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It seems the best work I do is when I am really allowing the unconscious to rule the page and then later I can go back and hack around and make sense of things.

Aimee Bender

The writing I tend to think of as ‘good’ is good because it’s mysterious.
AIMEE BENDER

Good Mysterious Tent Thinking Writing
There’s a gift in your lap and it’s beautifully wrapped and it’s not your birthday.
AIMEE BENDER

Beautiful Birthday Important Lap Think Wrap
It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we’d read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand.
AIMEE BENDER

Code Daughter Details exchange Father Language Read
I give boring people something to discuss over corn.
AIMEE BENDER

Bore Corn Discuss Giving People
It seemed to happen in springs, the revealing of things.
AIMEE BENDER

Happen Reveal Seem Spring
We hit the sidewalk, and dropped hands. How I wished, right then, that the whole world was a street.
AIMEE BENDER

Drop Hand Hit Sidewalk Street Wish World
Kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.
AIMEE BENDER

Kiss People Rice Rolling Stick Survive Year
Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn’t love me – I felt the wash of her love every day.
AIMEE BENDER

Brother Daughter Day Every Lover Mom More She
I felt the crumpled paper that had taken the place of my lungs expand as if released from a fist.
AIMEE BENDER

Expand Fist List Lung Paper Release Taken
The stories themselves haunt, they stick around, they linger, inhabiting a little corner of the reader’s brain and resurfacing to evoke mystery or sadness or longing.
AIMEE BENDER

Around Brain Corner Evoke Inhabiting Mystery Reader Resurfacing Sad Stick Story
and I get refill number three or four and the wine is making my bones loose and it’s giving my hair a red sheen and my breasts are blooming and my eyes feel sultry and wise and the dress is water.
AIMEE BENDER

Bone Eye Four Giving Hair Lose Number Wine Wise
But what I kept wondering about is this: that first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think?
AIMEE BENDER

Believe Burning Kept Passion Second Skirt Think Thinking Wonder
I was right at the edge of their circle, like the tail of a Q…
AIMEE BENDER

Circle Edge Like Right Tail
I am the drying meadow; you the unspoken apology; he is the fluctuating distance between mother and son.
AIMEE BENDER

Apology Baby Distance Drying Fluctuate Life Mother Son Unspoken
It was a fleeting statement, one I didn’t think she’d hold on to; after all, she had birthed us alone, diapered and fed us, helped us with homework, kissed and hugged us, poured her love into us.
AIMEE BENDER

After Birthed Fleet Help Homework Kiss Love Pour Statement
Before she knew it was candles, did she think she’d done it herself? With the amazing turns of her hips.
AIMEE BENDER

Amazing Candle Done Herself Hip Knew She Think Turn
I am not happy, help me — like a message in a bottle sent in each meal to the eater, and I got it. I got the message.
AIMEE BENDER

Bottle Eater Esch Happy Help Meal Message Sent
With my hand in his, I looked at all the apartment buildings with rushes of love, peering in the wide streetside windows that revealed living rooms painted in dark burgandies and matte reds.
AIMEE BENDER

Apartment Building Dark Hand Look Love Peer Room Rush Streetside Window
I watched as she added a question mark at the end. Arc, line, space, dot.
AIMEE BENDER

Add Dot Line Question Space Watch
My eyelids are my own private cave, he murmured. That I can go to anytime I want.
AIMEE BENDER

Anytime Cave Eyelid Private Want
That’s the thing with handmade items. They still have the person’s mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone.
AIMEE BENDER

Burger Feel Handmade Hold Item Little Person
It is so often surprising, who rescues you at your lowest moments.
AIMEE BENDER

Lowest Moment Rescue Surprise
Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.
AIMEE BENDER

Built Character Language Out Plot Ticket
When the light at Vernon turned green, we stepped into the street and George grabbed my hand and the ghosts of our younger selves crossed with us.
AIMEE BENDER

Ghost Grab Hand Light Self Step Street
As soon as you laugh from nerves or make a joke or say something just to say something or get all involved with the bushes, then you blow open a window in your house of desire and it can’t heat up as well. Cold draft comes in.
AIMEE BENDER

Bush Cold Desire Draft Heat House Involve Joke Laugh Make Something Soon Window
I have had with novel writing, and I have put to bed big chunks of work that just didn’t sustain my interest.
AIMEE BENDER

Bed Big Interest Novel Sustain Work Writing
Not getting bored of my own story and/or character is one of the main struggles.
AIMEE BENDER

Bore Character Getting Main Struggle Writing

It seems the best work I do is when I am really allowing the unconscious to rule the page and then later I can go back and hack around and make sense of things.

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It seems the best work I do is when I am really allowing the unconscious to rule the page and then later I can go back and hack around and make sense of things.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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