From 15 Questions, an interview with sound composer, novelist, etc.:
How do you feel your sense of identity influences your creativity?
My sense of identity has certainly changed over the years. There was a time when identity and the creative act were inextricable in my case. Even as I embraced a minimalist sensibility that ostensibly influenced my sense of self, I took great pleasure in identifying with the role of specialized artist.
For the most part, I’ve been able to distance myself from this perspective and now reserve pleasure for the creative act alone. The latter is always better, more profound, innovative, enriching, when stripped of the personality that would grasp at self-expression and recognition, in my experience.
What were your main creative challenges in the beginning and how have they changed over time?
This really takes me back to the earlier question regarding imitation. The central challenge was alleviating that impulse. On the other hand, it’s useful to have a notion that what you’re doing will go somewhere, find some kind of audience, no matter how small or large, to feel oneself part of a community. That took time, particularly given that what I was doing tended to be quite marginal, which is still generally the case.
Having come from an early 80s punk scene, of course, went a great distance in affirming the value of community and transgressive artistic practices.
How do you see the relationship between style, form, plot and storytelling – and how would you rate their importance for you, respectively?
The first two of these are inevitable, one way or another, while the latter two are common but inessential. Even when I’m working with relatively conventional literary devices or meolodies, form is always at the forefront of my process.
What I find most exciting about writing or composing along the lines of convention is, first, learning how to do that, and then subverting it enough to make it interesting. Telling a story the plot of which is more accessible than the work of the nouveau roman writers, for example, is difficult, though the difficulty lies not simply in reporting events but in marrying clarity and ingenuity. Moreover, I’m usually prone to some level of artistic provocation, form being a perfect medium for that in light of how attached many people are to convention in this regard.
Observation and research are often quoted as important elements of the writing process. Can you tell us a bit about your perspective on them?
It really depends on the project. I’ve done a great deal of research about places, customs, classical composers, historical moments, to help inform certain narrative events. Because I’m an academic, it’s a familiar, mostly enjoyable process. As for observation, I jot things down on occasion, when something strikes me as especially amusing, remarkable, or disturbing. They’re both necessary in the right context.
How do you see the relationship between conscious planning and tapping into the subconscious; between improvisation and composition? When dealing with the end of a story, for example, do you tend to minutely map it out or follow the logic of the narrative as it unfolds itself?
It’s the same between music and writing for me: there’s always a balance there. For a novel, I make notes but never too far in advance of where I am in the writing. Certainly ideas will occur as to a conclusion or other key events, and those are recorded, though I write better, more fluidly, when I’m allowing it to happen, as opposed to imposing too rigid a frame.
Teaching is identical to this, at least when leading a seminar. It’s critical to let other voices enter, work off and through them. With writing, those voices may be your own, but they’re true to the immediate operation rather than a fixed idea or mode.