A book is finished when it does not want me to work on it any longer...it reaches a point when it feels like it is literally avoiding me. I have a very physical relationship with the manuscript, almost a corps à corps. Paradoxically, when I finally feel at ease with a manuscript, with its voices, I realize it is finished. I see a book as a living organism, with its own rules and will. What matters to me is to allow it to grow and to acquire an existence of its own. It’s as if the book uses me in order to come into existence, rather than being written.

I’ve been teaching myself to use pen and ink, like dip pens and ink. I’m getting to a point where I’m comfortable. I grew up looking at a lot of etchings, and it’s a little dream to be able to draw some of those etchings, so that’s what I’m doing, trying to teach myself. But there’ll come a point where I’m like, “I’ve got to leave this alone or I’m just going to screw it up.” And it looks done or quite often I’ll ask my wife what she thinks. I’ll be like, “What do you think?” And she’s like, “Don’t do anything else to it.” I’m like, “But I really want to do this.” And sometimes I’ll listen and sometimes I won’t.

Sometimes when I listen to it, I’m still editing it in my head a little bit. At a point, you need to realize that you have to stop and be outside of yourself. You want to take it seriously, but you also know in your heart that you’re making it worse by over-editing or over-processing or over-adding.

With my work you actually know at the beginning what it’s going to be. I plan everything out before I actually start making the piece. There’s always a chance, and it’s happened many times, that it doesn’t work out. I take the canvas off and throw it away. But usually, because it’s sort of done before it’s started, I don’t even have to make that decision. When something doesn’t work, when I’ve had to abandon something, it’s usually been because there was ultimately just no humor in it—or no “A-ha” moment—because there’s something missing. I have a friend whose paintings are never done, he might pick something up years later and add something to it. I’m not that kind of painter, for better or worse. I look at work I did five years ago, and I can’t imagine going back to it. I’m not the same person I was then. I’m not the same person I was even five months ago. When the moment is over, it’s over. I’d rather not spend time rethinking something. Instead, get up. Go outside. Go for a walk. Then make something new.