Thanks so much for being part of Story Club. Before we leap in, I thought it might be good to talk a little about how this is supposed to work – how I’m going to approach it, and how I hope you will. We might think of this as our first class together – me standing nervously at the board as you sit out there with your fresh new notebooks, looking out longingly at the late-summer day because, in Story Club, it’s always fall semester.
If I'm really going to try to do this all the way, and I intend to, then I suppose I need to confess what actually makes me anxious about writing now. My fear is that I won't be heard through all the other voices. As a younger writer, I was up for the fight, taking on other voices head to head, always pushing to be more concise, engaging, and dominant. In my memory, I think it was almost fun to struggle in the crowd this way. Life has since softened me, perhaps broken open my heart. Fighting for ears to listen has become so much less appealing. My love for writing hasn't diminished at all. When I sit at my desk, I believe I can truly create anything. But my army I once had to advance on the intense competition has fallen back. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm actually sitting here in a cafe crying secretively because I fear that I don't know how to continue fighting for my work to be read. But I do appreciate this community very much and everything that you're giving us here, Mr. Saunders. This feels like a lovely bunch of people that have come together. I am going to do what you asked of us and trust this until our work is complete.
Establishing authority within brackets of humility on the first day of class. I wish more of my professors had the wisdom to do that. Smashing start to this journey, George!
HOW do I get out of my head enough to simply write a first draft all the way through without editing as I go along? Why do I have such fear about putting schlock on the page?
I'm still high off this whole Story Club announcement. Did George Saunders really say he's launching a kind of democratized MFA course on Substack or am I hallucinating? Is this real life.
I recently started a new novel after putting away the one I had worked on for two years. While a new project is always exciting, it hurts to admit defeat on something into which I poured so much of myself (the worst part is family gatherings when my cousins, aunts, and uncles, meaning well, ask how that whole writing thing is going.) Right now I'm trying to figure out how to tend to a story so it grows at a steady, healthy pace. What writing habits work best for me? How much should I plan? How much should I revise before proceeding to a new part? How do I find the write voice/style/tone for this story? How do I know when I've found something that's worth working on for a long time? I've been thinking about these questions for years, and the answers come slowly.
Hi George ! Its Sunday evening , near tea-time , here in Ireland. I’m sitting in my car in the dark watching the lights of Northern Ireland across Carlingford Lough. I’ve a box of soggy cod and chips (“fries” to you !) on my lap and I thought I’d check my email to see if you’d started class yet . And there it was - first class ! How lucky am I? . I’ve read it over twice now so that the chips are cold and I’m so excited that I’m going to drive home and write something , anything ! Thanks George , I’m really looking to this course . I can tell already that it’s going to an enjoyable experience of genial provocation . .. there goes the box of fish ‘n chips , Grainne
Too often I find that I don't know how these disparate parts come together as a whole to say the thing that I feel inside is trying to be said. I'll have little plot ideas or characters I'm curious about and then not sure how to work them together and grow discouraged. I also tend to want to protect my characters from putting them through an endless string of conflicts -- which doesn't lend well for nearly as compelling a story. And finally, I never know "how much" of anything is enough: enough to compel the reader without confusing them; making them work so as to be compelled without spoonfeeding them and without confusing them; and without overly explaining things that a well-read reader would understand quickly and more simply.
Thanks, George. Things are going well, but if I had to put my finger on a nagging piece of anxiety about both reading and writing, it is: how to regard one's own influences, i.e. those writers who made you excited about writing in the first place [!] but who also maybe loom a little too large and get in the way while you're trying to become a writer yourself, i.e. mimicking them at difficult moments in the narrative, etc. How do you continue to love your writing heroes while also keeping them at a distance to make space for your own originality?
If everyone could be as generous as you while watching the world end, we may just build it back up again.
Thank you so much.
(I don’t know if you will recall but last year—2020, month unknown—NCTE put on a meditation for teachers workshop, and you were a guest speaker and I found the courage to ask and confirm that I wasn’t going insane by concluding that we have a real aversion to authentic discussion of “class” in the US, including in fiction, compared to other Western countries and the world.
As someone who teaches despite all the challenges we face now, thank you for this reminder, “I’ve come to believe that one of the essential jobs of a teacher is to reduce the student’s anxiety (thereby making her process open to more joy/celebration/fun.)”
That day of the NCET workshop you offered a chiropractic adjustment for the spirit and very much so today.
I am incredibly moved by people's honest sharing. I will try and stop editing myself to silence here, and share a bit. I wrote a book after my husband's sudden death in a car accident. I wanted to honor him, to keep him with me. Every night after teaching (high school English), I'd curl up in bed and write. I set myself the task of writing a minimum of 500 words a day. I didn't know the final form, but I knew I had to write. I wrote memories musings. I wrote pain and I wrote joy. When I was blocked or too overwhelmed by grief, I'd explore etymologies. I wrote to my husband, Steve. I wrote to poets I loved (Keats, Whitman, Dickinson, etc.). And I did this for months. Until I was overwhelmed by what I thought were disjointed fragments without any structure holding them. A dear writer friend helped me find the structure. Three threads––essentially––that I could weave together. I did write and publish the book, A GRIEF SUBLIME, and it seems to speak to people. I'd always wanted to write, but it wasn't until Steve's death that I trusted my voice. But––and here's the problem––I am struggling mightily to focus and write the novel I'm in the early stages of writing. I don't know how to do it. The way I wrote the book about Steve was very much an inspired write. And, of course, came out of profound loss. So . . . I'm hoping that this group can give me a gentle push and the reassurance I need . . . as I hope to give to others.
Hi George and everyone, this club already has the vibe of a community, albeit a massive diaspora of spread out across the globe. I'm really happy to be a part of it. I'm reading these posts on a train heading home to the coast after a long day at work and I love the way we're already set up to appreciate creativity, George's, our own, and established that of famous writers. Someone posted about George democratising the learning process, isn't that an amazing, relaxing, liberating idea?!
If I'm really going to try to do this all the way, and I intend to, then I suppose I need to confess what actually makes me anxious about writing now. My fear is that I won't be heard through all the other voices. As a younger writer, I was up for the fight, taking on other voices head to head, always pushing to be more concise, engaging, and dominant. In my memory, I think it was almost fun to struggle in the crowd this way. Life has since softened me, perhaps broken open my heart. Fighting for ears to listen has become so much less appealing. My love for writing hasn't diminished at all. When I sit at my desk, I believe I can truly create anything. But my army I once had to advance on the intense competition has fallen back. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm actually sitting here in a cafe crying secretively because I fear that I don't know how to continue fighting for my work to be read. But I do appreciate this community very much and everything that you're giving us here, Mr. Saunders. This feels like a lovely bunch of people that have come together. I am going to do what you asked of us and trust this until our work is complete.
Establishing authority within brackets of humility on the first day of class. I wish more of my professors had the wisdom to do that. Smashing start to this journey, George!
HOW do I get out of my head enough to simply write a first draft all the way through without editing as I go along? Why do I have such fear about putting schlock on the page?
I'm still high off this whole Story Club announcement. Did George Saunders really say he's launching a kind of democratized MFA course on Substack or am I hallucinating? Is this real life.
Thanks for such an empathetic introduction!
How things are going....
I recently started a new novel after putting away the one I had worked on for two years. While a new project is always exciting, it hurts to admit defeat on something into which I poured so much of myself (the worst part is family gatherings when my cousins, aunts, and uncles, meaning well, ask how that whole writing thing is going.) Right now I'm trying to figure out how to tend to a story so it grows at a steady, healthy pace. What writing habits work best for me? How much should I plan? How much should I revise before proceeding to a new part? How do I find the write voice/style/tone for this story? How do I know when I've found something that's worth working on for a long time? I've been thinking about these questions for years, and the answers come slowly.
Hi George ! Its Sunday evening , near tea-time , here in Ireland. I’m sitting in my car in the dark watching the lights of Northern Ireland across Carlingford Lough. I’ve a box of soggy cod and chips (“fries” to you !) on my lap and I thought I’d check my email to see if you’d started class yet . And there it was - first class ! How lucky am I? . I’ve read it over twice now so that the chips are cold and I’m so excited that I’m going to drive home and write something , anything ! Thanks George , I’m really looking to this course . I can tell already that it’s going to an enjoyable experience of genial provocation . .. there goes the box of fish ‘n chips , Grainne
Too often I find that I don't know how these disparate parts come together as a whole to say the thing that I feel inside is trying to be said. I'll have little plot ideas or characters I'm curious about and then not sure how to work them together and grow discouraged. I also tend to want to protect my characters from putting them through an endless string of conflicts -- which doesn't lend well for nearly as compelling a story. And finally, I never know "how much" of anything is enough: enough to compel the reader without confusing them; making them work so as to be compelled without spoonfeeding them and without confusing them; and without overly explaining things that a well-read reader would understand quickly and more simply.
"A Skate on a Pond in the Fall"
Thanks, George. Things are going well, but if I had to put my finger on a nagging piece of anxiety about both reading and writing, it is: how to regard one's own influences, i.e. those writers who made you excited about writing in the first place [!] but who also maybe loom a little too large and get in the way while you're trying to become a writer yourself, i.e. mimicking them at difficult moments in the narrative, etc. How do you continue to love your writing heroes while also keeping them at a distance to make space for your own originality?
If everyone could be as generous as you while watching the world end, we may just build it back up again.
Thank you so much.
(I don’t know if you will recall but last year—2020, month unknown—NCTE put on a meditation for teachers workshop, and you were a guest speaker and I found the courage to ask and confirm that I wasn’t going insane by concluding that we have a real aversion to authentic discussion of “class” in the US, including in fiction, compared to other Western countries and the world.
As someone who teaches despite all the challenges we face now, thank you for this reminder, “I’ve come to believe that one of the essential jobs of a teacher is to reduce the student’s anxiety (thereby making her process open to more joy/celebration/fun.)”
That day of the NCET workshop you offered a chiropractic adjustment for the spirit and very much so today.
Thank you.
"Is this helping?" What a great question for workshop.
I am incredibly moved by people's honest sharing. I will try and stop editing myself to silence here, and share a bit. I wrote a book after my husband's sudden death in a car accident. I wanted to honor him, to keep him with me. Every night after teaching (high school English), I'd curl up in bed and write. I set myself the task of writing a minimum of 500 words a day. I didn't know the final form, but I knew I had to write. I wrote memories musings. I wrote pain and I wrote joy. When I was blocked or too overwhelmed by grief, I'd explore etymologies. I wrote to my husband, Steve. I wrote to poets I loved (Keats, Whitman, Dickinson, etc.). And I did this for months. Until I was overwhelmed by what I thought were disjointed fragments without any structure holding them. A dear writer friend helped me find the structure. Three threads––essentially––that I could weave together. I did write and publish the book, A GRIEF SUBLIME, and it seems to speak to people. I'd always wanted to write, but it wasn't until Steve's death that I trusted my voice. But––and here's the problem––I am struggling mightily to focus and write the novel I'm in the early stages of writing. I don't know how to do it. The way I wrote the book about Steve was very much an inspired write. And, of course, came out of profound loss. So . . . I'm hoping that this group can give me a gentle push and the reassurance I need . . . as I hope to give to others.
Currently reading this in the quiet before a Monday morning. I've got a sleepy daughter in my lap and my heart is so full
I believe everyone here now feels a tiny bit less alone in the nightmarish and beautiful writing process.
Hi George and everyone, this club already has the vibe of a community, albeit a massive diaspora of spread out across the globe. I'm really happy to be a part of it. I'm reading these posts on a train heading home to the coast after a long day at work and I love the way we're already set up to appreciate creativity, George's, our own, and established that of famous writers. Someone posted about George democratising the learning process, isn't that an amazing, relaxing, liberating idea?!
I hope, even without a chalkboard right in front of us, we'll be treated to plenty of your drawings.