TUESDAY
did my annual grad ceremony thing sunday, a praise song for alex barnett, i always look at them as
a motivational speaker thing for mfa grad students and try to inspire them w/it, interrogate some
aspect of literary life and mastery, threw some southern black baptist preaching on it, its all good
and also i wanted to prepare them for alex cause alex take no prisoners, his reading went
really well, his reading stylee enhanced the work and the congregation loved it, its all good:
(if i ever do a riff for geo you will see some of these notes again, i kinda had him in mind for this fearless stuff, redemption too, and humor, etc, considered not using it, saving it for geo, but geos piece will probably go further still, i trust it will be what it needs to be, this one i give to alex barnett: master of the hard things)
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showtime: a praise song for alex barnet
I would like to thank the parents and loved ones who have come to celebrate this day with us, and for the support you have given our students in their quest for literary mastery. I have come here this fine Sunday morning to sing the praises of alexander Barnett.
it has been a honor working w/alex because I like working w/masters, specially those quirky ones with those hidden powers, and alex got bonafied mastery, got that voice thing going, a narrative voice both indelibly classic and uniquely contemporary, perhaps even visionary, a voice uniquely his own
Boy a master of character nuance and complexity, forging profoundly flawed characters riven with an honesty that both breaks the heart and simultaneously exalts it, alex makes us care about some of the diciest characters in literature, cause he do it with humor, humor always sweeten the medecine, and cause he got heart and he got courage, and he doesn't mind venturing forthrightly into the heart of darkness that informs literature at its best, alex is fearless
cause alex deals in redemption and when you dealing in redemption you got to be fearless, cause you carrying a heavy load, you doing the lords work, cause everybody need redemption sometime
everybody got demons, your own very particular demons, have we not, demons that worry at the soul, yes they do lord, you know they do, secrets so crippling we hide them from ourselves, secrets that make us sometimes doubt our humanity, secrets that in many ways define the human condition, and if literature will not dare speak that which is not spoken who will,
literature at its best expresses the inexpressible, where we find ourselves at our most vulnerable, in alexs work nothing is inexpressible,
and its when you have writers willing to do battle on your behalf that literature becomes transcendent
I am in awe of alex’s craft, his courage, sheer fucking fearlessness, his willingness to war w/demons the rest of us flee, his ability to plant redemption in the soul like some johnny appleseed on the page and for that ive come to praise him, I come to praise, oh yeah, I come to praise
o yes o yes, I have come here this fine sunday morning to celebrate and exalt this day, this bittersweet day, w/all these folk I love, this victory of dreams and visions made manifest, this day of ineffable grace, we have come here this fine Sunday morning to praise the word, the almighty and sacred word, to praise and bless this thing we do,
to praise the victory of craft, commitment and dedication this day represents, and to bring blessings on the hard days to come
im gon praise my brother alex Barnett, this fine Sunday morning and while im at it, by god and all that's holy, ima praise you too - may the gods of literature be good to you, may the gods of literature, be good to us all
alex barnet, master of the hard things, do your thing man, come on up here and sing
MONDAY
so, started to clean up the previous post, was working out my production
schedule and its all messy wordage but that was the process so ima leave it
the schedule is now:
this week schoolhouse and china
this weekend RFTW
next week the hoodoo book of flowers, cause thats what i really really want to do
i want a real draft of the hoodoo book of flowers
those other projects RFTW & MR, they cleaning up existing work, if i die w/that
undone the work still good - its the hoodoo book of flowers i got to make exist
RFTW, basically i just want to put that back on the market, so monday it goes to agent
i will keep fiddling w/that endgame as i am moved to do so, same same Mojo Rising
what i desperately need is a viable draft of THBOF when i get on that plane to china,
then its just a matter of redpenning it and i can do that on the gun
okay, im getting redundant, production is like an ongoing negotiation
and if youre going to not be frustrated at the end of a woodshed you
got to be systematic, you got to be focused, got to be disciplined about this
got to work hard and smart - sorry, im caught up in a loop here, im gone
i got to clock some pages
even as i think about it i think schoolhouse, china, even mojorising and rest for the weary
they will all have to be backburnered, ie afternoons and evenings, mornings got to go to
the hoodoo book of flowers
is this a full court press or aint it
im out
rdoc
WEDNESDAY
interesting space, starting to seque out of schoolhouse mode into woodshed mode
not yet totally free of other obligations but im getting there
so im sitting at the sacre desk and my plan is:
rewrite these last 10 pages of Rest for the Weary, my endgame, its not quite doing what i want it to do
and ive been fiddling with it for weeks now, really ready to do this and get this book off my plate
ima give it another week, i got to put that back on the market
the draft of the hoodoo book of flowers
i suspect this will take up most of the summer woodshed, lets say aug 15th i want to have that draft
schoolhouse obligations start around the 20th so the 15th will be cool, thats counting 1 week maymester
course and a month in china, which will fuck with production but last time i maintained a strong production schedule, im still a desperate man, i dont expect any different this year - last year i finally got a groove on
finding teahouses and teagardens as chill out writing spots, other folk were seeing china i was clocking pages
okay now the problem, got an email from deb pollard, every year she asks me if AGLB is available for her class, i still get the occassional complaint that some class wants to order it
all this time i been planning that when my new novel gets bought the publisher will bring out my backlist
but ive been reading about all these new paradigms in publishing and planning my rootwork press to do
other folks works, thinking oldschool that doing your own is a demotion, but then im thinking i might as well
do AGLB and MR and my whole thing of making rootwork press books into works of art in themselves
i might as well practice on my own, i wont make a big issue out of it, book parties, promotion and the like
because on a certain level it still embarrass me to publish my own work, but i would like to see them exist
and ive been working on a rewrite of Mojo Rising to bring it up to speed and make it a graphic rich work
so anyway, long story short, this morning pulled up mojo rising and started working like a demon on it
its like that, im just feeling it you know, and what im doing is really really powerful stuff
so clearly its bogarting its way onto the production schedule
ima force myself to step back from it, finish off schoolhouse obligations, prepare for china class
lets say one more week for all that - then another week for putting RFTW to bed
then i believe it will have to be MR for the month before getting on bird to china
but the problem is right now THBOF is just a mess of notes waiting to be a manuscript
i believe witth a superhuman woodshed effort i can make thatinto a manuscript that just need
redpenning, something i can do on that flight to china and sitting in those teagardens
whereas if i take a mess of notes in need o structure its a diff kind of focus & i need a good printer
okay, thats the dealio rick:
1 week, finish schoolhouse and china lessonplans
1 week, endgame RFTW (this one of those could flounder forever dealios, give it a week, no more)
1 month, structuring HBOF, that gets me up to about mid june, leaving jun 28, id like to say
2 weeks revision on MR but im likely to be squeezing HBOF, lets say 1 week MR
then when i go to china i will have 2 manuscripts that just need redpenning, 3 if you count RFTW
which ima take w/me just in case, then when i return from china it will be w/3 clean manuscripts
wont that be fine
okay, thats the woodshed production plan, having a plan keeps me from getting panicky
which is what i am now, i want all these phases to be already done, i got to chill, settle down
be patient, be professional, see now thats production
okay
also got to be serious about getting to gym and physical/mental/spiritual health
family business and domestic tranquility - this aint no sprint, im going the distance
okay
im out, all my love
rdoc
TUESDAY
so one thing thinking about how george has blown up big, its nice seeing that its still doable
the big dream of becoming an important voice in your culture, for the rest of us there is a certain
point in your literary life where you kinda accept, okay, i guess this is it, im not going to be one of the
literary giants striding my age, you always knew the odds were against it but that didnt stop
you from dreaming, then you reach a certain age and its like, okay, i guess this is it
but by that time you okay with it, you have been worked over by life enuf to know its all good
and whatever is is and was meant to be and you learn how to count your blessings
ive paid my dues and continue to bitch and moan but truth told ive been blessed
i love the literary life - and speaking of which let me say a few words for the blue gorilla
a buddy of mine just died, tom mitchelson, and tom hits me kinda close, the blue guerilla was
his signature piece, from back in the day when we was cubs in the city
couple of weeks ago carol dixon died, carol and i had a more complex relationship, basically we were
engaged in a lowkey literary feud, but like when louis reyes died, it all felt so silly at that point, the feuds
of our literary youth, and i think of the years sekou and i lost feuding, recently tried to rebuild bridges
w/bj ashanti but he wasnt having it - at this point in your life you dont want to waste years feuding
w/folk you love
apparently ive reached that point in life where my buddies dying off in batches,
makes you conscious of your own mortality
conscious of the need to take care of yourself, to be serious about getting your work done; of using
your remaining hours wisely, keeping the torch lit in honor of those who have passed on
got two major projects i need to finish, then i can go easy
rest for the weary and the hoodoo book of flowers
everything else is gravy
all my love
rdoc
SUNDAY
so my colleague george saunders just got chose as one of time mags 100 most influential folk in the world
well you go boy, old boy geo been blowing up lately, hes always been a name in literary circles but now hes
become a cultural icon, the classic literary force - been interesting being so close to the process, i been
monitoring myself for signs of jealousy and such but its hard to be jealous of geos success cause he
so cool about it, still the same laidback playa he always been, ive had partners blow up before and geo
handles it better than most anybody i know and i am always reminded of what aishah told me so long ago
about singing your song best you can sing it so you can appreciate other folk singing yours, i think maybe
if i was a young writer still fired up with competitive juices i might be tempted to get petty but ima old bull
now, convinced in the value of my own song and appreciating it when my buddies get some play for singing
theirs - and in this case since im part of his crew i get to go along for the ride, old boys coattails just getting
longer and longer, me and the rest of the crew we get to ride too, its all good
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Time Mags: George Saunders by Mary Karr
For more than a decade, George Saunders has been the best short-story writer in English — not “one of,” not “arguably,” but the Best.
In my favorite stories (“Tenth of December” or “The Falls” or “The Red Bow”), some goofy, tormented guy tries to rise up to carve out justice on a heroic scale. Picture a knight in cardboard breastplate and tinfoil helmet wielding a toilet plunger. These guys are wholly loseresque except for a sudden lunge at saving — often against unbearable physical or spiritual odds — some very broken human units. All this plus laugh-out-loud wisecracks.
We hired George to teach writing at Syracuse University 17 years back, and he brings to class a similarly humble urge to serve. Blond and slim, with the bristly mustache of a Russian cavalry officer, he’s open to every student’s effort, however far-fetched. Both with his own characters and with teaching, he claims, modestly, “I just let everybody do what they want.”
Which happens to be what everybody needs. George’s work is a stiff tonic for the vapid agony of contemporary living — great art from the greatest guy.
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