October 18th, 2021 - Not Here You Don't
Dear TNY,
“Not Here You Don’t” for this Monday’s reading pleasure. What to say, what to say.
And it ain’t bad, per se. Or good either. I have positive things to say so I’ll start with those.
The West is a character in this piece, whole-up and bleak, as it should be. Coming from you, it’s really nice to see something that even winks at what Rick Bass sees out here beyond the Mississip’. And I appreciate all the little trinkets along the way, as well. The Air Medal. The morphine button. The arrowheads under the washing lid. These sorts of things go a long way to characterize who we get to see in this story and how we see them. I particularly liked how the landowner got his comeuppance for being greedy (I don’t care if it was his land, he can eat all the dicks). And I like that we didn’t exactly see that coming. Overall, I would say this piece had good colors and tones, all of which were matching and complementing along the way.
The negative then. I don’t think the narrative was strong enough. So, we had some good language. It was readable and not infuriating. But the narrative that carried us along was not strong enough to create transcendence. And by that I mean, why does any of this matter? Was it pretty? Sure, in parts. But who gives a fuck, you know? Where is the story here? I don’t know as it was pretty flat. Still, this story is an upgrade for you, TNY. Because, these days, you rarely even try to do a strong narrative whose trajectory is human empathy, and when you do, you generally fail because the writing itself is academic and beige. So, you fixed the latter, but the former is still important. A good short story hits on all cylinders. This doesn’t. But it doesn’t in a way that isn’t displeasing. It’s the kind of story that I wish had a better narrative because I liked what was happening for the most part. The kind of story I would spend a lot of time on in a workshop because I wanted the writer to get it to the place it could go. A good place.
What the fuck do I know, man. I might be just as lost in real life as you are in literature. Maybe that’s the problem. My real life is boffed so I lean in to these stories and letters for meaning. Maybe your real life is so good it doesn’t fucking matter to you how badly you are drydicking literature.
As far as life theories go, I have a few (I’m sure you know I have opinions, so it shouldn’t be a surprise I have some on life). And one I keep coming back to, over and over, even though I didn’t write it, is: The way home is forward. So that’s what I’m going to do. Keep moving forward. Sometimes in the face of fear. Sometimes directly contrary to the voices in my head that ask for safety and peace. And sometimes despite your disregard for the literary arts. And that’s that, you know? That’s fucking that.
So I’m going to gird these loins and drag this shit onward. And one day, I’ll be stuffed into a wall in a broken-down homestead. And that’s okay too. Be true to thyself. I wish, as the platform for today’s fiction, you could be true to the art instead of being driven by advertisements, peer pressure, industry requests, and what’s going to light up the twitter feed. But the reality is that you are a business and you hired business people to keep doing businessy things. I was watching some Youtube vid the other day about how piano is represented in film, and the guy was pointing out how one of Ray Charles’ first hits was written for him by the head studio executive. And the guy narrating this vid, he said how unusual that would be today, as all the studios are run by business people and not creatives. And that these businesses, like yourself, are trying to find someone to copy the someones that are doing well in the industry, not trying to foster new work. There is inherent risk in the new, and that’s vital for creative work, but scary as a business practice. But you knew that already, which is why you don’t pick the new. You keep picking the safe. The “Blahbity McBlahberson has a book coming out in the Fall”. And you wonder why people don’t read.
Speaking of reading, I love when people say they are voracious readers and then I ask them what they read and they say [insert anything from today’s NYT’s Bestsellers list"] and I know they are fucking clueless.
Speaking of trying to copy what someone else has done, it was fucking unclassy of you to jump on that “Bad Art Friend” bandwagon, especially considering that those two dumbshits don’t deserve the attention they already got. I mean, could they be more petty and needy simultaneously? But you read that and thought, let’s give them more pages. Yay! Just two more boring, self-important dickturds fighting over a broken toy in the sandbox, unable to turn and see the whole fucking world out there, embarrassingly beautiful without even trying. But I’m SURE that your readership is very interested as they are all in the same sandbox, blinders aplenty, saying, “Mmm, yes. I can relate.” A fucking war crime, what literature has become.
So, after that ramble, I’ll say good-day. Please keep this kind of story coming, but I say that knowing next week it’ll be a gay Vietnamese writer in New York trying to decide what couch to buy, no mention of what they have ever done for a living (but that their parents worked 18hr days in a sweatshop and never complained, but were horrifically judgmental), and this “writer”, unnecessarily complaining the whole goddamn time because life is difficult and no one wants their new novel and their agent isn’t working hard enough and why does getting good coffee in NY have to be so goddamn hard and even after yoga and meditation for three months straight they just can’t get inspired anymore, especially with regard for speech content for their Pulitzer ceremony.
Meanwhile, real writers are writing real things that are gritty and lovely and you are fucking missing it because of hubris.
Same fucking same. Week in. Week out.
Nick
