May 8th, 2010 / 11:01 am
Snippets

What’s the one story you keep writing over and over? I don’t mean revising. I mean the aesthetic or emotional or dream-fugue house that all of your stuff keeps trying to break into. What does it look like? What is its essence?

64 Comments

  1. Ben Segal

      It has mostly hair and teeth

  2. l@rstonovich

      A blind man’s cane taps a fat frozen squirrel. I saw that in the Boston Common the day I broke up with my 3 year gf in college.

  3. Goran D.

      If I knew the answer to that I sure as shit wouldn’t tell you.

  4. Schulyer Prinz

      Aren’t you driven by being a fucking sharpshooter, Goran?

  5. demi-puppet

      I keep writing a lot of stuff where the son/daughter feels subsumed by an alcoholic and kind of windbaggish father. And even the stuff that isn’t explicitly about this has undertones of it.

  6. alexis

      cell division.

  7. grontain

      usually ideas i thought up in my late-teens that, though i know they’re riddled with cliche, i keep going back to, probably for nostalgia. the Old People Changing story is a big one.

  8. mimi

      infatuation

  9. Roxane Gay

      Self-loathing

  10. davidpeak

      somebody does physical violence to someone and neither person can understand why

  11. Trey

      pretending, I think.

      not stories, but poems though.

  12. Ben Segal

      It has mostly hair and teeth

  13. reynard

      la petite mort

  14. l@rstonovich

      A blind man’s cane taps a fat frozen squirrel. I saw that in the Boston Common the day I broke up with my 3 year gf in college.

  15. Goran D.

      If I knew the answer to that I sure as shit wouldn’t tell you.

  16. Schulyer Prinz

      Aren’t you driven by being a fucking sharpshooter, Goran?

  17. demi-puppet

      I keep writing a lot of stuff where the son/daughter feels subsumed by an alcoholic and kind of windbaggish father. And even the stuff that isn’t explicitly about this has undertones of it.

  18. alexis

      cell division.

  19. grontain

      usually ideas i thought up in my late-teens that, though i know they’re riddled with cliche, i keep going back to, probably for nostalgia. the Old People Changing story is a big one.

  20. mimi

      infatuation

  21. dan

      everybody poops

  22. Roxane Gay

      Self-loathing

  23. davidpeak

      somebody does physical violence to someone and neither person can understand why

  24. Trey

      pretending, I think.

      not stories, but poems though.

  25. stephen

      that’s the orgasm, for people keeping score at home

  26. stephen

      seems i’m always writing about a guy in love or wishing he was in love

  27. reynard

      la petite mort

  28. Paul
  29. phm

      Usually something tragic leads a guy to do something extreme and the story is basically a documentary of his soul-searching stuff. Or something like that. Seems like most of my best stories have very sad undertones.

  30. mimi
  31. dan

      everybody poops

  32. Nathan (Nate) Tyree

      I come back to self mutilation over and over again. Can’t escape it

  33. reynard

      just listened to both at the same time while looking at my screen through a kaleidoscope

  34. Amber

      The awful shitty messy things that humans do, yet living and other people are still the best things ever somehow. Trying to reconcile those, always.

  35. darby

      biocentrism

  36. demi-puppet

      Shit, I think this is the story I keep writing, too.

  37. mimi
  38. Paul
  39. stephen

      that’s the orgasm, for people keeping score at home

  40. stephen

      seems i’m always writing about a guy in love or wishing he was in love

  41. reynard
  42. Paul Cunningham
  43. Jim

      Jonestown.

  44. shelvin

      this is what i write about all the time. the world is both more horrible and has moments more beautiful than we can imagine. i think.

  45. phm

      Usually something tragic leads a guy to do something extreme and the story is basically a documentary of his soul-searching stuff. Or something like that. Seems like most of my best stories have very sad undertones.

  46. mimi
  47. Nathan (Nate) Tyree

      I come back to self mutilation over and over again. Can’t escape it

  48. reynard

      just listened to both at the same time while looking at my screen through a kaleidoscope

  49. Amber

      The awful shitty messy things that humans do, yet living and other people are still the best things ever somehow. Trying to reconcile those, always.

  50. darby

      biocentrism

  51. Rosetta Penn

      A good deal of my stories inevitably seem to be about dead children or pedophiles. I’m trying to break the habit, but it’s gotten to be a bit of a predicament. My own childhood was quite lovely…I just don’t understand my fascination.

  52. demi-puppet

      Shit, I think this is the story I keep writing, too.

  53. mimi
  54. Paul Cunningham
  55. reynard
  56. Jim

      Jonestown.

  57. shelvin

      this is what i write about all the time. the world is both more horrible and has moments more beautiful than we can imagine. i think.

  58. Rosetta Penn

      A good deal of my stories inevitably seem to be about dead children or pedophiles. I’m trying to break the habit, but it’s gotten to be a bit of a predicament. My own childhood was quite lovely…I just don’t understand my fascination.

  59. stephen
  60. mimi
  61. mimi
  62. stephen
  63. mimi
  64. mimi