December 16th, 2019 - Sevastopol

Dear TNY,

It’s boat launch Monday, I’m kind of hungover, I smell like lignum vitae and bad breath, and this “Sevastopol” story is a pig!

I read the whole story.  This was a story that I would not normally read all the way through, but I was criticized recently for not giving the stories a chance (more on that in the coming weeks).  So I can confidently say that I was able to marinate in how this story is a weird story in which nothing really happens and that’s not a strength. That’s bad, m’kay?

The good:  His teeth are small and jagged…

That’s it.  Just that phrase. I enjoyed it.

The bad:  I mean, there are a million little queues in this that seem to illuminate that the creator of this work believes that nothing really happens in stories, so the subconscious effect is that nothing really happens in this story.  I believe the opposite to be true.  In great stories, something fucking happens.  Not necessary a car accident or a bullet to the brain.  But there’s a shift, generally in the MC.  Or at least the opportunity for a shift.  Either way, the second author, the reader (the true closer on this and every other story), he or she shifts.  Something happens to them.  Like when you read “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” by Wells Tower and you get kicked in the goddamn chest at the end.

But this story?  Nope.  Waste.  Of.  Time.  Another story about a fucking writer trying to write who never really gets around to writing anything of value (also, I bag on this trope, but the longest piece I’ve ever written is about writers, but it’s not about writing, it’s actually about how pigfucking magazines like yourself have lost the idea of capital A art, which is living and capturing life, so the characters abandon writing and live; it’s got strippers and drugs and love and…fuck it, you don’t care; still, I believe it’s self indulgent and egotistical of me or anyone else to write about writers and writing and I’m ashamed).

I did like how much they drank in this story.  Like I said, kinda hungover today.

We are coming up on our two year anniversary, TNY.

Love you, babe.

Nick