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2+title: You are not an app
3+navPath: /
4+preview: When you took a break from writing and moved back to the city, is that when you started working on Quality Notions?
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6+
7+## ~2016.2.29
8+# You are not an app
9+
10+WEISS: When you took a break from writing and moved back to the city, is that when you started working on Quality Notions?
11+
12+NOVAK: [Moving back] made it a lot easier to do nightly stand-up around town. Actually, when I sold the book and knew I would have a book coming out at some point in the future, I realized, "I've got to get my comedy album out." If I'm claiming while I'm walking around trying to promote a book, or I'm writing on the back [cover], "Jacqueline Novak is a comedian," there has to be evidence. It forced me in a good way. I [decided] to record an album of an hour [of material] and get it out there, so I gathered a bunch of what I call "notions," because if I start calling them jokes it's too stressful and there's just too much pressure on that. It comforts me to be like, "I'm just gathering some notions together," and how you react to them is your business.
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14+WEISS: What made you return to the book material?
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16+NOVAK: When I was moving back in I had written a good chunk of raw stuff, almost the introduction—that was the key to the whole thing—and I thought, "Once I'm back in action I'd really like to see if I could sell this thing." But, stumbling around through my own work, I basically forgot about it, was cleaning out my computer files, and found it. [laughs] I knew in my head, but I had forgotten how much I had written or that I had articulated the idea fairly well. I always remember something as being scraps of a mess and then I go back and see, "No, I actually wrote a solid paragraph there." The page has to be far away from you for long enough for you to realize there is anything there. You cut the thread between your mind and the page and see if it can live on it's own.
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18+WEISS: One description from the book that stuck with me was when you described thoughts as chunks of foam painted to look like rocks. I wonder how that way of thinking has informed your stand-up. It seems connected in that some thoughts may seem scary but if you can talk about them, then you maybe give them less power.