e.e.: hello???

elle nash: lol hellooo 

omg 

we did it

we made it

sorry i'm a freak and didn't have my chat on for years, apparently

hahah its okay I haven't used it in forever either 

I think my last gchat is from like, 2016 ...

who was the last person you chatted w on here?

probably B lol 

same A

we'd just chat all day at work

awwww

now we're both unemployed so i guess nothing's changed hahaha 

so should we start the "interview" portion of this chat? also you realize idk shit abt how to get this into a word doc, right? do you hate me today? 

lol

loooolll I'll try to copy paste and when its done 

thank you

i would never hate you!!!!

thank you!!!

how much self-loathing to you have on a daily basis? i have a lot. but then also i have moments where i think i'm totally the shit. it fluctuates. you?

it does fluctuate. when i'm productive i feel pretty good but if i don't get that time or i'm feeling bad about writing or something honestly i feel like total shit. i have a problem w wanting to always be productive :|

oh, i get that. i feel similarly. what does productive look like to you? on a good day/week?

this feels so official now that we are doing the official part of the interview lolol 

oh are we

lol

the last g chat interview i remember reading i think was blake and sam, maybe on vice or something? idk

i can be less official

productive for me is waking up a couple/few hours before everyone is awake and being able to work on my projects in peace. like, just having the space to think, without being interrupted, is really important. and as long as i can do that and a little reading or editing or something then i feel pretty good. 

hahaha its cool

what is productive for you? 

like what is a day in the life?? mine is like, kind of all over the place but lately its been routine which is nice 

when you wake up before everyone do you make coffee or have an energy drink? and are you in pajamas? i want to picture the scene

quarantine has prob forced everyone into a routine of sorts

my days are p much the same regardless unless i go out of town

get up. make coffee. go upstairs to write. write. talk to daughter. talk to mom. read. watch a movie on dvd. boring boring boring. 

i think sometimes when i feel like i 'don't have time' (even to make a cup of coffee.. what is wrong with me) i'll drink a monster but normally i will wake up, make a cup of coffee, get a glass of water, brush my teeth and stuff, and just sit at my laptop and start working. i wear sweats normally but i have to do laundry so badly that i'm actually waking up and putting real clothes on lmao 

and i'm usually huddled in a blanket bc my parents house is always v cold in the morning

haha i wake up and put on 'real clothes' if it's warm enough to wear shorts which it is rn but then im back in bed typing so what's the point

i sit at the dining room table in the mornings bc its the only place not occupied, i guess. besides bathrooms. haha. 

pulled all my shorts out of the storage shed this week!!! summer!!! 

your days sound so peaceful haha 

it's like you're in a philip roth novel

hahahaha what why? 

peaceful and boring

lol 

need to inject some excitement into yr routine 

oh cuz he always had so many ppl in his house and the bathroom was his only escape. i guess that was just the one novel. where he jerks off all the time cuz he's a teenage boy. 

this week on hobart/hobart twitter has been exciting. i've been manic all week.

oh i left out the part where i get drunk lol

haha ohh yes. bathroom escape party. also have definitely done that before (hiding) 

or in closets 

hahahaha 

how often do you drink and does it affect your writing the next day? do you ever write under any influences?

ive been waking up each morning like "when is she gonna start posting on twitter" while i work on stuff 

i can picture you hiding. in your sweats w your blanket. 

haha and i keep staying up later and later til like 330 and waking up at 1030 and being like fuck i HAVE TO TWEET

idk how you ppl on social media do it

i used to write on adderall like a million years ago or when drinking also but thats stopped. like once, last year, i wrote a short story while drinking, and i cant even remember where i saved it so idek if its any good, bc after a while i got distracted and started watching YouTube makeup reviews. lately i basically let myself drink once a week (or maybe two nights) but its really hard for me to write the next morning. i've become a big bummer bc i'm so rigid about my mind being focused enough to work on stuff.. its just a constant "sorry, can't do that... have to wake up at 5am and write"

its really hard, having a flip phone has saved me. if i have my iPhone, esp during lockdown, i'm pretty compulsive about it. something about it being on a laptop makes it a little bit easier to step away from 

its also harder tho bc W wakes up so early and that really sucks if you've stayed up partying until 3am 

which pretty much has motivated me to not do that anymore lol 

have you EVER owned a smart phone??

that was the best answer to any q ever. what was it like writing on adderall? i'm so curious what it would be like, if it would help me or fuck me up. id prob just cry more.

its really nice but i have a soft spot in my heart for stimulants i guess, you kind of get a little bit of euphoria at first. i would describe it as feeling a pathway open in your head. like being motivated is easy, your body doesn't fatigue so you can push forward on something if you desire to

but like, it probably has diminishing returns with continued use haha

a soft spot for stimulants - you're so cute/funny. yeah, i was gna say, if it's really that great, wouldn't you still be doing it? but i've heard some writers say they do use it daily... anyway. 

you're really so self-disciplined. have you always been this way? and have you been serious/ambitious abt your writing for a long time? idk what those words really mean: ambitious. whatever. but you get the general sense. 

have your goals and ambitions increased with your successes? 

haha i know. i am always worried about like spiraling out of control,  like, i grew up w a lot of friends getting addicted to meth and had my own issues so i think i fear what i would lose diving into something like. (i mean before W. now with W, i feel even moreso that i cant take risks like that). also the last couple years i've been really freaked out about brain health, my mom has parkinson's now (as you know) and drugs like adderall are associated w higher incidences of parkinson's disease. besides becoming a mom i think a motivating factor for me in not doing drugs rly anymore is just brain health. besides my family, writing is is one of the most important things to me and the idea of losing my mental faculties really freaks me out, like, i just imagine what things are going to be like for my mom and it is hard for me to think about. 

i don't know if i've always been self-disciplined but i developed an eating disorder around 15 and i think sooo much of my residual behavior now stems from that. its just expressed differently. like, the concern and fear of ____, which motivates me to do a thing that requires self-discipline, maybe 

i didn't start pursuing fiction seriously until 2013. which is weird. cuz ive always wanted to "be" a writer, went to school for journalism bc i figured creative writing didn't make any money 

which is funny bc when i graduated the newspaper industry crashed lmao 

oh, i didn't know that about adderall and brain health but not surprising. nothing in life is ever free. you always give something up to gain something. this is my genius philosophical take. \

its a trade off for sure. you can have enhanced activity now but you risk losing it later, or something like that 

i think it kind of goes back to the idea that energy cant be created or destroyed. that feels like a witch craft thing. is that still a thing we (humans, scientifically) agree on?

part of me wants to see this other life w you as a journalist/reporter. like, what would you wear? what a dumb q. like you'd wear anything diff than you do now. but would you be a diff person? do our choices make us diff ppl or do we stay the same and go in diff areas? idk what i'm talking abt. my g chat box is so tiny. i blame it.

witch craft thing. haha there are so many different sides to you/complexities/that i love/contradictions only in how ppl label other ppl. like satanist or witch or self-disciplined writer or drug-addict, like we can't be all of those things and more. you're the most. of anyone i know. and i love that about you.

and i think it is prob a large part of why your writing is so interesting and good.

i don't even knoooww, i really liked journalism bc i thought it was like... important. i was really into the idea of how important the truth was for people to know, well-informed citizenry, etc. and then when i graduated, i couldn't find a job, so i started working in PR. and when i saw how they interface with the news, the trade that happens, and how corporatized everything was i was like... i never want to be a journalist lol. i try to imagine where i'd be if i stayed being a reporter. you probably have to be married to the work. and i didn't feel like working 70+ hours a week for a daily paper. fiction is a lot more fun, and you can still do "truthy" things 

aww omg <33 thank youuu, i mean i feel like ppl just have nuances!! hasn't everyone done drugs or gotten into satan or something at some point? haha 

satanism, the people's religion 

i like your phrasing of "truthy things" re fiction. i was talking w a friend the other night abt the concept of "bleeding on the page"...how do you feel abt it? some ppl seem to be very "i don't want to write about me/im not interesting/i don't want to bleed on the page" and others just bleed and bleed and bleed. lol. personally, i like reading writing that feels bloody, even if it's not, you know what i mean?

damn i prob need me some satan

and some adderall

yeah, i get what you mean like 

i really love stuff that feels bloody, but it doesn't matter to me if its a true thing or not a true thing. i just want it to make me feel a thing, to move me somehow. i probably USED to be a very bleed on the page type of person but the more i got into writing fiction i was like more into the idea of what isn't me on the page because its just so much more flexible and you can manipulate a whole lot more to get the feeling you want. like you can have a feeling inside and thats a true thing and you can like... manipulate language to put that feeling into another person's head, but i think the 'me' part of it ... the like, "is this a real experience?" part of it isn't interesting or important to me... idk

thats a complicated question loollll 

you do need satan elizabeth i think it would help 

hahah

i think it helps people build healthy boundaries against toxic people 

i think its cool though if it feels real. back to bloody stuff 

like effective realism 

oooooh 'toxic people' how do you know if someone is toxic and what if you yourself are toxic? i thought i was toxic last week. but then i'm p sure it turned out i wasn't i was just misunderstood.

i guess you would call that "authority" 

hahaha 

hmmmm idk, it is probably different for different people. i think my barometer is like-- does this person make me feel fearful of interacting with them, and why? are they consistently crossing emotional (or physical) boundaries when i ask them not to? do they engage in specific behaviors so they can always have control in a conversation? do they seem interested in / care about my feelings (if its interpersonal)? 

also like, if i do ____, does it lower my self esteem, do i feel bad about myself? am i doing what i want to do? 

you're so much better than i am at articulating your thoughts. elle. this is what i'm learning in this interview. i think i already knew it but it's becoming more clear now. have you always been very self aware and articulate? i guess that also prob aids in your writing. 

i think you're good at talking about your thoughts tho too, thinking about people's intentions, or at least trying to understand them lol

when i went thru my old live journal a couple months ago i found this spot between like... 14-15 where i started articulating my feelings a lot more deeply?? but idk. i also attribute my relationship w B to a lot of my personal development. his patience and willingness to understand my shit has helped me understand myself and other ppl so much

also what artists/musicians/writers inspire you, as an artist/writer? and are there ppl on social media who inspire you in other ways? as a sort of artist on those platforms? do you know what i mean? does that make sense?

yesss this is such a hard question to answer bc there's so many ppl/things... like almost everything i interact w i feel inspires me in some way 

i guess, relatedly, would your writing be different, do you think, if the internet didn't exist/social media didn't exist....or is the writing the same. does that make sense? there's almost two diff arts to be a writer now, w online personas and such? maybe/ idk. 

oh yeah that makes sense 

i think i would be a crappy writer without the internet 

lmao 

i have met so many amazing ppl that have expanded my view of what art and lit can be honestly 

also its made access to things like music and video so much easier 

so like, i just read the first 15 pages of alice knott (blake butler) and am like "wow this prose is so surgical and good" ... i read amygdalatropolis by BR yeager last year which redefined for me what a novel can be. its always so cool to read something and be like "fuck thats right, you can do whatever you want in a book." i read elaine kahn's new poetry book 'romance or the end' which was gutting. i have been listening to a lot of killstation, lil peep, tommy cash (fuuuck) and also revisiting a lot of old numetal lately too which has been inspiring me lol 

i like people who are doing things that no one else is doing. so like as corny as that makes me for example i like learning about korn / johnathan davis etc at the beginning of their careers, and thinking about how they kept pushing on despite ppl being like "what the fuck is this" 

yeah i tried to remember that "oh you can do whatever the fuck you want in a book/writing" when writing my latest short stories cuz i think, esp in cancel culture or super PC culture, you can feel v limited in what you can or should write but actually you can write any fucking thing so you should. we have reality as is. fuck shit up. 

right like, i think if you feel compelled to write a thing, there's an energy behind that, it's worth exploring it 

i love that. korn. i just love writing that word. korn. for some reason anytime korn is mentioned i have to smile. but yeah that's great. i want my 'art' lol to make ppl go 'what the fuck is this' 100%

i also want to read this where i go, what the fuck is this. same

i need to get some lil peep

and satan and adderall

those three things

is what i've learned from this interview, today, elle. thank you

should we end on lil peep?

koЯn 

lol 

but also we should end w NUDES your new book coming out early 2021 w SF/LD

because i'm so fucking excited for it

THANK YOU 

i'm excited for it too

i hope that it will be good and that ppl don't hate it 

i don't know how much if anything you want to reveal about it rn

it'll be so dman god

good lol

i don't even know. i think its good to keep it mysterious. 

itll be so damn god

i do to

too

it will be its own god 

yes

ok then

haha

we can end on that 

NUDES (SF/LD, 2021) ELLE NASH

<3 and RIP lil peep 

thank you for doing this, ly so much

lyyyy 

of course 

rip

B walked in and i was like "ee is interviewing me" and he just stood there and i was like ok. and he was like ok i'll fuck off then 

he was prob like who the fuck g-chats an interview in 2020: suspicious!

hahahahah