Personal Heroes: Maggie Nelson

From an interview published on The Creative Independent: 

You’re known for combining genres and approaches. How do you discover the form for a new book?

It’s kind of trial and error. I think usually there’s one thing that’s most interesting to me in my life of curiosities. I’ll then collect information or research it for a while, and strike out in the dark with words. But you know, it takes a lot of writing to figure out what mode I like best.

Sometimes the form makes itself clear quickly, and other times you have to shop for a long time by reading other books or looking at other things until something gives you an ah-ha moment, like, “Oh, numbered propositions!” or “Oh, the way Deleuze structured his book on Francis Bacon!” etc.

It takes a long time. It’s not really pleasurable, even though I think it’s probably the most experimental thing about my writing. I think people give a lot of spiritual credence to uncertainty, to not knowing. That’s exactly as it should be, but it doesn’t mean that not knowing is easy. It’s hard, because you don’t know if you’re ever going to find it. You can also make a lot of false starts with the form and not know what to do with that writing.