1.

SELF-GUIDED ART RESIDENCIES IN DIVERSE ART SCHOOLS AROUND NEW

YORK CITY- she looked down at her laptop, she pondered if this was a good enough
title for her project. Maybe it should sound more like a proposal than like a project.
Everything is in a name. maybe she overused the word art, using it twice in the same
sentence, which technically was not a sentence. Maybe she should stress the fact that this
was a proposal for a not-yet-established endeavor, this is what I intend to do, not what I
have done yet. She was utterly confused, looked out at the passers-by on Eighth. She
liked this coffee shop on Eighth, it was unpretentious and not a real coffee house. A deli
slash tea house slash everything else. It was open 24 hours, at least it used to be. Before it
changed hands. If it closes she can go up 23rd to the Dunkin Donuts near Fifth. Every
time she comes to New York, she gets lost and it takes some time to get reacquainted. She
likes getting lost, she remembers her stay in Amsterdam, the original Amsterdam, not
New Amsterdam here. Every morning it seemed as if the whole neighborhood had
changed, she used to go to the street where she was the day before and there were totally
new shops there, totally new restaurants. Obviously, the buildings had not changed, it was
her touristy lack of orientation that caused all these mirages. Dislocation does that to yer,
you are in a happily pleasant state of transience, you cannot really function and you seem
to get aquanted to this new reality of constantly being lost. Anyhoo, be that as it may, she
should once more concentrate on her proposal for the art residency. The self-guided, selfinitiated art residency. She does not want to go through the bureaucratic channels to be
either approved or rejected, she will start this all on her own and then document it in book
form and then find a publisher who will then print her book and distribute it in bookshops
and find translators for her amazing book. She will need an agent. She will need an

airline ticket to go to Stockholm to accept her Nobel Prize for literature, because this her
book about art residencies is only her first book in a line of equally illustrious books that
will sell like hell. Think big, think big. Outside the rain is coming down, on this
November day in nyc. It is around two in the afternoon on a Wednesday, it is rainy,
though it is a pretty mild November this year. Then again, she never was in this city in
November, she just quotes Tamsen Fadal. She came here on November first, slept in a
different hotel each and every day. She has to look for an apartment, a sublet, something.
Hotels are too expensive, though they are fun, of course, somebody cleans up after your
mess.
2.
She now is in the Starbucks on Eighth, not far from her first place. The Starbucks next to
the corner of 23rd. she has thrown her laundry into the washer, she loves doing laundry in
New York City. It kind of makes her feel like a non-tourist, besides, she loves to pack
light and when you do that you have to do laundry all the time. You cannot really afford
to let your dirty socks accumulate, you will start stinking up the place, anyplace, after all
you need to wear fresh clothes every day. Maybe she should write a book about how to
travel instead of a book about art. After all, she fell into the art world strictly by accident,
she holds an art degree from some school back west, she wanted to be an animator bit
that did not really work out. She now tries to reinvent herself as a conceptual artist,
whatever that means. And New York City is the perfect place to do that, this is where it
all happens, apparently. London would be good, too, but this is nearer to home. A New
York-based artistic practice, sure sounds good on your resume. If you are based in New
York City, chances are you are smack in the midst of where it is all happening. It is a

stamp of approval, though a pretty flimsy one. After all, you are one of 8 million who try
to make it in this city. Maybe, it is nine by now. The eight million are always quoted, in
movies, in Broadway musicals. 8 mil, huh and huh. She eats a banana, that should be
enough carbs for now. The banana in this place is more expensive, she should have gone
to the Gristedes some doors down from here.
3.
So, the art residency, huh. She will stand in the midst of n exhibition space and have her
artwork lie at her feet. Drawings on letter-sized paper. Performative art meets visual art.
A live performative art installation. Art is so very very weird and strange these days.
4.
She will question the conventions of art making, then again she is not the first one to do
that. Everybody does that nowadays, everybody participates in the discourse of art
making. The art world, huh, the art world. With its own technical terms, its own
hierarchies. Its art stars and its art starlets. Its wanna-be stars, its stars-in-the making.
5.
Art School, as if you can teach how to make art.
6.
She has 915 words, that should do it for today. Time to wrap this up, time to explore the
city.
7.
She now walks through the city. She has her place, a sublet on 23rd, street, make that 21st.
and it is not really a sublet, it is a place that belongs to this German guy who is back in
Germany and is renting it out for a month. Maybe that is what a sublet is. The weather is

really nice for November, it is 22 grade Celsius, beautiful, beautiful for a November day
in this city.
8.
She is in the Public Library. Still working on her art residency proposal. It is definitely
getting better the more she works on it. More contained, more precise. The wording is
everything. She irons out all the glitches. It should be a nice manual that makes her start
her art project in a professional manner. She will engage the public which in this case
means other artists. After all she will do this artsy fartsy thing inside an art school. Maybe
not such a good idea, inside an art school everyone has an opinion about what constitutes
art. The general public is more lenient, less critical, more accepting. Maybe she should
not do this, maybe she should just play tourist for a month and then go back home.
Nothing ventured, nothing lost. Play it safe.
9.
On the shoe floor at Macys. She is shooting pics with her i-phone. Wow, so many people,
such a hustle and bustle. So many many shoes. All colors, all sizes, all kinds of heels. All
kind of languages. Six in the afternoon, the department store is at its best, at its worst.
10.
Out on the street, on one of those green chairs on Herald Square. She could use a citybike but maybe this too much city here. She prefers city-biking in Chelsea, not that many
cars. The best is the Meatpacking district in the morning, you can even use the sidewalks. Nobody seems to mind.
11.

She feels slightly gloomy, her art career is so not going anywhere. She owns a piece of
paper that certifies her artistdom, but that is about it. And she is certifiably gloomy and
blue, so maybe that is where her artistdom is exactly where it should be. She is not
starving though, she had one too many Halloween candies, she definitely has to get back
on track with her diet.
12.
She feels lonely in the big city, she likes that though. If you want to be by yourself and
listen to your own voice talking to yourself, then this is the city to be.
13.
She hammers away at her masterpiece, in this coffee shop on fourteenth. Still writing a
book about her endeavor of starting an art project, a self-initiated art residency. Maybe in
the end this will never crystallize, maybe it will just be stuck in the planning stage. Like
all those architectural models that will never be built. Dream big, but not everything will
become reality, you might as well die planning the future. There is something utterly
poetic about failure, a certain romance, a certain poetic romance. That goes well with the
steam from her peppermint tea, that wafts romantically from side to side, when she
blows on the side of the ash-grey -beige paper cup with the funky swirls on it. The place
here is full of students, washed-up housewives, all kinds of lost souls that this city is so
good at producing. New York City is where its at, it has this inexplicable odor of success
and failure, all wrapped together, it has the whiff of never-met expectations and every day
is a new day to make it or to fail big and disastrously. It is a place to dream big and to fail
big, and maybe each and every city on this planet is like that. Outside night has set in,
maybe it is time to go to that small apartment, to the third floor on the sublet like place,

she has her stuff in her black shiny bag, the laundry she washed, she is tired and washedup, tomorrow is still another day, another November day here in New York City. Her art
career will take off, eventually, eventually.
14.
Ooah, such a rainy day. She hangs out at the TOMS on Elizabeth Street, a nice cup of
chamomile tea, a nice orange-pecan muffin. Later on she will go to the Y on Boundary,
two blocks down, in order to weigh herself and assess the damage done. But at this time
it is all about feeding the words to the machine. Today, SPECTRE is starting up, she saw
the inte4rview with Daniel Craig on Charlie Rose. And the 007 director with the Spanish
name, who claimed that now that the movie is done he is unemployed. Guess that is what
happens to actors and directors, they are merely seasonal workers. Author here ponders,
so are writers. And they are usually of the non-remunerated kind, lost souls in search of
words and hand-outs. Poets and their blue-ness, the happy melancholy of fartists. She
ponders if she can really fill page after page with waxing about the state of writers, who
would read this, who will be nice enough to read this even though we consequently stay
away from S-E-X and violence. Everything is g-rated here, decidedly so. Which equals
boredom, apparently, in this society. Besides, there are no antagonists battling
protagonists, this is a mere description of the rain that is coming down on new york city.
An account for national geograPHICS without the racial overtones. Or maybe THERE is
racism, of the reverse-racism kind. Reverse-racism, reverse-sexism, reverse-ageism.
Dont trust anyone under sixty, yup, that should be her mantra. The rain is coming down,
forcefully, hardly anyone is in the streets here. This place, so near to little Italy, to nolita,

to whatever acronyms are en vogue by real-estate agents these days. There was this
episode of Friends that made fun of that, but we digress here, digress here.
15,
at this point it seems that she is the performative artist just by merely being here, yup, the
whole world is a stage, if you manage to roll out of bed and position yourself in public
where others might watch you, then you might as well call it a performance. And if you
describe it in words, then you are documenting your performance. Might be kind of bla,
but who cares? We will all be dead in a hundred years from now. Make that ten or so
good years in her case
16.
we have 2022 words here, time to be outta here and outta here for now.
17.
on November sixth all the nanowrimo writers are invited to meet up at paragraph on
fourteenth street at six in the afternoon for a write-in. well, technically, author here is not
participating in nanowrimo this year or is she? It is November and if you call it a novel,
then it is one. Nanowrimo is of course national novel writing month, you are expected to
produce 50 000 words over the course of one month, November. Paragraph will provide
tea and coffee, author here is not quite sure if she is into socializing, being antisocial is
good for the wordcount. After all, you have to feed your words to the machine, there are
enough distractions anyways, stalking people on facebook, instagram, twitter, diverse
blogs is a fulltime job after all. Watching reruns of Seinfeld takes up all of her time these
days. Going to the gym and weighing oneself, another meaningful occupation. She could
listen in to the talk by the nyu prof about virtual reality but apparently it is sold-out. Sold-

out even though it is free, you had to rvsp in time. Author here is cold, she is now in the
art school library, typing away, typing away. She is kind of hungry, she has a banana in
her bag. An organic one, which means it was more expensive and it is shrivelly. 34 cents
instead of twenty cents, and, well, the aforementioned state of shrivelry. She does not
really feel like having a banana here in the library, apparently food and beverages are not
allowed near the computers. Though there is no sign here. It is chilly cold, outside the
rain is still coming down. The printer starts up growling, librarians are hissing, author
here is listening in to her own typing, a symphony in the making and the printer growls
some more growls some more here. Still no protagonists and no antagonists. She was
supposed to write about a self-arranged art residency, something like performing in art
schools, giving out drawings, to passers-by, she has ton formulate her modus operandi so
very precise, vague artists suck, they stagnate, they do not have a career. They have to
become hapless writers who complain all day long. Ah well, ah well, ah well. We have
2418 words, that sounds good enough, for now, 4 now here.
18.
the organic banana tasted disgusting, it is a dole banana, apparently dole sells its bad
bananas at a higher price point simply by sticking a dole organic label on the banana.
Everything is in a name.
19.
it is pretty chilly in here. And we have to somehow make our way home. Through the
rain, the cold, the dark. Easier to just sit here and type this up. The library will close at
five, so not that much time for writing, for musing away. She could pass time by once
more describing what is happening here in this place, the woman in black walking by, the

man with the blue baseball cap staring at the monitor. The sounds of the library, its sights,
its utter chilliness. The one thing that is the main characteristic of this place is that they
somehow try to freeze everybody to death, geez, how can you read or write in this big
igloo?
20.
a Sunday in the art school. She is not using the studio space as of yet, her art making is
writing, thus she ended up in the library at the computer. To pen her masterpiece. To
reincarnate tschechov. Who was a playwright. Shows how much you know about
literature. Maybe that is good. An advantage. After all she is not a literature historian, not
a connoisseur of other peoples writings. She is a content provider, what ever that is. A
formulator of words. Alas, an unpublished one of sorts. Putting your stuff online does not
count. Or does it? Besides, she could self publish her words in bookform. Mark twain did
it. You just have to be able to market ur stuff, store ur inventory, be good with numbers.
Be a superb businessperson. Ah, how tough can that be? You sell something and take a
percentage of that. Publishing, huh. Well, first u gotta have some words to be published.
At this point she has a mere 2000 or so words, she needs 100 000 more. Intelligent ones,
not so intelligent ones. Apparently they should all be English words. It helps to write a
book in one language with the occasional foreignish word sprinkled in. But writing
something in two languages, only a Samuel Beckett can pull that off. She is not quite sure
if he even did that, she remembers something from high school lit, many moons ago.
Outside the weather is nicer. No storm, no rain. She now is sitting on the second floor in
the whole foods near the Y in Chinatown. A woman with orangeish curls at the other
table. Nothing special, nothing worth describing. She is wearing a green sweater. Still

nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. Author is not very good at observing people,
she is more interested in watching her own fingers tap at all the buttons of the keyboard.
There is a subject matter that will bore yer to death. She should write about art, because
that is what she intended to do when she started this up. You have to stick to the theme,
you cannot suddenly veer off the chosen path. Art residencies, that was her theme. Doing
an art residency in an art school. She had applied for a residency at the New Museum, it
started in September, well, September 28 to be exact. It was three months long, well,
technically four months, because it started at the end of September. She did not get in,
they did not want her. They wanted 15 others, who now will meet up once a week, for
two and a half hours each. You can start up your own residency, call it an art project
instead of a residency. Maybe write a blog about it. Document it. But it will not really fly,
if you just plan it and never really do anything. Then it merely exists in the planning
stage. That is what this book is, an unfulfilled plan. Like a proposal for a building that
never gets built. She saw a movie about 4 or 5 architectural firms who worked on a
proposal for an art museum in Andorra that in the end was not built, because the
government changed and the new government did not want to build that particular
museum. It was a very entertaining film, though. The person who made it was an
architect turned filmmaker and he teaches at Princeton. Lots of architects do that, they
write or make films, because it is so tough to secure a building commission. Kohlhaas
wrote a book, so did another starchitect whose name she does not remember at this time.
There was a time she knew whos who in architectureland, not any more, not anymore. A
woman with a purple toque walks in, struts by her loudly. We have 3219 words here, in
November, on a Sunday, she ponders, what else to do. She has to go home, she was at the

10

gym, trying to get rid of the mountains of Halloween candy that she consumed. Had
consumed. It is funny, no real mountain bulged off in her body, the body absorbs all that
sugar and fat, and then makes it stick. But she distinctly remembers all the Halloween
candy, bunched up in a beige plastic shopping bag, it sure had a lot of volume aND THAT
WAS JUST LAST YEARS CANDY. She had that and then she had this years candy to
top. Suddenly there were 5 pounds more. On her bodyweight. Though now she rigorously
goes to the gym, she exercises at home, three pounds are off again. She found this
German website, you tube videos for your living room, they are very good and rigorous
without killing yer. Boot camp for lazies, she did it yesterday, now she can feel her
tummy muscles, yep, you can feel the muscles but it is not killing yer. Anyhoo, you still
have enough energy to feed all these words to this machine. She had a clifbar, for the first
time in her life. She ponders if she should write about that, is that really what potential
readers want to read about? Regular stuff? A show about nothing, that only worked once.
Ah, Seinfeld, Seinfeld. Jason Alexander once said that Seinfeld aficionados are like
trekkies and they really are. Author here sure is one. Anyhoo, we have 3473 words here,
time to be outta here and outta here. Time to get a life, a life far away from the typing
machine. Though, technically, it is November and National Novel Writing Month, so
chances are that a lot of words are written these days all over this town and all over the
world. In different languages to boot. 5 languages or so, at least that is how author here
remembers it. The main language though is English, mainly because this nano thingie
originated in Berkeley or some other place in the Bay Area. And we type here and type
here and type here and type here.
21.

11

she is in the library of the art school, not many people here, today it is much nicer in here,
non-chilly like the last time she was in here.
22.
she walks by Strands, she does not feel like going in, she makes her way down to Union
Square. She loves New York, then again, who would not love New York? It is the
quintessential city.
23.
She ponders what to write about, her story needs a story, not just one person wandering
the streets searching for words. A poet without a subject matter, a dramaturge without a
play. A filmmaker without a film, a flaneur. When the word flaneur became en vogue, in
Haussmanns times, nobody talked about flaneuses. How times have changed? Or have
they. The more things change the more they stay the same. So it seems so it seems so it
seems here. Platitudes rock. On this round rock twirling thru space, we mean earth, of
course. Writing is not good enough if you feel the urge to explain your connotations. She
needs a coffee a donut, Dunkin Donuts is as good a place as any. Cronuts might come and
go but donuts are forever. These are her insights and she shares them freely with anybody
who is willing to listen to her. 7786 words, make THAT 3786. She is not good at reading
the little number at the bottom of the page on the screen.
24.
So this is part of her book. She plants herself once more in front of the
computer in the library in the art school in Vancouver, she starts typing
typing. It is balmy outside, so very novemberish. She has to feed her
words to this machine, because she wants to finish fifty thou at the end

12

of this month. That is the very bare minimum for a novel that is part of
nanowrimo, that is why we are here. It is November ten. We have 3000
or so, we still need so much more. 47 thousand to be precise. Author
here was downtown, in the gym, in the shopping mall, she is still wide
awake, still has enough energy to start this typingish sprint. A woman
slurs by, to the printer, she has short hair, a weird face expression, she
is kind of dressed in olive, like a soldier that wants to blend into the
background, camouflage gear. Her face has the same expression you
do not really know what to make of that expression. Maybe it is the
expression of an observer, a journalist, somenbody who wants to blend
into the background and write about what she sees. Without having all
the attention on herself. She squints, looks at the printer, tries to
fathom what is going on there, which button to press, she tries to
decipher what is going on on the screen. Author here ponders, this is
her job now, to describe others, to describe the personas of the people
that gather in the art school library. Next to author, well, two seats next
to her, there is a seat where nobody is sitting, there is a woman sitting
who is a different kind of creature, more the rich housewife who has
raised her family and is now up to a new adventure in her life. Lots of
women look like that, usually they are the ones who have not raised a
family but who like to give out that aura of retired person, . anyhoo,
somebody sneezes, now a woman in green sits next to author here. We
have 351 words for today, is that enough, nah, not if you want to make

13

it to 50 000 come December. A woman with a cute haircut, why is

author describing all these people in the library. There are more
interesting things in this world than the going ons in this particular
library. Which is more a typing space than a library, all the books are
on the shelves, but nobody really reads them. The computers are the
new books, you can surf the web, it is more entertaining than a book.
There are images, little movies, you do not get that from a text.
Anyhoo, still typing ah typing here.
25.
walking on 14th, near cupcakes by Melissa. Or cookies by Melissa, or
baked by Melissa. Who is this Melissa person anyways. And why does
she bake? Why is it not called BAKED BY JOHN? Are the johns of this
planet worse cooks? Author ponders, her philosophical waxings are off.
But she can still walk this city, it will feed her writings. Her texts. Her
as of yet unpublished texts. Everything sucks. And now it is starting to
rain, rain down on new york city.
26.
back in vancitay. Only in writing you can do that, describe differing
locales and pretend that you are there. It is weird, but who cares after
all. It is artistic or it tries tp be. She sucks as an artiste.
27.
she will take the tube to central park. Sorry, the subway, at this point
she should stick to two locales, Vancouver and new york city.

14

28.
she needs other persons in this story, male ones, maybe.
29.
writing is boring, utterly so.
30.
it is 10:17. Just saying.
31.
apparently, there is a transit-write-in, the participants will meet up in
waterfront station on Saturday at noon and then take the skytrain and
do their writing on the moving train.
32.
she has next to 5000 words here. 45 000 words left to pen. In twenty
days. Easy peasy.
33.
more coherence, less coherence.
34.
A so very rainy day in Vancouver. The art school library on a Monday. Her shoes are
soaked but not that soaked. She will be able to write her daily portion of words with
slightly wettish toesies. It is doable. Because at home she does not have Microsoft Word,
she has Notebook and it is kind of weird, because the first word of each sentence does not
automatically capitalize as it does in this software here in the art school. It is rainy
outside, but nice in here. The person with the beard who sold her the vanilla macaron at
whole foods said have a great day, how can you possibly have a great day when the skies

15

are crying like this?. Such a crappy weather, you feel that something is wrong. Well,
maybe her words will be exquisite without even trying. Maybe they will all fall in place.
Maybe she will pen a seminal text. She tries to remember she started this out as a book
about art residencies. Maybe she could call this her art residency. I walk through the rain
and then I end up in front of a computer and type whatever I feel like. The woman in
plaid at the end of the computer station is leafing thru a book, loudly. Author here can see
it out of the edge of her eyes. Somewhere still in her visual field. The computers here are
all on a very long table, many computers, and you hear everyone type something up. The
woman once more leafs thru the book, now she takes the book up and turns it around. The
book is pretty massive. Some woman is printing something out, the printer starts up its
sing-songs. Somebody walks around while talking to a person who is seated. Ah, the
happenings in the library of the art school on a rainy Monday in November. A woman
takes off her coat. So much to see, so much to describe. She is lagging behind in her
novel for November, she has to come here more often and feed her words to the machine.
ANOTHER PART
Author here is not quite sure at what number she is in the book. Which mini-chapter? She
looks outside, down on Union Square. Rain, huh. Rain in New York City. Not much to
describe. Rain is rain, wherever you are. Glistening streets, the reflections of the
streetlights in the puddles on the pavement. Her art career is going nowhere, welcome to
New York. She ponders how many pages can she fill up with whining about her lot. Is
failure romantic? Does it go with the melancholy of the weather outside? Maybe success
will kill the spirit, choke the urge to be creative. You write better when nobody will read
this. You might try harder. Author ponders, for her writing is hit and miss. Some days are

16

just better than others. It is a craft, not an art. It is a very mechanical, very physical
process. You walk thru the rain and then you plant yourself in front of a typing machine
and start typing. Capote might frown but who cares. Typing and writing are cousins, first
cousins. So there.
IN THE ARTSCHOOL AGAIN
IT IS UTTERLY RAINY OUTSIDE, HER SHOES ARE HALF SOAKED, WHICH
MEANS THAT THE front part is wet and it is totally visible because of
the pink material, the front part of the shoe is now a dark pink,
whereas the back part is light, anyhoo, maybe that is not what she
should describe here, this book is a book about art or a book that is
mainly written inside of the library in the art school thus it will be by
default informed by whatever passes as art these days. Author has put
an issue of VOLUME next to her wallet on the table that is supporting
the weight of the computer. The layout in this place is that there is a
very long table and there are different computers on the table kind of
like the beads on a necklace, all in nice increments, the ducks are in
order, kind of like soldiers neatly arraigned and standing there ready to
be fed with words. Today is day 16 in November, the month when 50
000 long novels are written the world over, author ponders, does it not
sound nicer to say that the novels are penned. There is a difference
between a text that is merely written and a text that is penned, one is
pedestrian, utilitarian, one is artsy-fartsy, one wants to be immortal.
Author ponders, she definitely pens stuff, because it is all so wishy

17

washy, thus it is poetic, artsy fartsy, wishy washy, ready to be adored

by millions. Ready to stand smack in the pantheon of world lit. Her
words will be glorified, critics will either rave or dis her words, that is
how it is how it is. People next to her talk in a language that author
here does not understand, Japanese, maybe, Korean, maybe,
mandarin, Cantonese. Swahili it aint, Norwegian it aint. So many
lingos and we chose to write in English. Linga franqua, my
Anyhoo, she is still shooting for a subject matter for this piece of
writing, what exactly constitutes a novel? How is it different from a
dissertation? Well, hers is a novel dissertation, it is five years, maybe
six since she walked over the stage in Chan Hall and got her certificate
that certifies her status as an artist. Nobody knows what that means
but, hey, it is a piece of paper. And pieces of paper seem to be
important, though you cannot really barter them for smaller pieces of
paper, the kinds with dollar signs on them. Anyhoo, we digress here.
The word count for today is at 429, she has to type so much more, she
is way behind in her writing. By the end of this month she has to have
50 000 words, she has 4000 already, wow, she is way behind, she
might have 5000 words in total by the end of the day, she will have to
write 45 000 words in 15 days, 3000 per day if her math is correct. So
that on November 30 she will have 50 000 words. This is totally insane
here, this whole contest just sucks. And outside, the rain is coming
down and coming down on this city.

18

TRYING TO REINVENT THE WHEEL - UNSUCCESSFULLY

Sitting in the studio space on the second floor in the north building of the art school,
listening in to people talking, trying to reinvent the wheel collage-wise which is basically
a failure as of yet. Some paper wasted, some tape, some ink from the magic marker that
author here found on the shelf. Studio space, huh, a shared one to boot. The conversations
here are pretty loud, all the persons talking are female, loud, this computer is so very
strange and weird, not like the one in the library where writing seems to come so much
easier. The studio artists are way too quiet which is eerie, you have a feel of uneasiness
which does not really readily translate into better artistic output, it kind of stifles her
image making, her readiness to experiment with the materials. Furthermore she uses what
is available here in this room on the shelves, and room 271 does not really stock the
materials that she needs, the stuff is so sparsely sourced, there are sporadic materials that
she can use but not many. A catalogue for fall is lying next to her, she could cut it up and
glue it on the strange collage that she already started. Her tea is getting chilly, she feels a
cold coming on. She has 223 words. It is two oh one here, she feels sick to her stomach.
Negativity is stifling, whining will not drive the novel forward. It is hot in here, stuffy.
BACK IN THE LIBRARY
Outside, the rain is still coming down. Really hard. So, nothing left to do but typing up
some more words and waiting for the rain to halt. It is nice in here, cushy. Upstairs in the
north building she has her jacket and her art work and her food in her locker, some tvdinner that is by now thawed and hopefully not seeping all over the place. It is in a plastic
bag, so hopefully all the water will be contained. She should check it out but she really
feels more like writing her amazing masterpiece here. Her shitty novel. Yep, that one. The

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as of yet unpublished one. One of many. Ah, failure sucks. We want to read to people and
bow to the applause, we want to be wined and dined. By kings and queens. By Nobel
prize committees. By pritzker prize committees. Giller prize ppl. Ah, any kind of award
will do. Applause in itself is good enough too. Publishing contracts are good,
representation by an agent in nyc. Author here does not feel like writing. She can see the
HIMALAYA book from where she is sitting. Well actually the vertical H and I and M.
him and Himalayas if she tilts her head back. A woman at the printer, in a thick
headgear, all woolen, knitted, all Laplandic, arctic, wow, author here sure has problems
with describing stuff accurately. Too many episodes of FRIENDS will do that to you. And
we type and type and type and type here. 257 words, a chunk of 257, awaiting to be
copied and pasted into the main body of the most amazing novel of the year. No need to
be modest. Bragging rocks, just ask The Donald.
AND ONCE MORE IN THE LIBRARY
She is waiting out the rain, it is still afternoonish, five and fifteen, though it is pitch-dark
outside. There will be an artist talk at six, so maybe that is worth waiting for. Until then
she might as well feed some more words to the machine. Because, you know, quantity
rules. Let go of quality. Today she talked to a published author who was apparently of the
opinion that being published is a stamp of approval which it is not. Just because
somebody liked your text enough to fork over a certain amount of money to have it
published, that does not mean anything. You might own a publishing house and publish
your own words, distribute them, market them, the whole shebang. Which is really what
author here should do because it seems that nobody will publish her words. There is self
publishing and then there is self publishing. If I own a major publishing house I can

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publish whatever I feel like. Ergo, we just have to acquire one of the big five. How tough
can that be?
And the rain is coming down and coming down on this city.
LIBRARY LIBRARY
It is definitely more fun to write in the library here. More fun than home. There is more to
see, more to hear. Hopefully not more to smell. The downside is the commute, especially
if you forgot your umbrella. These days she is only using public transport, she lives in a
city, so this is doable. Her tea is getting cold, her second mint tea today. The person
behind the counter was of the opinion that for some weird reason mint tea seemed to be
everybodys favorite drink today, maybe it just goes good with the weather. International
peppermint tea day, let us declare it. And we type here type here type here type here.
6467 words, yay and yay and yay and yay here. Maybe we should not self publish this
drivel, huh.
a day
So the weather is nice and it is noonish. The author somehow found her way into the art
school library ready to feed some words to the machine. She has some frozen tv-dinner in
her bag but hey what is a tv dinner without a tv to watch. Frozen tv dinners need a telly,
need some crime movie, some who dunnit. You can not really have a tv dinner outside of
its natural habitat. These are her philosophical thoughts these days, very deep, very
significant. This is the computer so near to all the books, nice biggish books that are
waiting on the shelves to be taken out. These are the reference books, you can only take
them out in here, leaf thru them and put them back. Author here comes to this place and
writes about inconsequential stuff, she has to fill up the word count and she is way

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behind. 50 000 she needs in ten days, she merely has 5000 at this time. Well, it is better
than last year at this time when she had a mere 75 words. Anyhoo, typing here and typing
here.

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