I am not a writer, declares the author in this essay that was demonstrably written.
Once published online and branded a type of “disability essay,” the creation of this Japanese-stab-bound vertical book reclaims the essay, and undoes its publication.
It becomes an artist book. It is edited, augmented, rewritten, before every reading and printing. Images from medical records and occupational therapy are altered, queered, and reimagined through printmaking techniques like riso, letterpress and relief. The book is bound and stitched with swollen fingers. With every new iteration, the author writes about what’s happened since the last one – it is a continuous work-in-progress, much like the body is continually aging, changing, and evolving.
In the essay, the author deconstructs the notion of ‘writing advice’ and ‘writing process’ as elements of ableist productivism directly at odds with peace. Framed by the Marxist ideal of work and play being married, the narrator/complainant presents elliptical notions of writing as work, and disability as an anti-work paradigm.
“
The taskmaster tells me, don’t write for anyone else.
Writing for me would mean none at all: it would mean rest. Naps!
What an ironic misery I have created, stripping the thing I loved the most of everything I loved about it. One could say this for any great love, I’m sure.”
