September 29th, 2009 / 2:44 pm
Snippets

12 Comments

  1. Blake Butler

      i got a rule for F. Barthelme: “We can’t care about more than one book about old white dudes fucking young weird white women in apartments; if you think they do, or do yourself, I don’t know, think about something else?”

  2. Blake Butler

      i got a rule for F. Barthelme: “We can’t care about more than one book about old white dudes fucking young weird white women in apartments; if you think they do, or do yourself, I don’t know, think about something else?”

  3. Richard

      or kill yourself

  4. Richard

      or kill yourself

  5. Nathan Tyree

      I might be able to care about sand mutants. Once I cared about a very old man with enormous wings

  6. Nathan Tyree

      I might be able to care about sand mutants. Once I cared about a very old man with enormous wings

  7. Sam Pink

      i think that, provided i get a good plot and characterization of the sand mutant, that i would care about the sand mutant, especially if he also didn’t like his job, or maybe had a rough romantic relationship with someone, maybe even another sand mutant.

  8. Sam Pink

      i think that, provided i get a good plot and characterization of the sand mutant, that i would care about the sand mutant, especially if he also didn’t like his job, or maybe had a rough romantic relationship with someone, maybe even another sand mutant.

  9. Jack Boettcher

      Isn’t a sand mutant just what happens to a normal person after the cataclysmic combo of climate change drought and long-term industrial pollution in a populated area? Hasn’t George Saunders written about mutants (not sand, but still) in a way that would probably be okay with Frederick Barthelme?

      Also, NO. 40: 39 rules is too many rules for fiction-writers, or any writers. I say this even as I could probably keep a few of his in mind when I’m getting carried away trying to ignore the idea of there being rules. And I realize that these 39 rules really just make up Barthelme’s aesthetic viewpoint, but he’s the one calling it a primer (primers generally being intended for the non-participant or person with new interest).

      I think I would like to have seen this list revised or annotated by Donald Barthelme.

  10. Jack Boettcher

      Isn’t a sand mutant just what happens to a normal person after the cataclysmic combo of climate change drought and long-term industrial pollution in a populated area? Hasn’t George Saunders written about mutants (not sand, but still) in a way that would probably be okay with Frederick Barthelme?

      Also, NO. 40: 39 rules is too many rules for fiction-writers, or any writers. I say this even as I could probably keep a few of his in mind when I’m getting carried away trying to ignore the idea of there being rules. And I realize that these 39 rules really just make up Barthelme’s aesthetic viewpoint, but he’s the one calling it a primer (primers generally being intended for the non-participant or person with new interest).

      I think I would like to have seen this list revised or annotated by Donald Barthelme.

  11. Blake Butler

      I second that emotion

  12. Blake Butler

      I second that emotion