Hi George. Thanks for all you do and your unfailing generosity of spirit. For the record, I didn't place your book at the bottom of the shelf on purpose. It was just the way the photo came out. Regards, Adrian... https://adrianconway.substack.com/p/books-like-white-elephants
Ha. Great movie. These damn Hemingways - so hard to interpret!. Realise I got it wrong, anyway: your book is at the foundation! Appreciating the humour. Thanks again.
I love that you are willing to help us understand writing and stories. It’s amazing to me the effort that you put in consistently and I so appreciate it. You are a master teacher. Those students at Syracuse must feel so blessed. I know I do.
I'm glad you dialed back this week, George. I've been amazed at the generosity you consistently manifest. I had a mentor tell me to "guard my gifts". From where I sit, that's happening this week.
Since coming to SC a few months ago, I've learned of how stories can change us. They have the potential to make us better, kinder, more compassionate people. That's a takeaway that is very present for me. Just gotta say "thanks" !
Dialing back the fireworks. When in doubt, shock. Or, When in doubt, oppose conventional thinking.
Love this from TPR. And was fascinated by your description of having to “dial back the fireworks” for LitB and used letters from the Civil War to redirect your language brain. I had 80 CW letters from my multiple ggf, a nephew of Jeff Davis, who was shot through the bowels at Peach Orchard just before the Battle of Gettysburg. I also inherited Jeff Davis’s sword given to him by the Continental Congress. He gave it to his nephew who took it to battle. I sold the sword to finance my MFA. With it, I gave three letters to prove provenance. I transcribed the letters. Hard to do as every millimeter of the paper was written on, including margins. The language was so poignant & heartfelt & so unlike how we speak today. Isaac had been a lawyer & was eloquent. He told his wife Mary that if he survived his sword would be a souvenir but if he died it would be his only legacy to give his two surviving daughters. They had two other children who died in infancy. He also told Mary to get that saber if he expired. She did and got his body exhumed a year later and when the train broke down, she got a horse and wagon and drove the body back to Woodville, Ms. She later moved to New Orleans and opened a school for girls. I have the handle of her walking stick, inscribed with her initials as thanks from her school.
Lucinda have you seen Sword of Trust? It was the last movie directed by Lynn Shelton. Here's the blurb for it: "Cynthia and Mary show up to collect Cynthia's inheritance from her deceased grandfather, but the only item she receives is an antique sword that was believed by her grandfather to be proof that the South won the Civil War." Not a great movie (i feel bad saying that), but there's some fun to be had in it. ATOY (Anyway, thought of you.)
OMG! LOL! Lucinda, you put me into acronym overload! I got GS and MFA, but I had to work for TPR, CW, LitB, and ggf! Once I got up to speed, I was mesmerized by this story! Wow!
You reminded me that once, long ago, at a conference of American Horse Publications (AHP), in an abundance of high spirits (natural and imbibed), I bought at silent auction a name-plated halter once worn by Kentucky Derby winner Gato del Sol. After I had admired it for a while and taken a picture of my horse wearing it, I had a bit of buyer's remorse. (Dasvidaniya $400!) But quite some time later, someone, somehow, tracked me down and wanted to buy it! Going back in time to prove provenance was an adventure,, although not nearly as interesting as your transcription of those amazing letters! Thanks for this story!
Yay. I made you laugh, twice. Yeah, I've been called to task for my cryptic acronyms. I love "Dasvidaniya $400". Use it in a story. In fact, sounds like you've started one. Very cool about Gato de Sol (ha name for a horse). Do you still have them/it/her/him? I always wanted a donkey. i have a little wooden carved donkey, one of two toys that belonged to Godfrey. It sits on my writing desk. It's good to laugh, isn't it? 🌷
Wow! Don't you have some great material & wasn't that a better use of the sword! Can you say who you sold it to? But those letters, they must be something. Good that you transcribed them. I hope you can fashion them into a work of some kind. My husband is from New Orleans & he & his family had a "country" house at Pass Christian where he spent his summers growing up. Lovely house. I seem to recall Davis's house there, or nearby, wasn't it? Sort of near the Gulf? All gone now, including the family home, courtesy of Katrina. For a time I lived near Ft. Monroe in Virginia where Davis was imprisoned. I used to go by his cell often, dismal & tiny & stinking of mildew, and just stand there & wonder what he could possibly have been thinking. I've been to his house in Richmond, too, modest but surprisingly garish. As for that walking stick, I bet it could talk!
I had to arm myself to finish the memoir. So that weapon was put to better use. I also inherited a book written by an Englishman chronicling his three months embedded with the southern troops during the war. Still have it. Interesting about your husband and your interest in Jeff Davis. He and Mary were intellectually compatible which vexed Varina no end. I own the portrait of her grandfather, a Colonel in the War of 1812. It’s hysterical that my mother and gm were so dissolute. Mary though was a hero. She believed it was women who could heal the wars wounds not men. She taught her father’s slaves to read and write and when her father asked her why she said, Because they need language 🌷
You have such a stash! I'm impressed! I have my grandfather's diaries & a handful of letters & a kind of narrative chronology that my aunt, God bless her, worked really hard to assemble, but no swords or portraits, but a bunch of photos from which I've been gleaning the lives. We're too recent to this country. Can you say more about your memoir? And, yes, that weapon was indeed put to better use.
There you go. Yet another story: how Mary seems to have one foot in each divide. Pretty advanced, teaching slaves to read & write. So how to you justify that to yourself? That's what interests me. As for Davis at Ft. Monroe, I don't know if I was so interested, visiting his cell, as I was perplexed: how ever do you do this?? How does a person live a life of such contradiction? Which, of course, is a wonderful, if not prime, source of story. Also, what was the name of the school in NOLA?
Mary’s father educated her like a man. He left his plantation in her care when he went away. She was an advanced freethinker. The Louisiana educator grace King admired her and wrote about her life and ground breaking ideas. I don’t have to justify anything she did. She lived an exemplary life and suffered the loss of her children and then husband during the war and she didn’t let it stop her from becoming a self sufficient woman ahead of her time. Her father was Benjamin Grub Humphries, Gov of Mississippi, and served under Davis. The school was called Ms Stamps High School.
I agree---Mary doesn't need defending, or explaining. I'm just always amazed by those, especially women, who find a way when there doesn't appear to be one. I was not aware of her story, but thanks to you now I am. On the other hand, what also interests, or perplexes, me are those who manage somehow to justify to themselves actions that are clearly reprehensible. Thanks for bringing all this up.
"It’s going to be as hard as it needs to be, and my job is to not chicken out."
Story Club is impressing upon me the importance of patience and hard work in writing. Patience is the hard part for me. I'm no stranger to hard work--after 25 years of a detail-oriented day job it's something of a habit--but I tend to expect it to pay off quicker than it does.
I've been "requested" (with extreme prejudice) to stop plugging my Substack here. There are apparently others among you that also have Substacks, and apparently (according to theory) if we all spend a few lines promoting our efforts, CHAOS WILL ENSUE!!! and the SS Story Club will be "sunk." (First time I've ever heard that about my writing. Never knew us Stackers were powerful to torpedo a Booker-winner's efforts.)
This really doesn't make sense to me, since I had the idea that this "Club" is supposed to help writers write, otherwise it's just a lit survey course. It's certainly not the way we were taught at Clarion, where we wrote, read, and ripped apart each other's efforts. (It wasn't fun, but you Learned the Craft wth the explicit aim of publishing, and learned having a thick skin and a good comeback is helpful.)
So instead of encouraging us to strike out, create, and read what other people are creating, we're supposed to find each other with dosing rods, I guess. If some of you do have Stacks, let me know.
It is a good teaching moment though. George is an open Socialist as are many of you, which is merely shorthand for thinking people have too much freedom and too many choices, and that these must be curtailed for "the common good," and of course, Socialists are the ones who are going to determine what "the common good" is, (men can be women, free speech is "disinformation," the Covid "vaccine" was "safe"- all the 20 and 30 year olds dropping dead of heart problems nowithstanding, and the '20 election was the fairest, and most honest election ever) and if you don't toe the line, there's always a nice courtroom and cell waiting for you, right?
So I'm going to shut up and let others speak for me from now on, and if I vanish, (for the Common Good, of course) you'll know why...
I wrote a response to this but then didn’t post it because it seemed like a fool’s errand. It seemed you were spoiling for a fight (and I am not). And a while back, you and I got tangled up arguing about Tillie Olsen, and I don’t think it did either one of us any good. But I’ve been thinking about your post, especially since I did visit your Substack and saw the miniature horse, which warmed my heart toward you. (Ah, we DO have something in common!)
We live in distressingly discordant times, and we liberals are often advised to try to have open and honest conversations with you guys, without name-calling and anger, and without straying from the topic at hand. So, this is my attempt.
I don’t know who has “requested” that you not plug your Substack. It doesn’t matter to me. Your posts do not annoy me. I can easily ignore posts that don’t interest me. About your request to know who among us have Substacks: I do, but I don’t know why I have it—I don’t post, and I don’t know how to get rid of it. You can easily access Story Clubbers’ Substacks, as they are identified at the top of every post, after the author’s name.
On the question of the purpose of Story Club, I don’t believe that it was ever meant to be a workshop. I’ve participated in many fiction workshops; some have been valuable, some have not. But during the months I’ve been in Story Club, I’ve come to believe that workshops are not very helpful, at least not for me. One reason is that I have listened when George says he doesn’t show anyone his work until he feels that he has finished it. I realize that I’ve often shared my early drafts because I wanted praise and encouragement (and, to be honest, to have someone tell me what to do next with a work-in-progress). It didn’t work, because writing is a solitary job, or should be.
I live in rural New Mexico, and I do not have a “writing community.” I wish I did. I’m often lonely. But Story Club has given me a real group of fellow-writers. Even though we don’t share our writing, we do share thoughts and insights, as well as links to other content. I have come to respect and truly like many Clubbers.
What I have gotten from Story Club is a completely new way of approaching my work—the revise, reread, revise, reread, making myriad micro-decisions about each phrase and each scene, using the P/N meter that George talks about.
If I may offer thoughts which I hope will be helpful: I think you sometimes paint with too broad a brush; you often label people and then define the label in a way that is argumentative and hateful; you tend to throw in fact-free opinions about current events, which shuts down communication; you insult people; sarcasm is not a winning tactic. Please think about these things if you are sincere in wanting to engage.
As Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.”
As you were nice enough to write, I'll Unghost long enough to say I appreciate the effort. If SC works for you, that's great and I'm happy for you. With any luck, one day I'll see your byline in print, virtual or otherwise. As to me, SC just isn't working. I'm not sure what I expected, but this isn't it. I'll keep my sub so I can check in if the mood strikes me, but otherwise I'm outta here. Good luck...
It all comes back to figuring out how to make our own sparks, doesn’t it? Reading Benjamin Nugent’s piece makes me think of George’s stories about trying to write like Hemingway and only breaking through when he gave up trying to emulate the writer he most admired. George, how do you feel about being someone else’s Hemingway? :)
George, talking about seeing Jaws for the tenth time: "The last time I saw it, I was by myself, seated between a really old man and a pregnant woman, and just before the first time the shark appears I was thinking, We’re either going to lose one or gain one."
Not sure what you're asking...? I think you know that CommComm is short for "Community Communications," and it's just what they call the department where they work. But as to why George chose it, I don't know. He has mentioned his titles before though. He said something like his titles aren't there to help you understand a story, or to comment on one, really. He just chooses them because he likes them, basically. That's what I remember anyway--but he'll probably answer you here anyway.
Yes, it’s short for Community Communications, his division or subgroup. I liked the sound & look of it on the page & that, actually, it’s a pretty traditional title, that refers to the place where the main action takes place, like Updike’s “A&P” or Chekhov’s “In the Ravine.”
Great article on GS: Here's the kernel, for me. "In fact, one of the most important aspects of the Saunders aesthetic is something that might be termed “bonelessness.” A boneless story doesn’t begin with an idea for a central conflict, or with an outline, or with any other structural design. A boneless story has no skeleton. That doesn’t mean that there’s no action. To the contrary, Saunders’s stories are packed with incident. But the stories accumulate beat by beat. As a general rule, Saunders doesn’t conceive of plots in advance, but rather tries to write one funny, interesting moment, and then another funny, interesting moment, and so on. A Saunders story grows like a fungus. It wouldn’t be totally accurate to say that it grows sentence by sentence. To use Saunders’s words, it grows “bit” by “bit.” A bit is often a joke, but not necessarily. It can be a tragic occurrence, an incisive observation, a grotesque shock. It’s anything that administers a stimulus to the reader."
And yet - every story of George's I've read is how focused it is. And that is magic!
Mr Saunders: Would you please discontinue my substack subscription with you? I love your stories but I do not have enough time right now to read your columns even though I like them.
While George is having fun and wondering WTF he got himself into with this Substack, come check out this week's edition of mine. It has the tiniest baby horse you've ever seen, the handsomest, best-dressed Lawyer-criminal, and a YouTube compilation of AI-driven robots, including backflipping robots, hunter-killer robot dogs, a 60ft high Gundam mecha they're teaching to walk, and a tiny demo robot that can turn from solid to liquid and back again - a baby T-1000. Come visit if you want to know what's coming...
Hi George. Thanks for all you do and your unfailing generosity of spirit. For the record, I didn't place your book at the bottom of the shelf on purpose. It was just the way the photo came out. Regards, Adrian... https://adrianconway.substack.com/p/books-like-white-elephants
In the words of Navin Johnson ("The Jerk"): just happy to be in there somewhere.
Ha. Great movie. These damn Hemingways - so hard to interpret!. Realise I got it wrong, anyway: your book is at the foundation! Appreciating the humour. Thanks again.
I love that you are willing to help us understand writing and stories. It’s amazing to me the effort that you put in consistently and I so appreciate it. You are a master teacher. Those students at Syracuse must feel so blessed. I know I do.
I'm really enjoying all of this, Janice - it's a very good "class" here at SC.
I'm glad you dialed back this week, George. I've been amazed at the generosity you consistently manifest. I had a mentor tell me to "guard my gifts". From where I sit, that's happening this week.
Since coming to SC a few months ago, I've learned of how stories can change us. They have the potential to make us better, kinder, more compassionate people. That's a takeaway that is very present for me. Just gotta say "thanks" !
My pleasure, Judy.
GS/TPR
Dialing back the fireworks. When in doubt, shock. Or, When in doubt, oppose conventional thinking.
Love this from TPR. And was fascinated by your description of having to “dial back the fireworks” for LitB and used letters from the Civil War to redirect your language brain. I had 80 CW letters from my multiple ggf, a nephew of Jeff Davis, who was shot through the bowels at Peach Orchard just before the Battle of Gettysburg. I also inherited Jeff Davis’s sword given to him by the Continental Congress. He gave it to his nephew who took it to battle. I sold the sword to finance my MFA. With it, I gave three letters to prove provenance. I transcribed the letters. Hard to do as every millimeter of the paper was written on, including margins. The language was so poignant & heartfelt & so unlike how we speak today. Isaac had been a lawyer & was eloquent. He told his wife Mary that if he survived his sword would be a souvenir but if he died it would be his only legacy to give his two surviving daughters. They had two other children who died in infancy. He also told Mary to get that saber if he expired. She did and got his body exhumed a year later and when the train broke down, she got a horse and wagon and drove the body back to Woodville, Ms. She later moved to New Orleans and opened a school for girls. I have the handle of her walking stick, inscribed with her initials as thanks from her school.
Lucinda have you seen Sword of Trust? It was the last movie directed by Lynn Shelton. Here's the blurb for it: "Cynthia and Mary show up to collect Cynthia's inheritance from her deceased grandfather, but the only item she receives is an antique sword that was believed by her grandfather to be proof that the South won the Civil War." Not a great movie (i feel bad saying that), but there's some fun to be had in it. ATOY (Anyway, thought of you.)
🌷will look up film.
ATOY😳😳😳😎 🥂🥂
it's not easy keeping up with the queen of the acronyms...
OMG! LOL! Lucinda, you put me into acronym overload! I got GS and MFA, but I had to work for TPR, CW, LitB, and ggf! Once I got up to speed, I was mesmerized by this story! Wow!
You reminded me that once, long ago, at a conference of American Horse Publications (AHP), in an abundance of high spirits (natural and imbibed), I bought at silent auction a name-plated halter once worn by Kentucky Derby winner Gato del Sol. After I had admired it for a while and taken a picture of my horse wearing it, I had a bit of buyer's remorse. (Dasvidaniya $400!) But quite some time later, someone, somehow, tracked me down and wanted to buy it! Going back in time to prove provenance was an adventure,, although not nearly as interesting as your transcription of those amazing letters! Thanks for this story!
Yay. I made you laugh, twice. Yeah, I've been called to task for my cryptic acronyms. I love "Dasvidaniya $400". Use it in a story. In fact, sounds like you've started one. Very cool about Gato de Sol (ha name for a horse). Do you still have them/it/her/him? I always wanted a donkey. i have a little wooden carved donkey, one of two toys that belonged to Godfrey. It sits on my writing desk. It's good to laugh, isn't it? 🌷
this reads like a flash fiction. Amazing stuff! Thanks for posting.
What a story! Love it.
Wow! Don't you have some great material & wasn't that a better use of the sword! Can you say who you sold it to? But those letters, they must be something. Good that you transcribed them. I hope you can fashion them into a work of some kind. My husband is from New Orleans & he & his family had a "country" house at Pass Christian where he spent his summers growing up. Lovely house. I seem to recall Davis's house there, or nearby, wasn't it? Sort of near the Gulf? All gone now, including the family home, courtesy of Katrina. For a time I lived near Ft. Monroe in Virginia where Davis was imprisoned. I used to go by his cell often, dismal & tiny & stinking of mildew, and just stand there & wonder what he could possibly have been thinking. I've been to his house in Richmond, too, modest but surprisingly garish. As for that walking stick, I bet it could talk!
I had to arm myself to finish the memoir. So that weapon was put to better use. I also inherited a book written by an Englishman chronicling his three months embedded with the southern troops during the war. Still have it. Interesting about your husband and your interest in Jeff Davis. He and Mary were intellectually compatible which vexed Varina no end. I own the portrait of her grandfather, a Colonel in the War of 1812. It’s hysterical that my mother and gm were so dissolute. Mary though was a hero. She believed it was women who could heal the wars wounds not men. She taught her father’s slaves to read and write and when her father asked her why she said, Because they need language 🌷
You have such a stash! I'm impressed! I have my grandfather's diaries & a handful of letters & a kind of narrative chronology that my aunt, God bless her, worked really hard to assemble, but no swords or portraits, but a bunch of photos from which I've been gleaning the lives. We're too recent to this country. Can you say more about your memoir? And, yes, that weapon was indeed put to better use.
There you go. Yet another story: how Mary seems to have one foot in each divide. Pretty advanced, teaching slaves to read & write. So how to you justify that to yourself? That's what interests me. As for Davis at Ft. Monroe, I don't know if I was so interested, visiting his cell, as I was perplexed: how ever do you do this?? How does a person live a life of such contradiction? Which, of course, is a wonderful, if not prime, source of story. Also, what was the name of the school in NOLA?
Mary’s father educated her like a man. He left his plantation in her care when he went away. She was an advanced freethinker. The Louisiana educator grace King admired her and wrote about her life and ground breaking ideas. I don’t have to justify anything she did. She lived an exemplary life and suffered the loss of her children and then husband during the war and she didn’t let it stop her from becoming a self sufficient woman ahead of her time. Her father was Benjamin Grub Humphries, Gov of Mississippi, and served under Davis. The school was called Ms Stamps High School.
I agree---Mary doesn't need defending, or explaining. I'm just always amazed by those, especially women, who find a way when there doesn't appear to be one. I was not aware of her story, but thanks to you now I am. On the other hand, what also interests, or perplexes, me are those who manage somehow to justify to themselves actions that are clearly reprehensible. Thanks for bringing all this up.
The Paris Review interview is great.
"It’s going to be as hard as it needs to be, and my job is to not chicken out."
Story Club is impressing upon me the importance of patience and hard work in writing. Patience is the hard part for me. I'm no stranger to hard work--after 25 years of a detail-oriented day job it's something of a habit--but I tend to expect it to pay off quicker than it does.
Yes, you are right about patience. Patience is a good weapon to keep our innate banality at bay. :)
Well, here's something new (to me, anyway): https://deadline.com/2023/02/richard-ayoade-ben-stiller-semplica-girl-diaries-efm-1235257624/
I saw that too!!!
🌷🌷🌷🎺🥂
I'm gonna post this on the other thread as well.
Thoroughly engaged with all of George’s writings, insights, and teachings...
Reading about him(you) is as much of a pleasure as learning about process ..
The Paris Review interview and the afterward essay... all more chances to dive into this “George”character... who seems bigger than life!
Not sure if I am enjoying the stories as much as the man!
Or is the man the story?
Well, we'll see how long this stays up.
I've been "requested" (with extreme prejudice) to stop plugging my Substack here. There are apparently others among you that also have Substacks, and apparently (according to theory) if we all spend a few lines promoting our efforts, CHAOS WILL ENSUE!!! and the SS Story Club will be "sunk." (First time I've ever heard that about my writing. Never knew us Stackers were powerful to torpedo a Booker-winner's efforts.)
This really doesn't make sense to me, since I had the idea that this "Club" is supposed to help writers write, otherwise it's just a lit survey course. It's certainly not the way we were taught at Clarion, where we wrote, read, and ripped apart each other's efforts. (It wasn't fun, but you Learned the Craft wth the explicit aim of publishing, and learned having a thick skin and a good comeback is helpful.)
So instead of encouraging us to strike out, create, and read what other people are creating, we're supposed to find each other with dosing rods, I guess. If some of you do have Stacks, let me know.
It is a good teaching moment though. George is an open Socialist as are many of you, which is merely shorthand for thinking people have too much freedom and too many choices, and that these must be curtailed for "the common good," and of course, Socialists are the ones who are going to determine what "the common good" is, (men can be women, free speech is "disinformation," the Covid "vaccine" was "safe"- all the 20 and 30 year olds dropping dead of heart problems nowithstanding, and the '20 election was the fairest, and most honest election ever) and if you don't toe the line, there's always a nice courtroom and cell waiting for you, right?
So I'm going to shut up and let others speak for me from now on, and if I vanish, (for the Common Good, of course) you'll know why...
In Friendship,
M.
Hello Michael,
I wrote a response to this but then didn’t post it because it seemed like a fool’s errand. It seemed you were spoiling for a fight (and I am not). And a while back, you and I got tangled up arguing about Tillie Olsen, and I don’t think it did either one of us any good. But I’ve been thinking about your post, especially since I did visit your Substack and saw the miniature horse, which warmed my heart toward you. (Ah, we DO have something in common!)
We live in distressingly discordant times, and we liberals are often advised to try to have open and honest conversations with you guys, without name-calling and anger, and without straying from the topic at hand. So, this is my attempt.
I don’t know who has “requested” that you not plug your Substack. It doesn’t matter to me. Your posts do not annoy me. I can easily ignore posts that don’t interest me. About your request to know who among us have Substacks: I do, but I don’t know why I have it—I don’t post, and I don’t know how to get rid of it. You can easily access Story Clubbers’ Substacks, as they are identified at the top of every post, after the author’s name.
On the question of the purpose of Story Club, I don’t believe that it was ever meant to be a workshop. I’ve participated in many fiction workshops; some have been valuable, some have not. But during the months I’ve been in Story Club, I’ve come to believe that workshops are not very helpful, at least not for me. One reason is that I have listened when George says he doesn’t show anyone his work until he feels that he has finished it. I realize that I’ve often shared my early drafts because I wanted praise and encouragement (and, to be honest, to have someone tell me what to do next with a work-in-progress). It didn’t work, because writing is a solitary job, or should be.
I live in rural New Mexico, and I do not have a “writing community.” I wish I did. I’m often lonely. But Story Club has given me a real group of fellow-writers. Even though we don’t share our writing, we do share thoughts and insights, as well as links to other content. I have come to respect and truly like many Clubbers.
What I have gotten from Story Club is a completely new way of approaching my work—the revise, reread, revise, reread, making myriad micro-decisions about each phrase and each scene, using the P/N meter that George talks about.
If I may offer thoughts which I hope will be helpful: I think you sometimes paint with too broad a brush; you often label people and then define the label in a way that is argumentative and hateful; you tend to throw in fact-free opinions about current events, which shuts down communication; you insult people; sarcasm is not a winning tactic. Please think about these things if you are sincere in wanting to engage.
As Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.”
Also in friendship, Nancy
As you were nice enough to write, I'll Unghost long enough to say I appreciate the effort. If SC works for you, that's great and I'm happy for you. With any luck, one day I'll see your byline in print, virtual or otherwise. As to me, SC just isn't working. I'm not sure what I expected, but this isn't it. I'll keep my sub so I can check in if the mood strikes me, but otherwise I'm outta here. Good luck...
I'm sorry SC didn't work for you. I'll keep in touch via your Substack or email. All the best to you. Take care. Nancy
That's very sweet of you. Appreciate it. If there's a topic you'd like me to cover, let me know and I'll check it out.
This is satire, right?
It all comes back to figuring out how to make our own sparks, doesn’t it? Reading Benjamin Nugent’s piece makes me think of George’s stories about trying to write like Hemingway and only breaking through when he gave up trying to emulate the writer he most admired. George, how do you feel about being someone else’s Hemingway? :)
It would be an honor!
George, talking about seeing Jaws for the tenth time: "The last time I saw it, I was by myself, seated between a really old man and a pregnant woman, and just before the first time the shark appears I was thinking, We’re either going to lose one or gain one."
True story.
Has anyone asked yet about the title? I like it, it's the rhythm, it's a tom-tom, it's a commitment . . . .it's . . . but why and how?
Interesting question! I was thinking the title was a dystopian government thing like the “Department of Redundancy Department”.
Not sure what you're asking...? I think you know that CommComm is short for "Community Communications," and it's just what they call the department where they work. But as to why George chose it, I don't know. He has mentioned his titles before though. He said something like his titles aren't there to help you understand a story, or to comment on one, really. He just chooses them because he likes them, basically. That's what I remember anyway--but he'll probably answer you here anyway.
Yes, it’s short for Community Communications, his division or subgroup. I liked the sound & look of it on the page & that, actually, it’s a pretty traditional title, that refers to the place where the main action takes place, like Updike’s “A&P” or Chekhov’s “In the Ravine.”
Great article on GS: Here's the kernel, for me. "In fact, one of the most important aspects of the Saunders aesthetic is something that might be termed “bonelessness.” A boneless story doesn’t begin with an idea for a central conflict, or with an outline, or with any other structural design. A boneless story has no skeleton. That doesn’t mean that there’s no action. To the contrary, Saunders’s stories are packed with incident. But the stories accumulate beat by beat. As a general rule, Saunders doesn’t conceive of plots in advance, but rather tries to write one funny, interesting moment, and then another funny, interesting moment, and so on. A Saunders story grows like a fungus. It wouldn’t be totally accurate to say that it grows sentence by sentence. To use Saunders’s words, it grows “bit” by “bit.” A bit is often a joke, but not necessarily. It can be a tragic occurrence, an incisive observation, a grotesque shock. It’s anything that administers a stimulus to the reader."
And yet - every story of George's I've read is how focused it is. And that is magic!
Mr Saunders: Would you please discontinue my substack subscription with you? I love your stories but I do not have enough time right now to read your columns even though I like them.
Thank you,
Janice McDermott
mcdmcd@ptd.net
Sure, Janice- are you a free subscriber?
Thank you, yes I am.
Just took you of the list, Janice - thanks for being here and rejoin us any time. :)
Oooh I’ll listen in. Thx!
While George is having fun and wondering WTF he got himself into with this Substack, come check out this week's edition of mine. It has the tiniest baby horse you've ever seen, the handsomest, best-dressed Lawyer-criminal, and a YouTube compilation of AI-driven robots, including backflipping robots, hunter-killer robot dogs, a 60ft high Gundam mecha they're teaching to walk, and a tiny demo robot that can turn from solid to liquid and back again - a baby T-1000. Come visit if you want to know what's coming...
Read the room.
I get wrapped up and forget...
michaeldmayo.substack.com
I understand that if you dislocate your shoulder you can slip out of the jacket.
Love it, thank you