#testcut is not Banksy, not quite. It is the notion that a novel will be hashtagged to the reading public in real time, as it is created.* The equivalent of the David Hockney piece that he recorded stroke by stroke on his iPad until it was complete. (This was one of my favorite pieces in de Young's A Bigger Exhibition). The idea that we can watch the act of creation and revision, again and again, in its entirety.**
#testcut is immediacy in writing beyond anything possible until recently. If Dickens released his work in installments and Andy Weir (the Martian) in blogposts - Keroac on an onionskin loop - this is something even more haiku flowing… Each 10 tweets a unit, like movie cuts, but taken from throughout a novel that I have not yet mapped. Subconscious meanderings that eventually thicken, cohere. Or not - high-wire writing, without a net.
The book actually began two weeks ago in a muddle of Tweets that did not know they had a theme. Here, for clarity, the gestation phase.
First there were skirmishes, then there were wars. Then an uneasy peace pervaded the place. Only the place had ceased to exist.
To a place where time, if not exactly still, is very nearly silent.
When procrastination is not an option, empty your mind & begin without aim. Themes will sort themselves out.
One to admire, one to cast aside. One for the road.
#endurancepose
Faced with a decision, circumspect. Timed release, I'll be out of the room by the time––
Amiable, egalitarian, her hair glinted in a certain light. Foggy.
Truth twisted with a hint of rye. I took the news straight.
Circumstances dictate that I write this on this on toilet paper, in lemon ink. You will know why when I escape.
#hethought
You will never know the ways I tried to find a place that we two could share. Hopeless.
#shethought
Crisp, her eyes shone in the light. How do we stay afloat?
Mar 16
When the world catches up, it is time to move on.
* If my literary forensics research is correct, Twitter novels have been in existence since 2011, taking form 140 words at a time. Micro novels are particularly popular in Japan, presumably written on crowded commute trains where there is just room to maneuver a cell phone (a phenomenon I know well).