Rae Gouirand

“I find that the most useful approach to getting seriously unstuck is to stop talking about the work completely. I do not mean to stop writing, or to stop showing up for a regular practice of writing. I mean to stop bringing it up in conversation, to stop answering questions about it, to stop describing or summarizing it transactionally, to stop seeking mirroring from others in relation to it, to stop letting others in on it (or the self out of it) completely. To enter into an airtight relationship with the questions and the uncertainties of the work. If you’re talking about the work, you’re translating it into something that serves as a kind of social currency—you’re cashing it out for an interpersonal exchange. And you’re going to end up losing something in the process. Your orientation is going to shift toward an entirely different reason for sense-making—one that lives outside of the need for writing to get born as writing. If you have arrived at a complete I don’t know, simply stay oriented in that direction without drawing others into it, and keep the pen moving for as long as you’re there. Become the solo act that your work is demanding you become.”
—Rae Gouirand, author of Glass Is Glass Water Is Water (Spork Press, 2018)