Below, Comitta describes two genre-defying texts that shaped their thinking about the ephemerality of prose and the unaccountability of the writing life, as well as an archive of their own selected “missing pieces.”
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It might seem strange to be inspired by such loss. But in moments of writerly despair—everything from the rejection we all face to questions of writing’s place in a time of institutional and cultural collapse—I find comfort in the fact that all of this is not new. That writers and artists throughout time have confronted personal and societal loss. That so many have arrived at a similar place to Samuel Beckett: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
Even at the most basic writerly level, this seems important. MFA programs teach us to write like machines, cranking out text after text in conditions that are impossible to maintain for the vast majority of graduates. No one teaches you how to write without student loans or free rides. No one tells you how to adapt to those times when you might only have thirty minutes to write on your way to work. That getting started later in life is okay—and that many writers have done this (see The Missing Pieces for a few). That breaks are sometimes—and often—necessary. That an idea marinating in your mind, body, soul over weeks, months, and years can benefit from the delay. That not writing is part of writing.
sch 9/30
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