Happy
How George Saunders calmed me down
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I wrote a short story this afternoon, for a new writing group I’ve joined, and I think I like it. And that’s saying a lot. I don’t know if I’ve ever liked a short story I’ve written. Oh, there have been parts. A sentence, a description, a turn of phrase that I recognize works. But mostly, my feelings about my darlings range from neutral to contemptuous. This time, however, today, I… feel tender toward my piece. And that is different indeed. And I think it can only be ascribed to the advice I read on George Saunders’ Story Club Substack (yes, that George Saunders) that to be better writers, we need to be better people, and that ultimately to be better people involves love. In a nutshell, that’s what he said. And the piece I wrote today, well, it’s all about love. A gripping mother’s love perhaps, a love that may not be entirely healthy perhaps, but love nonetheless, and I think I managed to make both the mother and the daughter complex, nuanced characters, and I think I was was able to show the love between them even as they drove each other crazy. No small feat, I assure you! And even if I’m not quite there yet, I feel I’m on the way with this story.
So, I’m happy. Happy as can be. Something I rarely say. You see, my entire life, just about, has been one of casting about feeling like I should be writing, wanting to write, wondering why I don’t write, wondering what it means when writers don’t write. And of course castigating myself for my obvious lack of discipline. Somehow, in the post from George I read today, he took that away too — that need I have, that compulsion, to beat myself up for not trying hard enough. He spoke of a book called Silences by Tillie Olsen, about “disenfranchised” writers, about writers who face blocks when writing, blocks not always of their own making. As Saunders says, “It’s about the simple fact that some people — some entire classes of people — don’t have the time or the means to work at literature…” In Olsen’s case, it was poverty that blocked her, and the need to work to support four daughters when her husband disappeared. Sure, some super-human artists manage to balance it all — raise kids, make money, care for extended family, AND write the books. But not everyone can pull this off. I ordered Silences immediately.
