If that is your way and if that is the way that you feel most happy and-to use a terrible word-fulfilled, then great.īut when I hear or or feel like somebody is going through their life as an artist in a way because they think that that is the right way or that they will be perceived as having done it the right way or the most appropriate way for them, that is a tragedy.

But I think there might be people out there who are like, is this a wise path? Is it distracting at times? Do you find yourself starting things and not finishing things? Do you ever feel like you’ve lost the thread and you’re overextended?ĭave Eggers: Well, I think that you’re talking about freedom, right? And this is the major theme of this book, is that if you are beholden as an artist to some perception of, well, what’s the right way to go through a short life in a universe perhaps without meaning, and if you’re going to say, well, the right way is to write variations on the same novel every four years until I’m dead, that’s a very sad, sad way to go through life.Īnd if that is someone’s way and they want to do it that way-and I do know artists that are very methodical and they’re very happy with their method, with it being every once a decade you put out a work of art, whether it’s a book or an opera or something. You must feel like it gives you something rather than takes something away.

You have a more diversified output, and I’m wondering how you experience that.

What can a citizen do by dave eggers