AM and I don't get up, well I get up every ten or fifteen minutes, or I at least break my attention every ten or fifteen minutes, probably until 6 or 7 PM, on days that I write, which are most days. So, eight hours a day, probably six days a week, maybe five days a week, depending on the week. You've got to spend a lot of time sitting, even if you're not doing that minute to minute sentence writing you're still-- your brain is still active and your unconscious is still active and I think the unconscious is, like I said for me, when I don't know exactly what I'm writing and I'm letting sound operate. When you're writing and the mystery is finding out what's going to happen, having those periods where your brain continues to go without you actively working on it, that's the cake.

SPIVEY: So, even when you're not writing, you're writing?

BUTLER: Essentially, yeah. Which leads it into a matter of being a zombie the rest of the time. Sometimes my girlfriend will say that I don't seem like I'm there, or I don't talk that much, I have to make a conscious effort to get out of that space. When I'm not in front of the computer I usually go running, which I think is a great kind of refresher and it's very connected to the same process, and running for me has always been a really great way to give my brain that disconnect for a second; where it comes back refreshed, or reading, reading does the same thing. But it's always in the background. Especially if you're working on something extended and you're in the middle of it, I don't think you ever stop thinking about it on some level.

SPIVEY: This is probably an unfair question. But what single work has influenced you the most? If such a thing exists.

BUTLER: Well, the book that made me want to be a writer was Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I used to read a lot as a child and then I read a lot of Dragon Lance and Dungeons and Dragons books, fantasy books as a kid. Then I guess when I was sixteen I read all of the Beat stuff and I was really into that. And after that I stopped reading because I didn't know what else to read, and I didn't really have any connection to the kind of stuff I read now and I think a lot of that is because high schools don't have any idea how to teach teenagers to want to read, they just assign you either shitty novels or teach them to you in a shitty way. So I quit reading, besides sporadically, and then, I don't know where I found out about Infinite Jest, but I asked for this book for Christmas when I was a freshman in college, and as soon as I read it I just said, holy shit this is what a book can actually do. I'd never read anything like it. I think that even if I read it now, it would have the same affect on me having read as much as I've read in between. It has the sublime; it has the sentences; it has everything in it. Even though I don't really write like Wallace at all. I don't think anyone can do what he did. Besides as an inspiration and subject matter type thing I really like David Markson. I really like the way he phrases things and I like his sentences. The way he makes sentences not only sound and rhythm, but also saying things that can mean more than one thing. Which I think is important. He writes sentences that sound good but they're also more than they seem on the surface, which I think also goes back to the whole Lynch thing, the sublime, all of that stuff. It's one thing on its face but it leaves a lot of open doors, it leaves more doors open than it connects. Brian Evenson is probably-- as far as people who are alive and working and continually putting stuff out, Evenson is the one that I feel is probably my biggest influence in that way. He gets the whole bag of sheer terror and funny and cold, put with feeling at the same time. All the dualities are in all of his stuff. Anytime I read one of his pieces it's like you end up feeling changed. Even though it doesn't have that human change in it that so many people want out of their books, which I've never really understood; they want the story to change within itself and come to a realization, but Evenson does these things that make me feel like I've experienced something. That's the kind of stuff I'm most interested in reading and writing. Evenson's new book (Fugue State) I'm reading right now, I think it's going to bring him a whole new level of attention because the stories in that thing are fucking insane.

-

Butler is the author of EVER (Calamari Press) and Scorch Atlas (Featherproof Books). He blogs at: http://www.gillesdeleuzecommittedsuicideandsowilldrphil.com/


Scorch Atlas is availabe for pre-order direct from Featherproof. It releases 9/9/09.

I've recovered from the Featherproof Dollar $tore tour reading in Atlanta. It was this past Thursday night, and it was a lot of fun. All of the readings where entertaining, interesting and generally fucked in someway, mostly.

Aaron Burch revealed his suspenders plastered against his nude chest.

Caroline Picard said, "Fancy."

Zach Dodson was a perfect, creepy, middle school principle.

Blake Butler read Anne Frank's fortune from a digital fortune cookie, and read an excerpt from Scorch Atlas.

Jac Jemc talked about pigs with symbols.

Mary Hamilton weaved a story about simese twins and the ocean.

Amelia Gray talked about a pregnant woman who lived in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts, and the Dunkin Donuts caught on fire.

Todd Dills sent a get well card to John Ensign.

And James Iredell had everyone shouting hallelujah.

Bravo

Unscroll: Volune II is up at Gold Wake Press, it features words from Molly Gaudry, Eric Burke, J.A. Tyler, CL Bledsoe, Eric Beeny and myself.

Check it out.

Gold Wake Press is publishing an excerpt from my unpublished novella, tentatively titled "Gossamer," (I have a few other titles in mind) in its next issue of Unscroll. I'm excited about this. I started writing the novella in January; I finished a first draft sometime in March, and have been revising it since, continuing to do so still. Revision is my favorite place to be. Like Hemingway said, “the first draft of anything is shit.”

The Featherproof book's dollar store show/tour is happening right now and it has a stop near Atlanta. I'll be attending, if anyone near the Atlanta area reads this, you should go too.

I want to point attention to Jamie Iredell's new chapbook, 'When I Moved to Nevada,' at Greying Ghost Press. It's a limited print so pick it up while you still can. Jamie will be at the Featherproof reading in Atlanta.

Jesse Ball's story 'The Well' in New York Tyrant Vol. 2 No. 6 has stuck with me since I read it a few weeks ago.