The following is from the November 1993 issue of Harper's magazine andis therefore probably illegal to copy. So here it is anyway.

[Interview]
ON NOT WRITING

From an interview with Fran Lebowitz in the Sum­mer issue of The Paris Review. Lebowitz is the au­thor of two collections of essays, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies. Since the latter book was pub­lished in 1981 , Lebowitz has been at work on a nov­el, to be titled Exterior Signs of Wealth; she recently completed the first chapter. The interview was con­
ducted by James Linville, the managing editor of The Paris Review, and by George Plimpton, the journal's editor.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever enjoy writing? FRAN LEBOWITZ: I used to love to write. As a
child I used to write all the time. I loved to write up until the second I got my first professional writ­ing job. It turns out it's not that I hate to write. I hate, simply, to work. I just hate to work, peri­od. I am profoundly slothful. Practically inert. I have' no energy. I never have. I just have no de­sire to be productive. Now that I realize I don't hate to write, that I just hate to work, it makes
writing easier. .
INTERVIEWER: When did you realize this? LEBOWITZ: Recently. In the past six months
I've had an easier time writing. I broke this ten­year writer's block.
INTERVIEWER: What did you do during those years?
LEBOWITZ: I sulked. Sulking is a big effort. So is not writing. I only realized that when I did start writing. When I started getting real work done, I realized how much easier it is to write than not to write. Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I've ever encoun­tered. It takes it out of you. It's very psychically wearing not to write-I mean if you're supposed to be writing.
INTERVIEWER: Is that because the ideas come steaming along and you feel like you should put them down and you don't?
LEBOWITZ: Not writing is more of a psycho­logical problem than a writing problem. All the

HARPER'S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 1993
time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. Ac­tually, I suppose that's probably an outmoded phrase, because I don't think criminals feel like criminals anymore. I feel like criminals used to feel when they felt guilty about being criminals, when they regretted their crimes. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Espe­cially when it goes on for years. It's much more relaxing actually to work. .
Still, I don't get nearly the amount of work done that I read other people do. This is what most interests me in interviews with writers.
I'm not interested in the thoughts or ideas of these people, I only want to know how many pages a day they wrote. If I could meet Shake­speare, I would ask, "What time do you get up? Do you write at night?" I don't know many writ­ers. I don't have many friends who are writers. But as soon as I meet any, as soon as I can fig­ure out that it's not too intimate a question to ask them, which is about six seconds after I meet them, I say, "How many words do you write a day?"
INTERVIEWER: Why do you want to know that? LEBOWITZ: SO I can compare myself to them.
INTERVIEWER: Hemingway used to write down
the number every day and post it on a piece of cardboard on top of his bureau.
LEBOWITZ: I count my words, too. I was once at Sotheby's looking at some furniture. Just look­ing. This guy whom I knew came over and asked if I'd like to look at a Twain manuscript that was going to be for sale. I constantly have to dis­abuse people of the notion that I can afford things like Twain manuscripts. I said I'd love to look at it but I can't afford it. He showed it to me. A short story. He was telling me about the manuscript and where they found it and every­thing.
He said, "I'm pretty knowledgeable about Twain, but there's one thing we don't under­stand. We've called in a Twain scholar."
I said, "What is that?"
He said, "See these little numbers? There are
these little numbers every so often. We just don't know what those are."
I said, "I do. I happen not.to be a Twain schol­ar, but I happen to be a scholar of little numbers written all over the place. He was counting the words."
The Sotheby's man said, "What are you talk­
ing about? That's ridiculous!"
I said, "I bet you anything. Count."
He counted the words and saw that I was right.
He said, "Twain must've been paid by the word."
I said, "It may have nothing to do with being paid by the word." Twain might have told him­self he had to write this many words a day, and he would wonder, Am I there yet? Like a little kid in the back of a car: Are we there yet?