Bob's Write from the Start: Alice Munro, Runaway and Possibilities

Bob's Write from the Start

Bob’s Write from the Start, a blog sharing the roller coaster ride of this renewing writer’s feelings and actual experiences, began March 2017. That January, I began with a two-sentence contribution to a local Writing Group. I am now a Guest Columnist for a local paper and have contributed to small and online magazines. My comments for new and renewing writers? Start by starting. Join a writing group. You are unique but not alone. Once you start work, you will not be in Kansas anymore.

Friday, February 12, 2021

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.

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About Me

Name: Bob's Write From The Start

Location: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada

Born, raised and living in Sarnia, Ontario, Bob Boulton began writing poetry, short stories and humorous articles for his high school newspaper in the period just after dinosaurs roamed the earth. His article on the mysteries of the Chess Club was particularly well-received. Bob’s excruciatingly naive teenage sonnet was published with positive mention in the high school yearbook. In University he wrote pretty much indecipherable essays on Existentialism and Phenomenology. Then, early in his working career, Bob also wrote short feature articles in the now-defunct (not his fault) Weston York Times. For this, he was paid $5.00 per article, which didn’t quite cover his transportation and parking costs. Then after a short break of thirty-five or forty years as an executive and leadership coach, Bob reactivated his passion for writing. The alternatives he considered were learning to yodel or trying to play the bagpipes. Bob’s loving and supportive family voted enthusiastically, and quickly, for writing.