Thanks to all who are commenting - we're just back from a little mini-vacation and there's a lot to sort out BUT I did want to say one more thing, which is that not every story starts out with early drafts as messy and exploratory as "CommComm" did. "Home," for example, had very little waste - I wrote a first draft that has a lot (a lot) in common with the final, in one night (and then revised for three months).
Every story is different. And I never want to confer on anybody a case of "Oh, shit, turns out I'm not doing it right" syndrome.
Many roads up to the mansion, etc etc.
Good night, Story Club, and thanks for being you. :)
Love this post and George's acknowledgment that, at base, all of this is magic. As Rick Rubin writes: "We are dealing in a magic realm. Nobody knows why or how it works."
[A few more Rick Rubin quotes:
"If you start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things."
"We’re not playing to win. We’re playing to play."
"Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees you to play, explore, and test without attachment to results."]
George, I wrote you an apology last time, for calling your early draft "pretty awful." Deleted the apology because i figured you wouldn't see it. What I want to say today (besides I'm sorry for making such a dumb remark) is that your early drafts are not "pretty awful." They are full of seeds, full of magic waiting to happen. They show an artist at work, putting in the time and the effort, going through an arduous process, and having faith.
Seeing this in action, changes everything for me!
I talk a lot here about Story Club being Life Club, and again I have to hand it to George for teaching another great life lesson. Up until this very moment, if you had asked me to read someone's draft, and if I had thought it "pretty awful," that would be as far as I would have been able to see. I'd be stuck, right there. I might say, Yeah, keep going. But in my head, I'd probably be thinking some pretty bad thoughts about the writing. But now I see what how foolish that is. And how miraculous that "pretty awful" draft may in fact be, how full of magical seeds, if the writer is willing to press on. And how my role is to find the good, to have faith, and always to see the good person under there, doing their best.
When I read this from George--“Hey! Inferior/boring/predictable/common bit! What are you doing in my story? Get out of here before you make things blah!”--it made me think of Lauren Groff's introduction to a new book of stories she edited. She wrote this regarding what she was looking for in the stories she would choose to include: "...each of these stories had to pass a few rigorous tests, the first and most important of which was that they had to show some sort of thrill or risk in terms of language or structure or plot or enigma; something in the story had to deliver a sharp blue jolt of electricity to my nervous system."
Could i love this sentence more (from George's post here): "It will come as a surprise to you, what that final draft says, what it conveys. And it will seem astonishing, even to you, the person who wrote it, that a coherent story could come from those wayward, blurry, early drafts." Yes, this is so very true. Every story that I've ever written (and felt was successful) has absolutely surprised me by arising from the muck and revealing itself. It does feel like magic.
Here's to perseverance and allowing the early mess. And here's to less judgment, and more faith. Thank you, George!
Mary, no apology necessary, for real! That's the whole point of that share - just put it out there and each of us see how it hits us - what it makes us feel and how we react and so on. It's all fair game and I will never put anything out here at SC if I have any sensitivity about it (that I can't manage). :)
Mary, when I saw that in your post my thought was, how wonderful that George wrote this ‘awful’ draft (containing magic seeds) that he eventually (after 12 years?) reworked into this fabulous story. So what seemed to you like a faux pas came off in my head as incredibly inspirational. (Besides it seems that George has a very thick skin, or at least his ego as such has a low degree of fragility. I envy that, and I am trying to step out of the kind of head in which I have lived for far too long!)
On the other hand, your desire to not hurt anyone’s feelings is also incredibly inspiring! But your honesty is equally so.
thank you for this, David. You are always so kind. Not to belabor this further, but (and here I go, belaboring....)--more than anything else, it was that I had put something out there in public view that wasn't kind, pointing at his work, and that sort of thing demands an apology (in my view), even if my words bounce off George's back (and of course, they do--I'm just a "voice" in a box here online, not a friend of his or a worthy literary critic). There were better ways to state what i meant. Kinder ways to say the same thing. This is a learning moment for me! Thanks for always coming along on the ride that is my life here in Story Club.
You are both a friend of mine, Mary, AND a worthy literary critic.
But what I really mean to emphasize is the extent to which those early drafts really don't matter. To me, that is. At the time - I for sure wasn't showing anybody that story. I feel protective of those early drafts in real time, partly because showing them too early tends to freeze you up if your reader says GOOD (you're stuck with it) or BAD (you despair of it).
But I also knew it would keep getting better. And all these years later....no sweat. It's like....like....seeing a photo of myself circa 1977. What does that have to do with me? :)
So you’re thinking something on the order of, “Wow, that first draft sure was messy / chaotic!” perhaps? Not as colorful as ‘awful’ but more diplomatic, maybe. We are all learning a lot about writing and life here! At any rate it was highly instructive about giving oneself permission to be awful to start with in the interest of being fabulous at the end.
I think most of our drafts are awful - Anne Lamott calls them shitty first drafts -and I think there’s freedom in the acceptance of that, which is why I appreciate this post on revision. There’s a video I think of when it comes to revision. It’s called Austin’s Butterfly. It’s about a first grader drawing a butterfly and the magic that occurs between drafts as he accepts specific, positive feedback. I also love the reminder to play. I recently had the pleasure to attend a workshop with Ada Limon and that experience reminded me to play in both my writing and in my teaching of writing and in my life. I wrote about it here if anyone wants to check it out. Just don’t say it’s awful ;)
It all comes down to that question,'Are we there yet?' You know the answer is an Emphatic NO! We are still on the Interstate with a long way still to go before we reach our destination^^
Oh, Mary, I think we all knew what you meant by the early draft being "pretty awful." We've all been there, when our work (or someone else's) has good bits and original ideas, but it isn't going anywhere. If it's someone else's work, you might think, "Don't you know what a story looks like?" If it's your own work, you might think, "Geez, apparently I don't know what a story looks like." George's great gift is to freely show us, "This is what a story looks like when it's gestating."
The old saw is that the caterpillar turns into a butterfly when it's time. When we get discouraged, we need to remember that the caterpillar does all that work herself. The final draft is all butterfly. The earlier drafts were lumpy hybrids of squishy green caterpillar thorax and the brilliant nubs of butterfly wings.
Thank you, Annie. I'm glad my comment landed okay with you. It's just that It occurred to me later, after reading through my own (previous) post, that I had never in my life told anyone a draft was "pretty awful." It suddenly seemed very inappropriate--and to say those words to George, of all people! It's funny that you would write to me that comment about what we might think when reading someone's work ("don't you know what a story looks like?") because only a couple of hours ago, I found myself reminding a writer that the reason his story wasn't working was because he'd more or less forgotten the "story" part. He was writing a feeling, not a story. Once I told him that, he completely agreed. It seems sometimes we have to learn the same things over and over again, all of us.
Mary, I want to be your friend IRL. Have you heard that a lot from fellow Story Clubbers? I wonder how many emails George gets each week pleading for your personal email.
GS creates this wonderful freeing free for all place that we can write what we think as it hits us vs the "Oh, Zeus, how do we not offend our leader" type of biz that stultifies. Hera knows, I've posted way too much of my own stuff here & it's all good🌷Mary.
Those permutations are necessary. The butterfly didn’t come out of the egg like that. Maybe we can’t really define what takes place within the cocoon. The result speaks for itself. (I love this caterpillar / butterfly analogy.)
I hope you can look at your "dumb remark" as the path to getting to "magical seeds," which is such an extraordinary way to describe what we hope to do.
Bear with me. I have a point. Today my husband went to fix something that I think is called a sub-woofer. (It's a big boxy thing that's supposed to make everything sound better.) He bought a piece of wire for $ 5.99 and after passionate declarations about the futility of our existence and the uselessness of his efforts (he's Sicilian), he discovered a switch on the front of the receiver that wasn't flipped up. He said he didn't begrudge the $5.99 for the wire because without his fiddling around with the thing, he wouldn't have discovered the issue with the switch--which pretty much describes the process of writing a story.
I just had a conversation yesterday with a friend about this very thing. In order to cut the fat off, you need to first create the fat. It's impossible to create the meat without making fat, too. Thanks for the reminder.
George, I think what you have done with this Commcomm sharing is one of the most delightful, insightful deconstructions of human thought and creativity I have ever seen. You could write a whole book forward from this. It’s so interesting to have spent months analyzing completed stories with you, prepping the brain for many of these insights. But seeing your well-honed process in action is priceless, the “ah ha” insights that settle into my own brain of how to walk the path toward creative greatness. Lessons of patience, non judgment of yourself, tapping into the subconscious, plain hard work, time and gestation, intolerance of crap (but in a kind way), belief and faith in your own voice - and that with enough of the above ingredients you can rise to greatness. I have learned so much. Thank you
Ooooh. For many years I have participated in a generative writing group once a week. We write for an hour, together in person or by zoom, and then we share what we've just written, if we wish. The rest of the group says what they liked about the piece, what "resonated for them," in the current lingo. (It's the Amherst Method -- no prescriptive or negative comments.)
When I first joined this writing group years ago, I got sweaty when I read my work out loud. It didn't seem like I had anything interesting to say. After a few years I started to believe that the laughs I heard were genuine and the appreciation was real. The result is, now I know people like my work and I've been published here and there. But it occurs to me...
Maybe writing for an hour *knowing that other people are about to hear it* is holding me back from the kind of exploratory doofdom you describe. Maybe I'm reaching for the low-hanging fruit instead of casting a wider net for proto-riffs, or proto-plasm.
I'm going to timidly sneak in here, presuming this thread may be dormant, and ask, How do you find these writing groups? Though contrary to your point, I'm craving this kind of engagement and have found the groups I've joined lacking. Probably just bad luck. It has occurred to me after months of reading comments here, that you all are the kind of characters I'm after. Anyone for a spin off?
Really enjoyed this post, particularly this comment: “We are trying, in other words, to go from empty page to masterpiece, in one stroke.” So true. Sometimes, our desire for the first draft to be perfect just drains our creative juices.
The greatest piece of writing advice ever; don't become "stuck" in the first draft - allow yourself and your stories to grow, shift and bend the way a sprout must transform into a tree.
Writing makes me go mad!! I know I won't magic stroke the first draft into a masterpiece, but my ego and mind say differently. I get bored after the first attempt, yet I can't purge the idea that I must write! Suspending my ego about what I write, even for a little bit, is like suspending my dentist anxiety. Yet I can't stop thinking about writing! Maddening. I have faith that someday I'll believe in the process. Hope? I have something, that's for sure. Arg....
OK, I'm a slow one. Throughout Story Club I've struggled, experimented and generally worked at wrapping my head around this approach of near radical revision; this going over and over, on a micro level the sentences and inner workings of a story until it's clean and expressive as a human bone found in the desert. It could feel circular to me, a bit wankey though every once in awhile revelatory. However, between the Commcomm draft postings and listening on the Podre pod cast I finally caught on to something I'm sure everyone else has cottoned onto long ago. This whole approach is founded on waiting. You write something and then you wait . . . and listen. Not a passive waiting for some non-existent godot but for those quiet inner voices to start speaking - and encouraging them to do so, even sparking them to do so, by actively going over and over and making all these micro changes. It gives me sense, the more detached sense that I am no longer the writer; that I am waiting and watching and experimenting after that visceral burst that first birthed a story. Let the dofus have his day and then let the finer tuned and intelligent crowd take over. To make a really bad pun it's like doing all the messy living and then putting yourself in the Bardo to look back and muse.
You are not slow. The "going over and over" that George does as he waits--new to me, as well. Though I've done the same (endless tinkering), I've never thought of it as a kind of playfully waiting. Of allowing. I've thought of it more as a "this is so frustrating" game. So, changing the way I perceive it is very helpful.
More Rick Rubin (all of these that I'm posting are from his book on creativity (The Creative Act), which I (obviously) loved):
"When it comes to the creative process, patience is accepting that the majority of the work we do is out of our control. We can’t force greatness to happen. All we can do is invite it in and await it actively."
Also: "Epiphanies are hidden in the most ordinary of moments…. A dedication to the practice of showing up on a regular basis is the main requirement."
Yes, I liked the Rubin book but was surprised by it. I knew Rick from his music production career and his pod cast Broken Record (the one with Neil Young especially good). So surprised by his more generally opening up to all creative endeavors.
Waiting is a clever way to look at those moments when ideas bubble up from the unconscious. If I have been writing, revising, working on the story, I feel like the story and characters come to life inside me. Frequently, I may be making dinner, taking a walk, doing something unrelated to writing, and suddenly a word, clause, or sentence will strike me, and I'll run to the computer to write it down. And, as Mr. Saunders says, being obsessive helps.
For fiction, non-, and anything in between, I never go anywhere, including room to room, without a bunch of index cards & a couple of those cheap pens they hand out at the bank. I've constructed whole stories, even long-form projects, by piecing together the jottings on those index cards. Index cards have the advantage of being just thick enough to stand out from the store receipts & cocktail napkins & deposit tickets where notes can also be recorded but then more likely lost. And the cheap pens help make the writing less precious. Which makes it more fluid. Which makes it easier to tell the crap from the good stuff. I think it was Thurber who said he was never not writing, that writers really are never not writing. I think he was right.
“…a long steady run of quiet desperation, with occasional hope-blips.” That says it all. We don’t just need skill and vision, but just as important, loads of fortitude while persevering.
George, how do you negotiate with that protective ego when you find that it’s in the room with you and asking it politely to leave doesn’t work? My hunch is that it’s a working relationship--between the generative and the perfectionist parts--that improves over a long period of time as your overall draft count goes up. But say you’ve set aside an hour one evening to work, and whether because of the short time constraint or whatever other subconscious reasons, the Critic won’t go away. What do you do? I think I’ve found some healthier alternatives lately but I’m curious what your approach is.
Hi Delia - I sometimes think "just type" is not bad advice. No filter, for as long as you can manage. Or even just...20 percent less filter. And part of that is knowing that, of course, you'll come back later and clean things up. I used to have a joke about a writer having two hats: Anal Expulsive and Anal Retentive. The writing process is the constant switching of these hats, sometimes even within the same sentence. :)
That's an important post, and a good one. It IS all about how the mind works. The subconscious plays an enormous part in writing and editing. Think about the nuggets that turn up when you write without thinking for a stretch. Who the hell wrote that? Pretty poetic/prophetic/deeper than you might normally go. Is writing and editing much different than what happens in our own mind all day long? We obsess about something for hours in "our mind". But if we were to stop and strip away all the chaff, drop all the story that ultimately isn't real, there the good story is. Three words could define the universe in a universal way, an accessible way. Maybe two. Great post, George.
I've seen too many discussions these days devolve into a debate about ChatGPT, and I don't want to hijack Story Club. But since people have raised the question tonight of whether AI "creativity" can match human creativity, I thought I'd share this Saunders-centric experiment.
I wrote this next paragraph (just now) as the opening of a modern American short story with some themes or motifs that are similar to what George might use. This is my writing, the human Annie Bee:
My friend Ed told me that "all low-paying work is boring, or meaningless, or both if we're lucky." This is how I feel about my job at the Food Bank of Saratoga Springs. Did you know people will be so cheesy that they will donate an opened box of Sonic Zoomloops (now with *real* fruit particles), because they didn't like it, thinking that they are very excellent people for making this gift, and at the same time, other people of the same species will get huffy if you offer them an opened box of Sonic Zoomloops because they feel they are better than that. In other words, we all think we're better than something else.
Then I asked ChatGPT to Saundersize my original paragraph. Here is what it came up with.
AI text:
My pal Ed once said that any job that pays a pittance is either mind-numbingly tedious, or devoid of purpose, or both if you're lucky. This, regrettably, is how I view my employment at the Food Bank of Saratoga Springs. Have you ever encountered individuals who will donate an open box of Sonic Zoomloops (now with bona fide fruit particles) simply because they dislike it? They do so believing that they are outstanding citizens for making such a contribution, while others of the same ilk will become incensed if you present them with an open box of Sonic Zoomloops, convinced that they are superior to that sort of thing. The truth is that we all believe we are superior to something."
Did the Chatbot make my text sound more like George? I don't think so. Did the Chatbot even improve my prose? Again, I don't think so. I think my words (messy and first drafty as they are) have a lively rhythm and a punchy everyman tone that the Chatbot can't match. The Chatbot makes sense, yes. But does it swing and sway ? I think not.
We don't have to worry quite yet AI will steal our magic.
“Fizzles out....” is, I think, Neil Young’s intro to his “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” off 4-Way Street. I will say of GS, "you don't want to play mumblety peg with him. He'll steal your leg."
Nice trip back to 4-way street, Andy. I wonder how few of us have ever played mumblety peg? The rules can be confusing. "Don't let it bring you Down" is a masterpiece for reflection. Good call.
Hi George, this is a late comment on Maria Popova's essay, which I finally read.
I love your sentence: "Evil and dysfunction (or at least obnoxiousness) occur in proportion to how solidly a person believes that his projections are correct and energetically acts upon them."
SImilarly, but from a positive perspective, you said, "...We have to deny ourselves the comfort of always being the same person, one who arrived at an answer some time ago and has never had any reason to doubt it. " It seems to me that the person who allows for uncertainty, and who practices reconsideration, may be looked upon as a humble person, one who practices humility, who is open to the world. And the obnoxious (or worse) person does not practice humility. I bring this up because I think humility and humble are "dirty" words for some, or at least misunderstood. For me, practicing humility is the ultimate.
Thanks to all who are commenting - we're just back from a little mini-vacation and there's a lot to sort out BUT I did want to say one more thing, which is that not every story starts out with early drafts as messy and exploratory as "CommComm" did. "Home," for example, had very little waste - I wrote a first draft that has a lot (a lot) in common with the final, in one night (and then revised for three months).
Every story is different. And I never want to confer on anybody a case of "Oh, shit, turns out I'm not doing it right" syndrome.
Many roads up to the mansion, etc etc.
Good night, Story Club, and thanks for being you. :)
Almost a Xmas Story^^
Love this post and George's acknowledgment that, at base, all of this is magic. As Rick Rubin writes: "We are dealing in a magic realm. Nobody knows why or how it works."
[A few more Rick Rubin quotes:
"If you start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things."
"We’re not playing to win. We’re playing to play."
"Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees you to play, explore, and test without attachment to results."]
George, I wrote you an apology last time, for calling your early draft "pretty awful." Deleted the apology because i figured you wouldn't see it. What I want to say today (besides I'm sorry for making such a dumb remark) is that your early drafts are not "pretty awful." They are full of seeds, full of magic waiting to happen. They show an artist at work, putting in the time and the effort, going through an arduous process, and having faith.
Seeing this in action, changes everything for me!
I talk a lot here about Story Club being Life Club, and again I have to hand it to George for teaching another great life lesson. Up until this very moment, if you had asked me to read someone's draft, and if I had thought it "pretty awful," that would be as far as I would have been able to see. I'd be stuck, right there. I might say, Yeah, keep going. But in my head, I'd probably be thinking some pretty bad thoughts about the writing. But now I see what how foolish that is. And how miraculous that "pretty awful" draft may in fact be, how full of magical seeds, if the writer is willing to press on. And how my role is to find the good, to have faith, and always to see the good person under there, doing their best.
When I read this from George--“Hey! Inferior/boring/predictable/common bit! What are you doing in my story? Get out of here before you make things blah!”--it made me think of Lauren Groff's introduction to a new book of stories she edited. She wrote this regarding what she was looking for in the stories she would choose to include: "...each of these stories had to pass a few rigorous tests, the first and most important of which was that they had to show some sort of thrill or risk in terms of language or structure or plot or enigma; something in the story had to deliver a sharp blue jolt of electricity to my nervous system."
Could i love this sentence more (from George's post here): "It will come as a surprise to you, what that final draft says, what it conveys. And it will seem astonishing, even to you, the person who wrote it, that a coherent story could come from those wayward, blurry, early drafts." Yes, this is so very true. Every story that I've ever written (and felt was successful) has absolutely surprised me by arising from the muck and revealing itself. It does feel like magic.
Here's to perseverance and allowing the early mess. And here's to less judgment, and more faith. Thank you, George!
And I love the idea of bad drafts being full of magical seeds. That's it exactly.
Mary, no apology necessary, for real! That's the whole point of that share - just put it out there and each of us see how it hits us - what it makes us feel and how we react and so on. It's all fair game and I will never put anything out here at SC if I have any sensitivity about it (that I can't manage). :)
Thank you, George.
Mary, when I saw that in your post my thought was, how wonderful that George wrote this ‘awful’ draft (containing magic seeds) that he eventually (after 12 years?) reworked into this fabulous story. So what seemed to you like a faux pas came off in my head as incredibly inspirational. (Besides it seems that George has a very thick skin, or at least his ego as such has a low degree of fragility. I envy that, and I am trying to step out of the kind of head in which I have lived for far too long!)
On the other hand, your desire to not hurt anyone’s feelings is also incredibly inspiring! But your honesty is equally so.
thank you for this, David. You are always so kind. Not to belabor this further, but (and here I go, belaboring....)--more than anything else, it was that I had put something out there in public view that wasn't kind, pointing at his work, and that sort of thing demands an apology (in my view), even if my words bounce off George's back (and of course, they do--I'm just a "voice" in a box here online, not a friend of his or a worthy literary critic). There were better ways to state what i meant. Kinder ways to say the same thing. This is a learning moment for me! Thanks for always coming along on the ride that is my life here in Story Club.
You are both a friend of mine, Mary, AND a worthy literary critic.
But what I really mean to emphasize is the extent to which those early drafts really don't matter. To me, that is. At the time - I for sure wasn't showing anybody that story. I feel protective of those early drafts in real time, partly because showing them too early tends to freeze you up if your reader says GOOD (you're stuck with it) or BAD (you despair of it).
But I also knew it would keep getting better. And all these years later....no sweat. It's like....like....seeing a photo of myself circa 1977. What does that have to do with me? :)
❤️
🌷
Ditto that, Mary!
So you’re thinking something on the order of, “Wow, that first draft sure was messy / chaotic!” perhaps? Not as colorful as ‘awful’ but more diplomatic, maybe. We are all learning a lot about writing and life here! At any rate it was highly instructive about giving oneself permission to be awful to start with in the interest of being fabulous at the end.
Yes! Exactly!
^..^
I think most of our drafts are awful - Anne Lamott calls them shitty first drafts -and I think there’s freedom in the acceptance of that, which is why I appreciate this post on revision. There’s a video I think of when it comes to revision. It’s called Austin’s Butterfly. It’s about a first grader drawing a butterfly and the magic that occurs between drafts as he accepts specific, positive feedback. I also love the reminder to play. I recently had the pleasure to attend a workshop with Ada Limon and that experience reminded me to play in both my writing and in my teaching of writing and in my life. I wrote about it here if anyone wants to check it out. Just don’t say it’s awful ;)
https://pocketfulofprose.substack.com/p/learning-from-ada-limon
loved your post! Thanks for sending me your way! And lucky you, to learn from Ada Limon.
The link is on my post where I refer to On Being. It was a great interview. Ada is a joyful writer and that interview emanates joy. Be well!
Thanks for reading! I’m so glad you liked it. And yes, very lucky me. Did you catch her interview with Krista Tippet? Amazing!
Not yet. I'll have a listen. Thank you!
It all comes down to that question,'Are we there yet?' You know the answer is an Emphatic NO! We are still on the Interstate with a long way still to go before we reach our destination^^
Oh, Mary, I think we all knew what you meant by the early draft being "pretty awful." We've all been there, when our work (or someone else's) has good bits and original ideas, but it isn't going anywhere. If it's someone else's work, you might think, "Don't you know what a story looks like?" If it's your own work, you might think, "Geez, apparently I don't know what a story looks like." George's great gift is to freely show us, "This is what a story looks like when it's gestating."
The old saw is that the caterpillar turns into a butterfly when it's time. When we get discouraged, we need to remember that the caterpillar does all that work herself. The final draft is all butterfly. The earlier drafts were lumpy hybrids of squishy green caterpillar thorax and the brilliant nubs of butterfly wings.
Thank you, Annie. I'm glad my comment landed okay with you. It's just that It occurred to me later, after reading through my own (previous) post, that I had never in my life told anyone a draft was "pretty awful." It suddenly seemed very inappropriate--and to say those words to George, of all people! It's funny that you would write to me that comment about what we might think when reading someone's work ("don't you know what a story looks like?") because only a couple of hours ago, I found myself reminding a writer that the reason his story wasn't working was because he'd more or less forgotten the "story" part. He was writing a feeling, not a story. Once I told him that, he completely agreed. It seems sometimes we have to learn the same things over and over again, all of us.
Mary, I want to be your friend IRL. Have you heard that a lot from fellow Story Clubbers? I wonder how many emails George gets each week pleading for your personal email.
it's a love fest around here! Let's just call this real life! xo
GS creates this wonderful freeing free for all place that we can write what we think as it hits us vs the "Oh, Zeus, how do we not offend our leader" type of biz that stultifies. Hera knows, I've posted way too much of my own stuff here & it's all good🌷Mary.
Your wheels always hit the runway^^
Those permutations are necessary. The butterfly didn’t come out of the egg like that. Maybe we can’t really define what takes place within the cocoon. The result speaks for itself. (I love this caterpillar / butterfly analogy.)
All this is so great, Mary. Playing to play here, Boss!
I hope you can look at your "dumb remark" as the path to getting to "magical seeds," which is such an extraordinary way to describe what we hope to do.
i like this way of looking at things very much! Thanks, Charlie!
Bear with me. I have a point. Today my husband went to fix something that I think is called a sub-woofer. (It's a big boxy thing that's supposed to make everything sound better.) He bought a piece of wire for $ 5.99 and after passionate declarations about the futility of our existence and the uselessness of his efforts (he's Sicilian), he discovered a switch on the front of the receiver that wasn't flipped up. He said he didn't begrudge the $5.99 for the wire because without his fiddling around with the thing, he wouldn't have discovered the issue with the switch--which pretty much describes the process of writing a story.
Exactly!
It's all about the Base^^
Nice. Been there, done that. Subwoofer and all. Much like writing, indeed.
I just had a conversation yesterday with a friend about this very thing. In order to cut the fat off, you need to first create the fat. It's impossible to create the meat without making fat, too. Thanks for the reminder.
George, I think what you have done with this Commcomm sharing is one of the most delightful, insightful deconstructions of human thought and creativity I have ever seen. You could write a whole book forward from this. It’s so interesting to have spent months analyzing completed stories with you, prepping the brain for many of these insights. But seeing your well-honed process in action is priceless, the “ah ha” insights that settle into my own brain of how to walk the path toward creative greatness. Lessons of patience, non judgment of yourself, tapping into the subconscious, plain hard work, time and gestation, intolerance of crap (but in a kind way), belief and faith in your own voice - and that with enough of the above ingredients you can rise to greatness. I have learned so much. Thank you
Thank YOU, Julie.
Ooooh. For many years I have participated in a generative writing group once a week. We write for an hour, together in person or by zoom, and then we share what we've just written, if we wish. The rest of the group says what they liked about the piece, what "resonated for them," in the current lingo. (It's the Amherst Method -- no prescriptive or negative comments.)
When I first joined this writing group years ago, I got sweaty when I read my work out loud. It didn't seem like I had anything interesting to say. After a few years I started to believe that the laughs I heard were genuine and the appreciation was real. The result is, now I know people like my work and I've been published here and there. But it occurs to me...
Maybe writing for an hour *knowing that other people are about to hear it* is holding me back from the kind of exploratory doofdom you describe. Maybe I'm reaching for the low-hanging fruit instead of casting a wider net for proto-riffs, or proto-plasm.
Something to consider.
I'm going to timidly sneak in here, presuming this thread may be dormant, and ask, How do you find these writing groups? Though contrary to your point, I'm craving this kind of engagement and have found the groups I've joined lacking. Probably just bad luck. It has occurred to me after months of reading comments here, that you all are the kind of characters I'm after. Anyone for a spin off?
Really enjoyed this post, particularly this comment: “We are trying, in other words, to go from empty page to masterpiece, in one stroke.” So true. Sometimes, our desire for the first draft to be perfect just drains our creative juices.
It truly does. Sucks the joy out as well.
Most often, for me, it's the fear that I won't be able to go the course.
Same. And how many times do you want to just quit because you think what you’ve written is trash?
The greatest piece of writing advice ever; don't become "stuck" in the first draft - allow yourself and your stories to grow, shift and bend the way a sprout must transform into a tree.
Writing makes me go mad!! I know I won't magic stroke the first draft into a masterpiece, but my ego and mind say differently. I get bored after the first attempt, yet I can't purge the idea that I must write! Suspending my ego about what I write, even for a little bit, is like suspending my dentist anxiety. Yet I can't stop thinking about writing! Maddening. I have faith that someday I'll believe in the process. Hope? I have something, that's for sure. Arg....
It’s hard to have enough faith to keep going. I am trying to lower my expectations, but not necessarily my standards.
definitely lower your standards as well. (On early drafts.)
I like those Rick Rubin quotes. To me, that’s writer’s block-- when I won’t let myself play and be loose because I worry I’ll be a doofus. A doof.
Cut loose like a doofus, another runner in the night!
Hilarious! It could be our motto.
ha!
i hate the doofus worry.
Put on the dunce cap and write!
I was thinking of saving standards for final drafts (if such things even exist) and keeping expectations down with some kind of anti-expectatories!
OK, I'm a slow one. Throughout Story Club I've struggled, experimented and generally worked at wrapping my head around this approach of near radical revision; this going over and over, on a micro level the sentences and inner workings of a story until it's clean and expressive as a human bone found in the desert. It could feel circular to me, a bit wankey though every once in awhile revelatory. However, between the Commcomm draft postings and listening on the Podre pod cast I finally caught on to something I'm sure everyone else has cottoned onto long ago. This whole approach is founded on waiting. You write something and then you wait . . . and listen. Not a passive waiting for some non-existent godot but for those quiet inner voices to start speaking - and encouraging them to do so, even sparking them to do so, by actively going over and over and making all these micro changes. It gives me sense, the more detached sense that I am no longer the writer; that I am waiting and watching and experimenting after that visceral burst that first birthed a story. Let the dofus have his day and then let the finer tuned and intelligent crowd take over. To make a really bad pun it's like doing all the messy living and then putting yourself in the Bardo to look back and muse.
Exactly right, Stephen. "wait...and listen...for those quiet inner voices to start speaking."
You are not slow. The "going over and over" that George does as he waits--new to me, as well. Though I've done the same (endless tinkering), I've never thought of it as a kind of playfully waiting. Of allowing. I've thought of it more as a "this is so frustrating" game. So, changing the way I perceive it is very helpful.
More Rick Rubin (all of these that I'm posting are from his book on creativity (The Creative Act), which I (obviously) loved):
"When it comes to the creative process, patience is accepting that the majority of the work we do is out of our control. We can’t force greatness to happen. All we can do is invite it in and await it actively."
Also: "Epiphanies are hidden in the most ordinary of moments…. A dedication to the practice of showing up on a regular basis is the main requirement."
Yes, I liked the Rubin book but was surprised by it. I knew Rick from his music production career and his pod cast Broken Record (the one with Neil Young especially good). So surprised by his more generally opening up to all creative endeavors.
I just ordered the book; thanks Mary g!
i hope you enjoy it!
Waiting is a clever way to look at those moments when ideas bubble up from the unconscious. If I have been writing, revising, working on the story, I feel like the story and characters come to life inside me. Frequently, I may be making dinner, taking a walk, doing something unrelated to writing, and suddenly a word, clause, or sentence will strike me, and I'll run to the computer to write it down. And, as Mr. Saunders says, being obsessive helps.
Exactly. I’m sure all of us who attempt fiction recognizes this. Good reason to always carry pencil and paper.😎
For fiction, non-, and anything in between, I never go anywhere, including room to room, without a bunch of index cards & a couple of those cheap pens they hand out at the bank. I've constructed whole stories, even long-form projects, by piecing together the jottings on those index cards. Index cards have the advantage of being just thick enough to stand out from the store receipts & cocktail napkins & deposit tickets where notes can also be recorded but then more likely lost. And the cheap pens help make the writing less precious. Which makes it more fluid. Which makes it easier to tell the crap from the good stuff. I think it was Thurber who said he was never not writing, that writers really are never not writing. I think he was right.
“…a long steady run of quiet desperation, with occasional hope-blips.” That says it all. We don’t just need skill and vision, but just as important, loads of fortitude while persevering.
George, how do you negotiate with that protective ego when you find that it’s in the room with you and asking it politely to leave doesn’t work? My hunch is that it’s a working relationship--between the generative and the perfectionist parts--that improves over a long period of time as your overall draft count goes up. But say you’ve set aside an hour one evening to work, and whether because of the short time constraint or whatever other subconscious reasons, the Critic won’t go away. What do you do? I think I’ve found some healthier alternatives lately but I’m curious what your approach is.
Hi Delia - I sometimes think "just type" is not bad advice. No filter, for as long as you can manage. Or even just...20 percent less filter. And part of that is knowing that, of course, you'll come back later and clean things up. I used to have a joke about a writer having two hats: Anal Expulsive and Anal Retentive. The writing process is the constant switching of these hats, sometimes even within the same sentence. :)
That's an important post, and a good one. It IS all about how the mind works. The subconscious plays an enormous part in writing and editing. Think about the nuggets that turn up when you write without thinking for a stretch. Who the hell wrote that? Pretty poetic/prophetic/deeper than you might normally go. Is writing and editing much different than what happens in our own mind all day long? We obsess about something for hours in "our mind". But if we were to stop and strip away all the chaff, drop all the story that ultimately isn't real, there the good story is. Three words could define the universe in a universal way, an accessible way. Maybe two. Great post, George.
I've seen too many discussions these days devolve into a debate about ChatGPT, and I don't want to hijack Story Club. But since people have raised the question tonight of whether AI "creativity" can match human creativity, I thought I'd share this Saunders-centric experiment.
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I wrote this next paragraph (just now) as the opening of a modern American short story with some themes or motifs that are similar to what George might use. This is my writing, the human Annie Bee:
My friend Ed told me that "all low-paying work is boring, or meaningless, or both if we're lucky." This is how I feel about my job at the Food Bank of Saratoga Springs. Did you know people will be so cheesy that they will donate an opened box of Sonic Zoomloops (now with *real* fruit particles), because they didn't like it, thinking that they are very excellent people for making this gift, and at the same time, other people of the same species will get huffy if you offer them an opened box of Sonic Zoomloops because they feel they are better than that. In other words, we all think we're better than something else.
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Then I asked ChatGPT to Saundersize my original paragraph. Here is what it came up with.
AI text:
My pal Ed once said that any job that pays a pittance is either mind-numbingly tedious, or devoid of purpose, or both if you're lucky. This, regrettably, is how I view my employment at the Food Bank of Saratoga Springs. Have you ever encountered individuals who will donate an open box of Sonic Zoomloops (now with bona fide fruit particles) simply because they dislike it? They do so believing that they are outstanding citizens for making such a contribution, while others of the same ilk will become incensed if you present them with an open box of Sonic Zoomloops, convinced that they are superior to that sort of thing. The truth is that we all believe we are superior to something."
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Did the Chatbot make my text sound more like George? I don't think so. Did the Chatbot even improve my prose? Again, I don't think so. I think my words (messy and first drafty as they are) have a lively rhythm and a punchy everyman tone that the Chatbot can't match. The Chatbot makes sense, yes. But does it swing and sway ? I think not.
We don't have to worry quite yet AI will steal our magic.
Sampled the wrong computer^^
The Chatbot sounds like it is trying really hard to be a superior writer.
Calling frequently on a thesaurus to just... change words...
“Fizzles out....” is, I think, Neil Young’s intro to his “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” off 4-Way Street. I will say of GS, "you don't want to play mumblety peg with him. He'll steal your leg."
Yes, of course! Love that album. Thanks for that.
Nice trip back to 4-way street, Andy. I wonder how few of us have ever played mumblety peg? The rules can be confusing. "Don't let it bring you Down" is a masterpiece for reflection. Good call.
Neil is such an intense lyricist, not to mention musician! Was it Stills stealing Crosby’s leg while Nash and Young were harmonizing?
Thanks, Brian. “You’re quicker than most human beings, and, sometimes, I forget.”
Hi George, this is a late comment on Maria Popova's essay, which I finally read.
I love your sentence: "Evil and dysfunction (or at least obnoxiousness) occur in proportion to how solidly a person believes that his projections are correct and energetically acts upon them."
SImilarly, but from a positive perspective, you said, "...We have to deny ourselves the comfort of always being the same person, one who arrived at an answer some time ago and has never had any reason to doubt it. " It seems to me that the person who allows for uncertainty, and who practices reconsideration, may be looked upon as a humble person, one who practices humility, who is open to the world. And the obnoxious (or worse) person does not practice humility. I bring this up because I think humility and humble are "dirty" words for some, or at least misunderstood. For me, practicing humility is the ultimate.
I agree, Bill, and thanks for this - the school of radical humility. What happens to me is, I start feeling proud of how humble I am. 🥴
I definitely have that problem, as demonstrated by my note. Thanks for your reply.
Not at all!