everyone says everything about so much bore in fiction. who wants a narrative when we have words, right? i'm unsure what to think. there's that ongoing saying by the online community: invention, creativity, newness, please nothing story-like much, please: instead of man and woman, let's have a spiral staircase of chairs, a plastic star sky, an unopened ribcage waiting in some silent sea; or at the least the consciousness of one running through obsessive thoughts, in some lonely house with locked doors, no windows; otherwise a fairy-tale or fable told realistically. so i stress a bit, get lost, confused: i don't write that, and though i enjoy reading that, that, and that, i like writing closer to what i see everyday (i won't say 'closer to what's real', of course). there are good minds out there, but i don't understand, still, ongoingly, why quiet stories, socalled 'realistic' stories, stories with people, with everyday, get pushed about. these are created worlds, just as created as any 'unconventional' thingything. sometimes subtlity gets disremembered purposefully, maybe. this is me convincing myself of myself. i need to get out of this screen into a book again.
this has been partly caused by a pulled calf muscle.
9 comments:
I hear ya on this one--seems to go w/ poetry, too. Hope life is good. Tri-Cities is kinda hot but not too bad. Kinda the same, pretty much.
Take a break from reading online. There's a lot of that stuff online--more than elsewhere. Some of it's good, but mostly it's a weak, lazy, or unskilled attempt to deal with some problem that isn't well defined.
4) Leaven the piece with some merchandise (figurative) you don’t particularly care about but that seems to you odd, intriguing, curious, baffling, quirky. Attach this material to your characters.
5) Do not use the above to rationalize disconnected, ersatz, or unrelated oddball debris. “I’d like to talk to you but there’s a giant in my room” isn’t the answer to any narrative question.
Course, some of these folks are either trying to do away with narrative questions entirely, as you say, or they do not realize they are offering answers to questions they have failed to grapple. Honestly, I sometimes think it's pure self-indulgence. There's a masturbatory quality about it. It can be fun to watch someone masturbate, I admit, but most people just aren't fucking talented enough to make it so, and that's the truth. They're like the disciples whose names you can't remember, the ones who fail. "Fail" is my new word, used in the traditional sense, or as follows: that story is fail. Epic fail: tremendous failure.
Been reading Cormac McCarthy. You were into him for awhile, yeah? Read Pretty Horses and The Crossing. Gets slow sometimes, but there's something effortless about his storytelling. He's quite good. You think his lyricism and philosophy is a bit overblown sometimes, but it never really feels forced in there. It's just there. Good stuff. Oh, read The Road, too, a few months back.
Some of the writing puts me in mind of this type of thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEYY-Wl_VMk
I don't "understand" most online stories. They don't "do it" for me. (not mocking you alan)I'm with you and G. Take a break, or quit online stories altogether. I've found life away from online work much more productive and satisfying. I mean, with all the great, classic work out there to read, who has time to read some three week old, two-draft effort? No thanks. I'm reading Wells Tower's book and Absalom, Absalom! right now, which, of course, is unfair to Wells.
hey Clay, yeah, i can see it with poetry too. summer goes, here, humidly and everything good, even when it's not. you teaching over summer at etsu?
Greg man, yes, those two on the primer are just wanted i needed reminded of. thank you. if you get a chance, McCarthy's Suttree is my favorite of his. it's long, though, and almost nothing happens, but i think it's some kind of masterpiece. very close to a perfect summer read, too. it's like the sun also rises mixed with ulysses and then set in the south. analogy's suck. epic fail. i like that.
Kinsley, a break needed, probably, but i doubt i'll abandon online. i've found too many good writers, who i do my best to recommend: Laura van den Berg and Matt Bell, for instance. many others, but agreed, there is a lot of laziness and slop.
Yep, teaching Comp. online. I still don't know about all the online classes, but it's nice in the summer because I don't have to go in everyday. I saw a post for jobs at a CC in Spartanburg, too:
http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=175376118
I drove by Volcanoes today, and it's all gone. Guess I'll have to wait until the flea market to get a good taco.
Randomness of this post is about an 8, I think, on a scale of ten.
thanks for the link to the job. actually i just got a job as a copy editor and freelance web writer, but wouldn't mind having a class or two, just to stay in academia a bit. feel like once i get gone i may be gone.
and yes, yes, so sad about volcanoes. probably better for my arteries though.
I was cleaning out one of my email boxes and stumbled across this thing i received a few months ago during my job search. Thank god these people didn't hire me.
They never contacted me, and I emailed them a few weeks after the interview, and this is the response I received. Anyhow, it's sort of funny, and I like how it brings this comment thread together (jobs + fail). This is pasted exactly as it was received, minus my name and the email addresses:
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: 교양영어홍보 [email address deleted]
To: [email address deleted]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 4:14:03 PM
Subject: (General English Department)
Dear [First & Last Name Deleted]
I'm so sorry to this imformation.
you fail to our general english department's interview.
sorry.
Sincerely, General english program, Myunghee.
excellent, especially the lone 'sorry' there. i may start signing off all my emails like that.
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