Artist Cory Arcangel tracks the confessions of aspiring novelists on Twitter

For some, Twitter is both a distraction and a medium for a peculiar type of written soliloquy. It’s the confluence of those two streams that makes artist Cory Arcangel’s new book, Working on my Novel, particularly poignant. Arcangel is well known for using appropriation in his work, and the book doesn’t break from that tradition. The slim paperback is a hand-curated selection of tweets that include the phrase “working on my novel.”

As you might expect, many of the tweets occupy an uncomfortable place between hope, despair, and desperation. Creative Review notes that the tweets “have been ordered into a kind of journey from optimistic beginnings through to self-flagellation and time-is-running-out cries for help.” The series was first featured on a Twitter account made by Arcangel, and the paperback will hit bookstores at the end of the month. An ebook is also available for purchase.