☞ Finds
George Saunders spent most of his adult life not as a writer. There are some highlights from an interview he did with Livewire at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon.
“The default mode is writing stories.”
“No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception.”–Albert Einstein
“Don’t be too sure about what you’re doing, so the reader feels involved.”
“You have this incredible urge to love and be love, and yet everything you love is conditional.”
“Fiction can be a way of reaching out to someone and saying, I know it’s hard.”
What is the best non-writing activity to become a better writer?
“Reading. You have to imagine there is this silo over your head, and you’re putting all kinds of stuff in there, and you have to trust that all this stuff will find its way into your artistic body and then at some moment of intuition, you’re not consciously doing it, it’s going to help you.”
How do you know if a story idea is worthwhile?
“My assumption is, if it comes to you without a lot of attachment, then it’s a good idea. And then you have to wait for it to come out of its ‘plane of original conception’ and that’s kind of an act of faith. What it means, when you’re locked up in a story, that’s your story saying to you, ‘you’re underestimating me. You think you know what I’m about!’ You wait it out and in time, the story will start to lead you. So assume it’s a good idea, and anything that looks like a mistake is a way of leading you to higher ground.”
How do we keep that magic?
“The magic means, write things you have strong visceral opinions about. So much of writing is reacting to things you’ve done. If writing isn’t fun, how do you know where to go? Even if it’s serious.”
See the Rules of the road for writers