March 9th, 2020 - Night Swim

Dear TNY,

Thank our dear Lord Baby Jesus or Ganesh or Vishu or Turtles all the motherfucking way down for how short “Night Swim” is.

You know what was interesting?  The swim.  It was real.  Real people do that sort of shit.  Something happened.  That was nice.  There was a sense of tension.  Not if she would die or not, obviously (as she is in the front seat of a car in the future).  Just, tension.  Dark.  Water.  Night.  Nearly naked (Question from a dude:  Why do women mostly go no bra but keep their panties on?  I’ve always wondered this.  Why not go full naked?  Genuinely curious).  Some confusing shit about men in her life being present at the lake (minus the confusion, which was…confusing).  I still don’t know if she fucked either of them or anyone else because the descriptions around her exiting the water were also confusing.  Confusing how?  It was, like that rest of that section, overwrought.

So that starts the bad.  This piece is overwrought in places.  An examples:

…she could feel the alcohol swell under the surface of her skin…

Now, TNY, as you may have guessed, I drink a lot.  And I can tell you that this is a sensation I do not believe to be real.  This, to me, sounds like the author is trying to be fancy.  Oooooh, so specific and fancy.  Now, just because I haven’t felt this, does that mean that no one has?  No.  But who gives a shit if it’s so fucking obscure, noticeable, and batshit?  It throws the reader out of the story and removes yet one more Jenga block from the tower of credibility. Similarly, “The water slipped past her…” sentence, which you, TNY, used as your pull quote, seems to be so precious that no one noticed that it’s not. Because who fucking doesn’t know what swimming looks like? Fuckers.

And there were a bunch more chunks like this, but I’m gonna refrain.  I will, however, bring this one in:

She was driving Ben to a friend’s house, and this added journey was the cause of some irritation in her day…

First sentence.  Three characters.  Two are not named.  And none of them have any sort of characterizing at all.  Well, other than the “She” had irritation, which, when you find out why, “she had much to do”, is like…who cares?  Motherfucker, who doesn’t have much to do?  You think I’m happy I’m writing this letter right now?  No, bitch.  I’ve got much to do too.

I’m so over these fucking incomplete stories.  Like, OH MY GOD SHE WANTS THE TURKEY INSIDE HER!  I don’t care.  Make me care.  That’s your job as the writer.  That’s your job as the magazine.  I should not bring my own care just because you printed this story, TNY.  A reputation does not make Art.  Art must stand independent.  And all you seem to put out these days are stories with no ending and/or agenda pieces designed, from what I can tell, to ensure literature is more diverse.  But if the art ain’t Art, you should be ashamed to publish it no matter who wrote it or what the fucking story is about. Beating a dead horse here: READ THE MOTHERFUCKERS BLIND.

I often forget that education, self esteem, awesome without trying, vocation, status, locale, social circles, etc do not equal intelligence, taste, or wisdom.  But fuck my face, when you put a whole host of middle, upper-middle, and higher classes together as a group, make sure they all have “degrees” from “prestigious universities” (that anyone with money can buy these days, or go into debt over), you can sell them a lot of fucking magazines if you convince them that what they read in there is “the best”. Pied Piper ass shit right there.

I nearly shit my pants earlier today while working on my van.  The gurglepots came on strong and I had to double-time back to the house such that I could butt-piss.  Then some sludgy finish and I jumped in the shower afterward.  And I can say that, specifically for your fiction, the garbage you publish on the regular is lesser in every way than my Taco Bell evacuation.

Oh, Ben, the character, he was okay.  I didn’t have to hear about all his fucking emotional baggage so that was nice. Especially his unexplained wrist slashing incident that comes across as sentimental and heavy-handed.

Later.

Nick