George Saunders: what writers do when they write (2017) | Hacker News Reader

George Saunders: what writers do when they write (2017)

theguardian.com

39 pointsbenbreen11 comments

I really liked this. It resonates with the way that I write software.

Way back in the dawn times, I wanted to be an artist. That never worked out, but the process that I learned, has informed my software development.

The best projects are the ones that I don't know how to do[0].

When I write software, it is highly iterative. The project I'm working on now, is like that. It has taken a long time, because none of us really knew, exactly, what it would be. It is now in the final stretch, and looks good. Damn good. It never would have gotten there, in a corporate environment. I would have been forced to ship garbage, months ago, and that would have (definitely) flamed out. It may, still, but we won't be wondering if it was because we took shortcuts.

I call my process "Paving the Bare Spots."[1] Works a charm, but bothers those with overly-exercised sphincters.

[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

[1] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-travel...

Ha. Like your style. Whats the software you’re creating?

Can't get too specific, yet, but it's an iOS app that combines a simple social media-style relationship graph with a location-based DB of services.

Saunders released a new book at the start of the year which I've been meaning to pick up: titled A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life[1], it's like a creative writing class centered around the Russian short story taught by Saunders.

1. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53487237-a-swim-in-a-...

Definitely pick it up. One of the more unexpectedly profound books I’ve ever read. His tactics for dissecting stories are relevant far beyond just writing. He also somehow manages to hit the right tone while exploring the short stories, engaging the reader on complex topics while simultaneously not becoming boring or pedantic

Do I need to first read the Russian short stories before picking up the Saunders book?

> But there is something wonderful in watching a figure emerge from the stone unsummoned, feeling the presence of something within you, the writer, and also beyond you – something consistent, wilful, and benevolent, that seems to have a plan, which seems to be: to lead you to your own higher ground.

As a student of spiritual work, it sounds like the author is pointing to an actual felt experience. It’s very much possible (and common among serious inner-work students) to dis-identify from our usual sense of self and instead feel a “presence” or a sense of “being”, where our body takes actions without us a experiencing ourselves as the “doer” of those actions. It’s as if the universe (or God for the religiously inclined) is acting through us and we are simply a field of awareness that happens to include the body and mind and our whole nervous system.

This article seems to be a precursor to his recent work, "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain", a book that analyzes some short stories written by great Russian authors, in which he also expounded on several opinions expressed in this article.

I really like his method of analyzing short stories, very practical, not too much -isms.

I recommend the author's book "In Persuasion Nation", a collection of short stories, mostly a kind of near-future sci-fi satirizing excesses of commercialism.

Here is a story that made me pick up the book after I heard it on the radio: My Flamboyant Grandson":

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/01/28/my-flamboyant-...

I've always wanted to write fiction but have always been stumped because my plot ideas all sound lame to me.

Reading this was inspirational.

Just go for it! Maybe it’s not so lame as you think.

Or take inspiration from the author’s epiphany mentioned in the first paragraph :

“I carried that image around for the next 20-odd years, too scared to try something that seemed so profound, and then finally, in 2012, noticing that I wasn’t getting any younger, not wanting to be the guy whose own gravestone would read “Afraid to Embark on Scary Artistic Project He Desperately Longed to Attempt”, decided to take a run at it, in exploratory fashion, no commitments.”

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