Realist Magic Liveblog 11

Some books that I've written, I've been totally in charge. Two to be precise: Shelley and the Revolution in Taste (my first one) and The Ecological Thought (number four).

Other books have been more probing in nature, less certain: The Poetics of Spice, Ecology without Nature, and this one, Realist Magic.

Now the ones that came out as I meant them to were very gratifying. But I learned the most from struggling through the more experimental ones. And I'm still learning from Realist Magic. As I revise it, I keep figuring out what it's saying, and being quite surprised, in a good way.

I know that sounds absurd. But with a project as long as book, sometimes you aren't in charge of all of it. And, in a broader sense, why write anything at all if you know exactly what you're going to say?

Well, there is a reason actually: love. You want to communicate something to people because you love it. The Shelley book and the second ecology book were like that. But the other three are more primordial: they are about being willing to be surprised.