Rarely Likable

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I read Tayari's post on Lexus commissioning fiction, and thought eww...until I clicked through and realized I have a old connection to one of the writers involved.

As there are definitely issues (many of which Tayari outlines very well, and I'll be watching all followups with interest), that discovery compelled me to think about the other side of the coin in a way that LOL INTERNET usually doesn't. One could argue, I suppose, that the Lexus thing is only different from soliciting for a theme issue of a literary magazine in how big the checks are. Or that artists have had wealthy patrons who compelled them to work under commission since the beginning of time. One could also argue that as a car company, Lexus is under less obligation to publish quality unknowns than, say, the New Yorker or any of the other highly regarded fiction venues who regularly do not do so. And of course there's the music-in-commercials analogy, which gets some discussion over at Jeff's.

That last one got me to thinking about marketing, which I'm sure went further than anything else in driving (ha!) the Lexus project. If you've ever sat in a marketing meeting where people are trying to decide how best to get other people with discretionary income to buy something that is not necessarily the least expensive option? And especially if you've ever been in the presence of people who might buy a Lexus? It's not that hard to imagine commissioned fiction of this sort, from writers of this sort, as a result. Such is having lived in Connecticut as a working stiff for 10+ years, I suppose.

At any rate...whether you get a bigass check from a luxury car company or not, marketability is interesting to think about from a fiction perspective. Would this story go better with Buddig ham? IKEA furniture? Pabst Blue Ribbon? A Volkswagen? Depends undergarments? This is true especially when you've got a stack of work on your desk that you're about to send out. Which reminds me, I need to find some paper clips...

Incoming, a quick note.

It's one of those got-stuff-to-do times, in which I assure anyone who drops by here and wonders if they've done something wrong that no, baby, it's all me.

I'm reading this, which I didn't read when it came out, as that was when I quit being a writer the first time.  I should have read it anyway, of course.

A couple of things before I go

The day job thing is getting to everyone...After the MFA on living a double life. (Now I wish I'd been looking for The War of Art this weekend.) The thing that keeps me going: I can walk around for days with ideas in my head, but when I actually sit down to write? There's always something that comes out that's brand new, that I couldn't have predicted. It's never exactly the same from head to page, and I always want to find out what's the surprises are.

Jeff posted this item on "book like" the other day, which I should have linked sooner because the original's now behind a BugMeNot curtain. It got me to wondering how the author would classify someone like my dad, who has nothing to do with the publishing industry and has 170 books in his LibraryThing.

As it turned out, my local bookstores don't have The Interloper in stock...but when I came home from checking, my Soft Skull Press order had arrived  -- Jamestown, American Genius, and the CLMP guide. I also found my New Yorker Summer Fiction issue, which I'd assumed was still in the bathroom at the post office. Double issue Entertainment Weekly...the Esquire with the Stephen King story...and a few other things I'm still on the fence about, just because my tote bag is getting kinda full.

DFW, Workshopped

Re: Good People

Hey Dave:

I like this story. I like that you've got a very simple plot, told in a very unique way. I even like Lane Dean's name. Other people are going to tell you to use a little more dialogue, show don't tell, get out the red pen (though you should do it yourself and not rely on the workshop to do it FOR you), and so on. I'll probably agree with some of that, so I'll leave that feedback to them. I wanted to comment on this, though:

Her tennis shoes had little things doodled on them from sitting in her class lectures. She stayed looking down like that. Little notes or reading assignments in Bic in her neat round hand on the rubber elements around the sneaker’s rim.

This is one of those times where the imagery is nice, but the action is implausible and therefore the end result is really jarring. Dave, when was the last time you sat in a desk at a college? They're unwieldy and uncomfortable, and yet adults are supposed to sit in them like adults. I literally cannot imagine anyone, not even thin flexible people, hoisting up a foot so they can write a reading assignment carefully on their sneaker, much less doodling during class.  If Sheri truly was without easy access to paper, wouldn't she have written on a closer surface? If you want it to show in the story and especially since it doesn't have to be legible, I'd vote for having her write on her hand/arm or even the thigh of her jeans.

Yes, I know this is a weird thing to comment on. But you know what they say -- if your crappy workshop comrade notices something like that, Deborah Treisman might notice it too.

Looking forward to your next story (are you bringing in "The Depressed Person" again? That's my favorite story of yours so far...)
Erin

Things to check out: The Not-So-Hard-to-Find Edition

Watch Gary Shytengart and George Saunders read at the New Yorker Festival here.

Yep, that's great. But the reason I logged on in the first place? Roddy Doyle's story "The Photograph" in the current issue. If there's a better story with a colonoscopy in it, I haven't read it. You can read it here. The Guardian's digested read of his new novel (a sequel to The Woman Who Walked Into Doors) is dead on, I'm sure, but I'll get it at some point anyway.

Friturday

Rather than select a quote from last night's premiere, I'll point out this (warning: music), and my overall favorite CafePress item.

An excellent primer for humor writing.  The rest is worth wandering through, too. (via)

I read the last installment of Happyland the other night and was disappointed. It felt rushed, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't due to the abridging for serialization. Also...in a novel that's constructed on the schemes and diabolical plots of its characters?  I really do not believe that a contemporary college can lose its accreditation for the reasons Equinox College does in Happyland.  In some stories, it might not bother me...but in this one? It did.

It's a novel, not a term paper!

Now, this new Opal Mehta Got A Whole Bunch of Soon To Be Tired Jokes kerfluffle boggles my mind. It's like caffeine free diet cola...if you're not getting anything out of it (I assume the book deal came after the actual book), why bother doing it in the first place?

 

Good morning!

Just linkage for now...maybe more introspection later. Lucky you.

My George Saunders fangirlness is strong enough that a few people sent me "OMG DID YOU SEE THIS???!!!11" after I'd already read it. Folks, in person he's like that engineer you know who's actually quite witty and funny even though you never thought engineers were either.  Is it too Annie Wilkes of me to wish for a Bat Segundo interview? 'Cause that would be awesome.

Questions from bookstore patrons. (via) Thanks to a career in bookselling, I knew that Love You Forever made me cringe years before I had a kid of my own.

Beverly Cleary on NPR. She's 90! And she's very patient, not clubbing Debbie Elliott over the head for asking a Those Wacky 21st Century Eight Year Olds And Their iPods, Can They Still Relate question.

It's probably wrong to admit that I laughed, but: I laughed.

Edited to add: No more excuses...someone needs to make Litblogs: The Gathering with this.

Some links of interest

Jenny Davidson's review of The Midnight Disease (which has been on my TBR list for a while now).

A good summary of the Kate Braverman thing (via Lee), though it leaves out an interesting point from Miss Snark.

2005 Nebula Award nominees. Includes a few links.

City of Saints and Madmen might actually be at the bookstore the next time I go looking for it.

In which I prove I'm not hardcore

First: Why George Saunders doesn't have a blog, and yay Geoff Ryman squee! Now, on to today's topic...

I like forums like AskMe and the SA forums. Thanks to them and other places like them, we now live in a world where you never have to ponder an ethical or etiquette matter alone. Even if they weren't excellent places to look for material, I'd still read them obsessively. I can pull together an opinion about pretty much any sentence that starts with "Guys, I could use some advice." . It's not a trait I'm terribly proud of, but it gives me amusement and that makes it difficult to quit.

Anyway, I was doing my usual lurk yesterday when I came across a thorny dilemma, which I will paraphrase here (I thought about cut and paste, but I'm interested in the question here, not the Google searching):

My mother-in-law, with whom I get along very well, gave me a book to read that she liked. Problem is, it's cheesy beach reading -- and I've got an MFA in creative writing, I teach English at the college level, and am a self-admitted book snob.  If the writing isn't masterful, it's not worth my time. And I have no time nor interest to read this book.  So, what do I do?

The answer is, of course, don't read it. If your mother-in-law asks about them, explain that you don't have the time to read it because of your work. No one is offended, and the possibility of a book-lending cycle is cut off.

My additional thoughts?

It wouldn't kill you to read that Jackie Collins novel, Dilemma-Ridden MFAer. You may think you won't learn anything from it, but it's been this dilemma-ridden MFAer's experience that in situations where you don't think you'll learn anything? You find things interesting to consider, new ways of thinking. Even if reading a novel that Average Everday People read isn't enough? Asking yourself "How could I make Jett the prostitute-turned-rock-star into a more convincing character?" or  "What exactly does Collins do in this paragraph that makes me cringe?" could be worth your time. I hereby trot out Stephen King's National Book Award speech again.  I brandish my own MFA and ask you to read the last third of it.

I might even have posted all of that. But then when I saw what the book in question actually was? I closed the window, sighed, and went back to reading the SA forums.