omfg I laughed out loud at “Some people look like a mistake you could make again” before I realized there are simply too many great lines and thoughts in this piece to quote!! I’m totally fangirling you right now because I love your writing SO MUCH!
Such a great post, so many brilliant sentences. I loved the little, well cared for horse: “You can see he’s loved, although maybe not in the form he most wishes to be loved.”
And I’ll be thinking about this for a long time: “I loved seeing the large room of this absence in my life, comparatively speaking. It’s as if happiness in my childhood was written in disappearing ink.”
I loved what you had to say about memory, the tricks that it plays on us, and especially your knowing the tricks it plays tricks on you, and saying, in effect, fine, play your tricks, and if a bee flies in the bialy bag of the person who might be the bad boyfriend, it is ok with me because in my mind, he deserves worse than the bee. Also thanks for the shout out about the brilliant scene in Better Call Saul. I'm watching Pluribus now. What a brilliant concept for a show. If that's nirvana, I don't want it.
Wow. This post. What a cornucopia of comments, stories. Sometimes I feel like I live inside your head with you when you write or at least your narrator’s head.😄 I am so glad I discovered you on Substack - and even more grateful I finally took the leap and contacted you about working with me to create my own Substack. You not only helped me wrangle the damn technicalities of it, but also crack open the possibilities of it as a writer. So glad you helped make this happen for me. If, like me, you’ve been wanting to start a Substack but kept putting off forever, take a chance. Do it. Don’t call Saul Call LAURIE.
OMG, this is the best recommendation ever! Thanks so much, dear Janice. Your stack is off and running in ways that are perfectly tailored to your interests and readers. One of the things I love about working with readers from Substack is the fun we have talking about whatever we feel like talking about . . . it all serves the interests of getting to know what another writer is looking for and also their creative sparks they may not have felt or seen before. xxL
This is just GREAT! And Richard's piece is wonderful, too. I think I married my husband because he has good memories, too. Or maybe I married him because he is nice and warm and stable - the good memories thing. Like you, mine are mostly blobby. Disappearing ink, although I think I disappeared some of them pretty quickly. I think I'm fangirling, too...surprising myself! Thank you...
Fangirling is highly encouraged and many thanks. Please let me know if you would like to come to Sophie's zoom conversation tomorrow: lauriestone@substack.com
I do think it's gutsy. It's honest writing, it's not pandering to anyone, it's very transparent as to who you are. I teach a memoir class and you'd be surprised how few people know how to be subjective, especially with any finesse.
Ah, I see what you're saying. It appears to take some kind of emotional resolve. In my case, it does not. It's all technique. I am always thinking about how I want a sentence to land for the reader. I am not showing myself, as Laurie . . . although the narrator might appear to be revealing a self in the course of writing a scene. People work in many different ways.
It's a voice I use as a writer. I am making a distinction between wanting to create an emotional response in the reader and wanting to show the reader something true about me, Laurie Stone. I have no desire to do the second thing. If I did, the first thing wouldn't work. The name of the stack, Everything is Personal, is a joke in a sense, a riff on the feminist rubric that the personal is political . . . by that equation, everything personal is political, too, or has a politics. Readers are often surprised and sometimes irritated by what I say about my writing techniques and the effects I'm after. I'm really interested in what language can produce in readers, not the truth of my experience. To me, it's all fiction in the sense that dramatic narrative, to me, even when it traces scenes from life, is going for effects that art produces and not documentary truth or journalistic fact.
omfg I laughed out loud at “Some people look like a mistake you could make again” before I realized there are simply too many great lines and thoughts in this piece to quote!! I’m totally fangirling you right now because I love your writing SO MUCH!
OMG, fangirl away, girl. RSVP to me to come to Sophie's zoom tomorrow if you like. We would love to have you: lauriestone@substack.com
I would so be there, but I am flying home from Mexico City tomorrow and my brain will be jelly by the time I get back to Berkeley. Rain check!!! ❤️
Christa, I don’t know you but somehow you read my mind and said what I came here to say.
I'm seconding this emotion.
This makes me so happy. This is post 275, and every time I send one off, I feel anxious no one will like it. xxL
Some people look like a mistake you could make again” This line alone—worth the price of admission. Don’t ever doubt your self Laurie
That's sweet. I worry not about my ability but about the reader's interest in my ability. xxL
The reader's interest does not flag. Au contraire...
Always love you and what you write.
I’m sure it’s mutual, to quote Marilyn. ❤️💕🐒
Such a great post, so many brilliant sentences. I loved the little, well cared for horse: “You can see he’s loved, although maybe not in the form he most wishes to be loved.”
And I’ll be thinking about this for a long time: “I loved seeing the large room of this absence in my life, comparatively speaking. It’s as if happiness in my childhood was written in disappearing ink.”
Thanks, love.
I loved what you had to say about memory, the tricks that it plays on us, and especially your knowing the tricks it plays tricks on you, and saying, in effect, fine, play your tricks, and if a bee flies in the bialy bag of the person who might be the bad boyfriend, it is ok with me because in my mind, he deserves worse than the bee. Also thanks for the shout out about the brilliant scene in Better Call Saul. I'm watching Pluribus now. What a brilliant concept for a show. If that's nirvana, I don't want it.
Thanks for all you say.
I couldn’t agree with you more about Kim Wexler.
Wow. This post. What a cornucopia of comments, stories. Sometimes I feel like I live inside your head with you when you write or at least your narrator’s head.😄 I am so glad I discovered you on Substack - and even more grateful I finally took the leap and contacted you about working with me to create my own Substack. You not only helped me wrangle the damn technicalities of it, but also crack open the possibilities of it as a writer. So glad you helped make this happen for me. If, like me, you’ve been wanting to start a Substack but kept putting off forever, take a chance. Do it. Don’t call Saul Call LAURIE.
OMG, this is the best recommendation ever! Thanks so much, dear Janice. Your stack is off and running in ways that are perfectly tailored to your interests and readers. One of the things I love about working with readers from Substack is the fun we have talking about whatever we feel like talking about . . . it all serves the interests of getting to know what another writer is looking for and also their creative sparks they may not have felt or seen before. xxL
"the misbegotten hug" -- now, there's a title. "It's all technique."
This is why I enjoy your writing " I'm really interested in what language can produce in readers, not the truth of my experience."
I’m glad to hear.
the bee in the bialy!!🐝😭 and “you would never jump a line. i can tell that from your back.” you’re a sorceress casting spells💗
Thanks, comrade witch. xxL
In the middle if a hug, then realizing who you're hugging 😆
This is just GREAT! And Richard's piece is wonderful, too. I think I married my husband because he has good memories, too. Or maybe I married him because he is nice and warm and stable - the good memories thing. Like you, mine are mostly blobby. Disappearing ink, although I think I disappeared some of them pretty quickly. I think I'm fangirling, too...surprising myself! Thank you...
Fangirling is highly encouraged and many thanks. Please let me know if you would like to come to Sophie's zoom conversation tomorrow: lauriestone@substack.com
I thought this was really terrific writing. Beautiful and gutsy.
Very interesting responses. In case this is of interest, nothing I write takes any "guts" from my perspective of what that word conjures. xxL
I do think it's gutsy. It's honest writing, it's not pandering to anyone, it's very transparent as to who you are. I teach a memoir class and you'd be surprised how few people know how to be subjective, especially with any finesse.
Ah, I see what you're saying. It appears to take some kind of emotional resolve. In my case, it does not. It's all technique. I am always thinking about how I want a sentence to land for the reader. I am not showing myself, as Laurie . . . although the narrator might appear to be revealing a self in the course of writing a scene. People work in many different ways.
So... "Everything is Personal" isn't your voice?
It's a voice I use as a writer. I am making a distinction between wanting to create an emotional response in the reader and wanting to show the reader something true about me, Laurie Stone. I have no desire to do the second thing. If I did, the first thing wouldn't work. The name of the stack, Everything is Personal, is a joke in a sense, a riff on the feminist rubric that the personal is political . . . by that equation, everything personal is political, too, or has a politics. Readers are often surprised and sometimes irritated by what I say about my writing techniques and the effects I'm after. I'm really interested in what language can produce in readers, not the truth of my experience. To me, it's all fiction in the sense that dramatic narrative, to me, even when it traces scenes from life, is going for effects that art produces and not documentary truth or journalistic fact.