Thomas Fuller Interview, Part 5
After a break for lunch, Fuller returned to his studio to take more questions:
Q: How would you describe the place you'd like The Classical World to hold in the world?
A: As a glass of water shining in a beam of light.
Q: Do you believe in the ancient practice of inscribing a message inside a book a reader has purchased?
A: Yes, but only if requested. And I offer only one message: Dear _______, This is the best I can do, for now.
Q: I'm curious about your writing habits...
A: I keep various journals, handwritten with a Sheaffer pen known to connoisseurs as "Big Red," or I type notes into my iPhone if I'm out walking or riding my bike. I'm an insomniac, and at 3 a.m. sitting in my big black Herman Miller chair, I'm liable to scribble on anything handy, often a New Yorker magazine where I write in the margins, or The New York Review of Books. I once wrote an entire poem, 'Poem for Six Pieces of Paper' in the margins of Flash Art, an international art magazine that was quite interesting in the 1980's and 90's: I remember writing lines around an interview with Paul Virilio, and smoking Marlboros.
Q: You blog?
A: I do, it's become a nicotine habit. Blogging too is a form of writing I suppose, or I like to think I make it one. I allow no more than 40 minutes for composition, setting an egg timer to the 40 minute mark and wrapping the blog up when the alarm goes off. After I've blogged I write for about 2 hours on whatever project is at hand--sometimes it's a poem, or a work of prose fiction, or correspondence.
Q: What part has insomnia played in your life as a writer?
A: I'd say insomnia's played a larger part in my life as a reader than as a writer, though of course the two activites are so linked it's impossible to pull them apart. My reading habits are pretty well established--I keep one work of fiction and one work of non-fiction going simultaneously, and also pick up books from my personal library that I've either read before or haven't read, reading in them here and there before returning them back to the shelf...
Q: What wakes you?
A: Usually some form of disturbing dream! The other night, for instance, I dreamed that all of Thomas Bernhard's books were out of print! Last week I had a vivid dream that only one person in the entire world was currently reading The Cantos by Ezra Pound, the terror of which was compounded by the probability that my dream was most likely true!
Q: Your dreams are all literary?
A: O no, not at all, only the dreams I can share with you.
Q: Can you talk a little about the use of art--visual images--in The Classical World?
A: Of course, I'd love to, but let's do that tomorrow.