Writers Wednesday: Some Notes

I have a grand total of two paid subscriptions to fiction writers on Substack: Ottessa Moshfegh and George Saunders.

Both of these writers got me back into the habit of reading short stories. I only discovered them while I was researching genres for the 2nd season of The Journals of Bayliss.

Prior to that my short story history was limited to Raymond Carver, John Fante, a little Kafka - and a few things a girlfriend of mine wrote back in the 80s.

I was circling around Southern Gothic. Then, wanting to break the Bayliss chains completely, I wandered into the world of Magical Realism.

Then I started mixing and matching.

Southern Gothic Magical Realism.

Meta-fiction.

Auto-fiction.

Looking, I guess, for a way in.
Or, for some kind of permission from the works of others.

I began with a few great books by southern writers: Flannery O’Connor’s collections of short stories (and Wise Blood), Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, and Barry Hannah.

Then, I heard the audiobook of Ottessa’s highly irreverent Homesick for Another World.

That broke it all open.

Why? Uncertain.

But they seemed so unsettling and so damn intimate. So fly on the wall. Beautifully sick and consumed characters, self-deceiving in just the right way. It took me into grimy worlds and lives that were lonely, tragic, in love and lust, addicted to various substances and ways of being.

Somehow, after reading her book, I found the courage to jump into the deep end.

Unprepared. Unknowledgeable.
Trusting that the characters, themes, and my own weird-ass compass would lead somewhere. I jumped in. Navigating impossible situations that put my characters in stranger and stranger circumstances.

Then, George Saunders came along in the middle of that fevered stretch of writing. He was like a curative. A companion for the rest of the journey.

I first heard him when Swimming in a Pond in the Rain was released. I was struck by his compassion and by the way he spoke about writing. His appreciative love for the Russian short stories that shaped him - and his insights into them - were contagious. I immediately bought the book.

And I think reading that book helped me find an ending for The Journals.

Over at Story Club with George Saunders, he has a vibrant community of writers and would-be writers. Much of what he does is to unpack short stories with them, as he did with the Russian book.

In the last few weeks, they have been studying Indian Camp by Ernest Hemingway. A jarring, haunting, and challenging tale that I had read only a few months ago. I encourage you all to read it if you haven’t. It’s very short, but escalates quickly and left me both breathless and very emotional by the end.

Whew.

I basically wrote this entire article just to highlight this one quote of George’s from the last exploration of the final section of Indian Camp:

“It took me many years to realize that what a great writer does is….he writes great. And that involves invention and shaping and omission, so that the result is a thing of beauty that may or may not have anything to do with the facts, but has everything to do with greater truths, including the truth of esthetic shapeliness.” - George Saunders

My daughter and I were having a talk about how on earth to write about family or people you love or, perhaps not, or desire, or wish ill of…who are still alive.

Others have come before you. Others have written about their fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends and enemies.

Everyone wants to be thought well of.
Or, written well of.

But if you’ve got something to say, say it.

Change the names.
Shift the genre.
Omit what needs omitting.

Tell yourself it’s fiction if you must.

But say it.

---

Thanks for checking in.

Here’s a great interview with George Saunders hosted by Rick Rubin.

And Ottessa Moshfegh interviewed by - hit it - John Waters!

Otessa #2 interview Homesick For Another World