David Bergen 2

For me as an apprentice writer, the relief I found in reading Here the Dark was the very misgivings I mentioned above. 

Alice (there she is again!) Munro is so consistently magnificent (I'm running out of adjectives) it has been difficult for me to imagine ever writing anything as good as even my least favourite story by her. But in this book are stories of a quality that I can see myself attaining some long day from now if I work at it.

Not stories like his. He is definitely a literary writer -- and sometimes this strikes me as unnecessarily contrived. Oooh, see how sophisticated this is. But sometimes it's a wonderful structure. His stories often do not end in a finished resolution. It's as though we have experienced part of complex lives and relationships just like real life. But they have not been tied up into a neat bow. Just like real life.

So, the counsel of this developing writer is to read mostly good stuff, don't try to copy it (that will never work well) but glory in the realization that our own good work, accessing our own muse, is possible. 

Persistence, even (or possibly especially) in the face of lousy results, is one key. This I know for certain. Let us all, as a writing group colleague says, "Keep writing!"

David Bergen

I have just finished reading a collection of short stories together with the Novella "The Dark" in a book of the same name. This is an author I intend to read more of.

Not every story here is A+ -- a couple of them I was not fond of at all but maybe that was me not him -- but some were excellent.

One of the things it made me realize was the strength of the very best writers is that the work they choose to share with us is almost always excellent. Never mind. No doubt he's young.

And the fact is, I can hardly wait to read another collection of his work. 

Alice Munro, Runaway and Possibilities

 

When I finished reading Love of a Good Woman a while ago, my thought about all the stories was that they were excellent. A+. Take this one book if stranded on a desert island. There was at least one story that required courage to re-read. Just so powerful. A++.
 
I decided to read another collection, Runaway. And my reaction in places was just as strong. Goodness she can write. It makes me feel privileged and small just to be allowed to join Alice Munro in her stories. One story in particular, ‘Powers’, took me over. I’m not sure how else to say that. 
 
Apart from my experience as a reader, her stories inform me as a writer. When I see and feel the artistry she brings to her work, I can also see and feel that there are more possibilities in writing than I am yet unable to envision let alone capture for myself. It’s not that I will ever be as ‘good’ as Alice Munro (In 2001, The Atlantic said, “Alice Munro is the living writer most likely to be read in a hundred years.”) It is that I have my own miles to go; and that, if I keep working at it, my own journey is both unpredictable and possible.
 
Alice Munro didn’t set herself the goal of being a short story writer. She wanted to write ‘sprawling novels”. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/a-quiet-genius/302366/
 
While here I am tripping around on the ground on my mundane options (Do I begin the story with a bang? Chronological order? Narrator intrusion? First person? Nonlinear?) I have learned a few things along the way that have made me better. I look back on some of my early stories and think, “Whatever made me think that would work?” I react to other stories with, “That was an interesting idea. Good try, Bob. Might even be fixable.”
 
Reading artists with strong individual voices, such as Alice Munro, can encourage us to strive for our own possibilities. Ones we can’t even now picture.

Well That Was Quick

 

Despite Oscar Wilde's admonition that "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic,” I have a 'sincere' poem that I also think (thought?) is pretty good. 

I reviewed it with two writing groups and made some changes. (Mostly reducing the scope and increasing the narrative flow -- the major things I usually need to correct. Then I submitted it to a contest sponsored by a magazine one (meaning me and every other right-thinking person) would have thought would be open to a "Grandpa" theme. It was not listed even in the also-rans. 

Then, I submitted it to a few other (less likely by far) places, fingers crossed. Nope. 

Most recently I searched for other destinations listed on various "where to submit" websites as respectable good folks. And submitted "Grandpa" to them. One -- who describes itself as a Quarterly Literary Journal -- rejected my submission in less than one day. A new personal record.

OK, so the poem wasn't "literary" (meaning, I think, anguished people didn't suffer unspeakable tragedies with no real resolution). OK, I get it.

In the words of Sylvia Plath, "I love my rejection slips. They show me I try." I am currently waiting for the other responses.

I am reminded that one publisher once old Emily Dickinson that her poems were  "quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties," and, "generally devoid of true poetical qualities.”

So I'm not Emily Dickinson. Not by a long shot. Or anywhere in this universe.

But a form rejection in less than one day.