Yes I complained about Facebook yesterday, but today on my news feed was the greatest little video of an interview (or should I say, interrogation) of the writer Jean Genet courtesy of the BBC.
In the interview Jean Genet talks about "breaking the normal order of things". Not a big surprise considering that Jean Genet is one of the true rebels of literature who had a fascinating life. What makes it particularly interesting is that just a week ago a friend of mine came out to visit La Maisonette and I gave her "The Thief's Journal" to borrow telling her that if she wanted to know the mentality of a criminal, it wasn't a bad place to start.
I won't go into Genet's biography here, but simply leave you this inspiring video of Monsieur Genet. Yes he was imprisoned throughout his life from the age of 15, but also keep in mind that when he was sentenced to death he was spared because of petitions made to the French President on his behalf by Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All because they pleaded, that to take Genet from the world would be a far more horrible injustice than the petty crimes he had commited.
It's not even 10 o'clock and I've already had a discussion with another writer I know in Colombia about writing and how to help each other with writer's block (which is called o terror de la pagina blanco apparently in Spanish, though he might have been taking some liberties). I wish I'd seen this video before so I could have sent it to him as he is also a big fan of Genet.
So today's inspiration is break the order of things. Which would do me a lot of good considering that now that I've outlined my entire book from start to finish I've been unable to write since. Perhaps today I will casse my writer's block, which Genet called la petite bête*.
*la petite bête is what the French call a jeux de mot so in this instance I don't think Genet meant l'appetite bête so I can only assume he meant writer's block is "the little penis". See, I told you he was a genius.
In the interview Jean Genet talks about "breaking the normal order of things". Not a big surprise considering that Jean Genet is one of the true rebels of literature who had a fascinating life. What makes it particularly interesting is that just a week ago a friend of mine came out to visit La Maisonette and I gave her "The Thief's Journal" to borrow telling her that if she wanted to know the mentality of a criminal, it wasn't a bad place to start.
I won't go into Genet's biography here, but simply leave you this inspiring video of Monsieur Genet. Yes he was imprisoned throughout his life from the age of 15, but also keep in mind that when he was sentenced to death he was spared because of petitions made to the French President on his behalf by Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All because they pleaded, that to take Genet from the world would be a far more horrible injustice than the petty crimes he had commited.
It's not even 10 o'clock and I've already had a discussion with another writer I know in Colombia about writing and how to help each other with writer's block (which is called o terror de la pagina blanco apparently in Spanish, though he might have been taking some liberties). I wish I'd seen this video before so I could have sent it to him as he is also a big fan of Genet.
So today's inspiration is break the order of things. Which would do me a lot of good considering that now that I've outlined my entire book from start to finish I've been unable to write since. Perhaps today I will casse my writer's block, which Genet called la petite bête*.
*la petite bête is what the French call a jeux de mot so in this instance I don't think Genet meant l'appetite bête so I can only assume he meant writer's block is "the little penis". See, I told you he was a genius.
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