"What remains outside, the unwritten, the unwritable..."
Insider #76 with truths about writing and art.
Dear Insider,
A long-dead Italian man has sent my head spinning. Where does a story begin and where does it end? Does it matter if we do not finish it? Are all stories basically the same, and is that a good thing?
I have almost finished reading Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller. His work is described as fabulism, a form of literature in which fantastical elements are placed in everyday settings. It is similar to magical realism and makes me ask the same question as I do of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s stories.
The question is this - Is magic any less real than reality?
In today’s post, minor revelations from the real world and the fictional, the video of the February Insiders Hangout, and link to the next.
The SneakyArt (Insider) Post is written for the paying subscribers of SneakyArt. I share my best ideas in their most raw form, the questions I have about the world, and a behind-the-scenes look at my ongoing projects.
🌎 Real World Revelations
This week I am in New York. I am doing a (sold out!) workshop with Samantha Dion Baker in Brooklyn, right under the Manhattan Bridge, on Sunday. I will spend the rest of the week exploring the city, drawing all the things I can, and eating the good food.
While I am in New York, I hope to find stories around every corner. Something of great excitement should happen at every intersection. Perhaps that is a reasonable expectation, perhaps not so much. Our expectations of places are tainted/coloured/filtered/affected by our preconceptions - the images implanted in our minds by various influences. And no other city in the world has more images than New York City. Anything less than spectacular will be a disappointment. Not as great as I had imagined, I will say when asked.
Maybe that is unfair. But it is the great cross that great cities of the world must bear. For reference, read about the Paris Syndrome.