The White Album is a project that we performed in Pittsburgh. We did it at the Wexner in Ohio. We did it at BAM. We’re going to perform it at the Center for the Art of Performance in Los Angeles, which is co-represented by Center Theater Group. And I still don’t feel like the piece is totally finished. I don’t feel like I had nearly enough time to actually develop the work. I feel like I threaded a needle and got it to a certain point that I’m proud of, but I still haven’t had enough time to play with all of the components involved in the work to get them to harmonize in the way that I want.

My pieces are never done, at least for me. It’s an open-ended inquiry process driven by curiosity. I might have a sense that a piece “is completed” for a premiere, or for a showcase, but there’s always the possibility of going back and revisiting it, and I think leaving it open-ended is also a way for me to keep my sanity.

Songwriting-wise, it’s very easy to tell. Sometimes I’ll write a full song with a chord progression that I like, but it won’t feel like the final thing I have to say about a topic. Like, these aren’t the right words. I haven’t gotten to the [core] of what I want to say—I know it’s there, but I haven’t reached it. I’ll usually take that chord progression and write something else with it. And I’ll just keep writing songs until I get to the bottom, just digging layer after layer after layer, and eventually I’ll get to the truest form of that song, and the truth behind what I was trying to say. When I’ll get there, I don’t know, but I’ll always know when I haven’t.

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.

It just matters how you respond to that having your confidence shaken, that makes you what you are.

I sometimes I have the inability to see how I can do what I need to do at a high enough level for me to do it.

I’d read Something Happened, by Joe Heller; I’d read “A Fan’s Notes,” by Frederick Exley; and I’d read The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy.

To completely muscle up for that writing I spent most of a year noting down and rigging around all I knew and could casually learn about real estate

It brings the freedom of having seen a lot of things and survived them.

These mandarin-precious-princess-and-the-pea notions about a writer’s “special place” just didn’t match my life.