#david naimon

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023: CONVERSATIONS ON WRITING by Ursula K. Le Guin with David Naimon.

Currently dual wielding books, over here--I've never really been big on reading two different fiction books at once, but I can pair fiction with nonfiction just fine.

I haven't read as much nonfiction as I'd hoped to this year (overcorrecting from last year, apparently), so I'm excited to get back into some Writers Writing about Writing stuff while I cool off of my current project before I gear up for NaNo. This one starts with "In Memoriam," though, so I suspect it'll probably break my heart a little bit. This is Fine™.

[her-moth]

adania shibli interviewed by david naimon

[northwindow]

hey julia !! hope ur doing well... am asking u [instead of messaging!] this bc i imagine u might say some rly cool stuff that other ppl would love to see also lol... but i just wondered if u had any basic tips or resources about like developing a (short-term) writing routine? the context is not fiction writing but like academic but i feel like my academic writing is a creative practice so yeah, hope that makes sense! hope its okay to ask ! have a lovely day <3

hi anna marie! you ask the very question i need answered for myself… i am in a very slow place creatively so i feel silly to be giving advice! but i’ve been thinking about how to get things flowing again. very basic but helpful to me:

getting feedback from other people at a regular interval - i am very shy and this can feel like pulling teeth but it’s so worth it, i am always amazed how much it pushes me to finish things i would have otherwise languished on forever

reading a lot (of course) - it helps me to read a bit directly before starting to write. but also being intentional about it and having a defined list of inspiring works… i recently listened to david naimon interview joanna hedva and he asked them which writers were “squatting over” their latest book which i thought was a good way of putting it! i would like to curate a "squatters shelf" to dip into for inspiration on whatever project i'm working on

distinguishing between writing vs. editing time - this is hard for me because i am a very "edit as you go" type person but sometimes it's stifling! in another interview with tommy pico i heard him talk about his writing routine as very everything-goes, yes-and, accumulation-focused style on monday-thursday and then friday is reserved for finding what was good and refining it. i have always wanted to try this!

incorporating a degree of controlled randomness into the routine - whether it be randomizing where you physically work, what part of the project you work on, or brainstorming new ideas, i really enjoy drawing an option "out of a hat" (i hope that makes sense) at some stage of the writing process. i know i am going to be surprised and challenged by a guiding force even in a small way and want to see what’s going to happen.

something that has helped me a lot with routine in general is “habit stacking” i.e. trying to bundle a new task into something you already do regularly - i have not thought about how to do this with writing, but i have successfully bundled reading into drinking my morning coffee every day and it has changed my life significantly

also: i really like that you specified a short-term routine! i think temporary routines keep things interesting, help mark time, and more fully immerse me in things, so academia might be onto something with semesters etc… i am curious about trying to have a self-imposed writing “season” followed by an “off season” where i chill and eat peaches and watch the sopranos every night or whatever without guilt. (one might say i am chilling right now lol… but it’s definitely guilty chilling!) i also love that you see your academic project as a creative pursuit, i hope you are having a really fruitful time so far! ❤️

[adamantine]

It's my birthday, so if you want to hear me talk for like TWO WHOLE HOURS (and why would you not want this, he says, making eye contact pointedly) I'm up at the iconic Between the Covers podcast with David Naimon! We talk about The Saint of Bright Doors, Rakesfall, Sri Lanka, Buddhism, post/colonialism, fascism, replacement theory, and pretty much everything else that anybody could possibly ever talk about

[anniekoh]

Listening to this fantastic interview with poet Monica Youn.

Transcript:

Monica Youn: Deracinated identity for me is an empty space. It’s an empty space that is contained in a shell and the shell is the interface with whiteness. The interface with whiteness, also the interface with other racial identities causes you to be defined as Asian without the guts of it, without the deep connection to homeland or belonging that I feel that other people have access to and that I never have. Growing up in the south, people in ways that are deeply binary and deeply racialized nonetheless have a connection to place, to homeland that I have never felt

...

David Naimon: I think of this in relation to the poem you just read where the tourists and the artists are allowed to pass for White, the tourists and artists are not contained, and in fact, they literally walk away and can walk away, but Asianness is a container in this poem, race is a container. I think of this when I think of something that Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o says that our bodies are our first field of knowledge, that if you start from a place of finding that field to be wrong, you don’t have the foundation to build from. Also, when I talked to Claudia in 2014, her talking about her desire for White writers to stay within their bodies when they write, to write as White writers, to in a sense be contained, to accept containment and not perpetuate Whiteness as White space as universal perhaps is the ability to step in and step out. But I wanted to read a couple of things Dorothy said about your work in this interview as a lead into what I found to be a really fascinating response on your part that I’d love to explore. Her introduction notices, like I did, something different about From From when she says, “Youn’s first three collections are accomplished and impressively controlled, with a palpable sense of wariness about them. They can be hard to penetrate, not because of the numerous high-culture references to Greek and Nordic myths, Proust, Antonioni, and so on, but perhaps because of a restraint or constraint which felt, well, racialized. In Youn’s latest collection, From From (Graywolf Press, 2023), something has come undone—all to the good of her,” and in that same introduction, “Since graduating from Princeton, Youn has had the sort of career that could be seen as embodying a ‘model minority’ or aspirational-immigrant dream: Yale Law, jobs in top New York City firms, Stegner and Guggenheim fellowships, and critical acclaim for her three books.” Then she goes on to talk about performing a mastery of knowledge, something I want to return to because I do think you use this mastery of knowledge in a weaponized way now in this latest book that I really appreciate. But your response to her when she brings all this up is to say that there’s also a lot of credentialing on the identity side as well, not just on the assimilation side. You go on to talk about how the only model for you growing up in relation to Asian American-ness was an authenticity model which you couldn’t perform as you’ve already alluded to, not knowing Korean language, not having spent much time in Korea, and that part of the impetus for this book came from a panel of young Korean female poets at AWP in LA. You say, “I didn’t want to be led down the ‘authenticity’ path.

...

Monica Youn:

I don’t want in any way someone to come away from either of these two interviews thinking that I am in any way disclaiming the work of the Korean-American poets on that particular panel. I adore their work. I teach it all the time and I don’t think that they are performing authenticity. I think what I was responding to was their description of the funding mechanisms that enabled the production of their poetic works, which was they would often get some Fulbright or research funding to go back to their home country and research it in order to be able to conduct a sufficiently authentic performance that it would be acceptable to a White consumer or a capitalist consumer who only wants to consume authentic racialized experience in the same way that they only want to consume authentic racialized food. That was what I was trying to steer clear of. This is not my home cooking and I’m not going to cook it for you.

[azspot]

“Something entirely new grows up out of that rich darkness”: David Naimon on Ursula K. Le Guin’s mesmerizing poetry

[magnus-sm-writes]

I just finished Conversations on Writing by Ursula K. Le Guin and David Naimon and I am blown away by how deeply Ursula thought about every single thing she spoke about. She was a truly wonderful author and a brilliant soul, and I need to read every single thing she has ever written asap

[sleepysera]

"Over the past decade, it is in-the-world Ursula, as public figure and public thinker that has risen to prominence. During that time, she publicly resigned from the Authors Guild to protest the settlement with Google that allowed them to digitize books in disregard of copyright. She also gave what is widely regarded as the most ferocious speech in National Book Foundation history, using her acceptance of the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to lambast the deepening corporatization and commodification of books and their authors by the likes of Amazon."

-David Naimon, Conversations on Writing with Ursula K. Le Guin (2018)

[belkidebirharfimben]

Bizim depremlerimizin merkez üssü insandır

İnsan ilgi ister. Daha doğrusu varoluşunun, varlıkta kalışının ve varlığının arttırılmasının elinde olmadığını kalbinin derinlerinde hisseder. Buna tepkisi iki şekilde olur: 1) İlgiyi 'muhtaciyeti' açısından kavrar. Aczini görür. Fakrını idrak eder. Allah'ın merkezinde olduğu bir iletişim alanı açılır önünde. Bu alan Rahmet penceresinden kendisini de karşı merkezde tutmaktadır. Aczini bilmek öncelikle kendine şefkat etmektir. Yaratıcı olarak Allah merkezde olduğu gibi yaratılanlar içinde de insan merkezdedir. Hatta insanlar içinde herbir fert Ehadiyetin tecelli merkezidir. Odaktadır. Sorumlulukları vardır. Muhataptır. Bunlardan kaçamaz. Bunları unutamaz. 2) İlgiyi 'hakediş' yönünden tutmaya çalışır. Burası yüzeydir. Sözde gücünü düşünür. Sözde zekasına itimat eder. Bunların kendisini hiyerarşide yükselttiğini zanneder. Kibre sarılır. Kendisini şefkatin alanından dışarıya iter. Yalnız kibrin şöyle bir kem getirisi de vardır: Menfaat açısından herşeyin merkezinde görürken kendisini, sorumluluk açısından kaçabildiği kadar kaçar merkezden. İki merkezli bu yapı kaçış argümanlarını da üretir. Ve ister ki hep gündemde onlar olsun.

Bunu ilk olarak Lee Strobel'ın Hani Tanrı Ölmüştü'sünde okuduğumu hatırlıyorum. (Daha sonra bilim-din ilişkisi üzerine yazılmış başka eserlerde de rastladım.) Hristiyanlığın, aydınlanma çağında, ateizm karşısında hızla alan kaybetmesinin bir sebebinin de 'Aristo gökbilimi' olduğunu söylüyorlardı. Evet. Hristiyanlık, Aristo gökbiliminde dünyanın madde olarak da merkezî bir konumda tarif edilmesini avantajlı görmüş, onu din adına nass gibi sahiplenmiş, özümsemiş, yeni gökbilim karşı konulmaz kanıtlarıyla çıkageldiğinde de ister istemez ağır darbeler almıştı. Güneşin dünyanın değil dünyanın güneşin etrafında döndüğünü söyleyenlere direnişi de bundandı. Bu Yunan kozmoğrafyasının düpedüz yanlışlanmasıydı.

Ancak İslam aynı husustan dolayı bir sarsıntı geçirmemişti. 'Nasıl başardığı' konusu araştırıldığında şu sonuca varılıyordu: İslam hiçbir bilim anlayışını nassların yerine koyacak kadar sahiplenmiyordu. Onları bir tevil/tefsir olarak kulağına yakın tutuyordu. Âlimleri de eserlerinde bu tarz bilgilere yer veriyorlardı. Lakin ayetlerin/hadislerin 'metinlerinin ne söylediği' ile 'nasıl tevile/tefsire tâbi tutuldukları' apayrı meselelerdi. Bu nedenle, zamanın bilimine dair bir bilgi yanlışlandığında, İslam bu bilgi yanlışını kolaylıkla arkasında bırakabiliyordu. Nitekim, Aristo gökbiliminin 'dünyanın merkeziyeti' üzerine kurulu düzeni yanlışlandığında, müslümanlar bundan hiçbir sarsıntı geçirmediler. Çünkü insanın önemini dünyanın maddi merkeziyetine değil manevi merkeziyeti üzerine bina etmişlerdi. Manevi değeri sarsılmadığı sürece de maddi düzene dair söylenen şeylerin değişimi hiçbirşeyi değiştirmiyordu. İnsan hep odaktaydı.

Yazma Üzerine Sohbetler'de rastladığım satırlara şaşırmadım bu yüzden. David Naimon şöyle soruyordu sonlara doğru: "(...) Bilimkurguyu edebiyat olarak kabul etmeye direnmenin nedeni, kısmen, bu tür eserlerde insan olmayanın yüceltilmesi, insanlığın zeka veya başka açılardan merkezdeki yerinden edilmesi olabilir mi?" Ursula K. Le Guin'in cevabıysa şöyleydi: "Çok haklısın, bu konuda gerçek bir direnç var. Bilime gösterilen direncin çoğunun arkasında da bu yatıyor. Çünkü bilim (sadece Kopernik değil, bilimin büyük kısmı) bizi merkezdeki yerimizden uzaklaştırıyor. Çünkü merkezde değiliz. Yeryüzünün hayal edilmeyecek ölçüde yaşlı olduğunu öğrendiğinde bir nevi tahtından indirilmiş gibi hissediyorsun. Birçok insan buna tahammül edemiyor. Bundan nefret ediyor. Kendilerini yabancılaşmış hissediyorlar.(...)" 

Bilim gerçekten insanı/dünyayı merkeziyetinden uzaklaştırıyor mu? Bunun cevabını 'Goldilocks Bölgesi' tanımlamasının izahını yaparken Michio Kaku detaylıca veriyor. Evet. Dünya, Aristo gökbiliminin dediği gibi, güneşin bile etrafında döndüğü bir merkeziyette değil. Fakat bu 'varoluş şartları açısından' çok çok özel ayarlanmış merkezlerde, koşullarda, şekillerde yaratıldığını inkâr etmeyi gerektirmez. Zira bilim de birçok açıdan insanın-dünyanın varoluşunun bir 'tam yerine denk gelme' şeklinde mümkün olduğunu-olabileceğini kabul ediyor. Yani ne insan ne de dünya 'özellikle kastedilmiş olma' merkeziyetinden uzaklaşamıyorlar. Hakkaniyetli bilim adamları bunu reddedemiyor. Michio Kaku da bu gruba dahil.

Tevafuk, Le Guin'in satırlarıyla tanışmamın neredeyse bir-iki saat arkasından, Bediüzzaman'ın 24. Söz'ünü okumaya başladım. Orada, 12. Asıl'da, bilim felsefesinin konularından da sayılan bu mevzuun irdelendiğini gördüm. Başlarken diyor ki mesela: "Nazar-ı Nübüvvet, tevhid ve iman, vahdete, âhirete, Ulûhiyete baktığı için, hakaikı ona göre görür. Ehl-i felsefe ve hikmetin nazarı kesrete, esbaba, tabiata bakar, ona göre görür. Nokta-i nazar birbirinden çok uzaktır." Yani onlar, mevzuu zaten 'insandan uzaklaştırma' üzerine, 'kesret' üzerine çalıştıkları için, sonuçta da böyle birşey elde ediyorlar. Olan hiçbirşeyin kendileriyle ilgisi yokmuş gibi düşünüyorlar. Halbuki müslümanlar farklı bir odaklanmayla, Yaratıcının kendilerinden beklentilerini merkeze koyan bir anlayışla, âlemi temaşa ettikleri için çıkardıkları sonuçlar tastamam merkezî oluyor. Birisi depreme baktığında "Fay hatları kırılmış işte!" derken, diğeri "Allah bununla bana ne söyledi?" diye düşünüyor. Daha Nurcuca bir tabirle 'mana-i harfî' ve 'mana-i ismî' nesnede farklı merkeziyetler inşa ediyor. Bazıları şişeye bizzat bakıyor bazıları da şişede yansıyan sûretine... "Hem bir şey, iki nazarla bakıldığı vakit, iki muhtelif hakikati gösteriyor. İkisi de hakikat olabilir. Fennin hiçbir hakikat-i kat'iyesi Kur'ân'ın hakaik-ı kudsiyesine ilişemez. Fennin kısa eli onun münezzeh ve muallâ dâmenine erişemez."

Bu odaklanma farklılığının getirileri neler? İşte metnin devamında söylenenler: "Ehl-i felsefenin en büyük bir maksadı ehl-i usulü'd-din ve ulemâ-i ilm-i kelâmın makàsıdı içinde görünmeyecek bir derecede küçük ve ehemmiyetsizdir. İşte, onun içindir ki, mevcudatın tafsil-i mahiyetinde ve ince ahvallerinde ehl-i hikmet çok ileri gitmişler. Fakat, hakikî hikmet olan ulûm-u âliye-i İlâhiye ve uhreviyede o kadar geridirler ki, en basit bir mü'minden daha geridirler. Bu sırrı fehmetmeyenler, muhakkıkîn-i İslâmiyeyi, hükemâlara nisbeten geri zannediyorlar. Halbuki akılları gözlerine inmiş, kesrette boğulmuş olanların ne haddi var ki, veraset-i Nübüvvet ile makàsıd-ı âliye-i kudsiyeye yetişenlere yetişebilsinler?"

Sonra 'dünyanın konumu' meselesi geliyor gündeme. Sekülerler için dünya şöyle birşey: "Güneş etrafında mutavassıt bir seyyare gibi, hadsiz yıldızlar içinde döner. Yıldızlara nisbeten küçük bir mahlûk..." Anlamı bu kadar sığ. Bu kadar yüzey. Bu kadar teknik bir detaydan ibaret. Merkeziyetten bu denli uzaklaşmıştır dünya onlarda. İnsan önemsizleşmiştir. Ama İslam'ın yaklaşımı öyle mi: "Semere-i âlem olan insan en câmi', en bedî ve en âciz, en aziz, en zayıf, en lâtif bir mu'cize-i kudret olduğundan, beşik ve meskeni olan zemin, semâya nisbeten maddeten küçüklüğüyle ve hakaretiyle beraber, mânen ve san'aten bütün kâinatın kalbi, merkezi; bütün mu'cizât-ı san'atının meşheri, sergisi; bütün tecelliyât-ı esmâsının mazharı, nokta-i mihrakiyesi... (...) İşte, arzın bu azamet-i mâneviyesinden ve ehemmiyet-i san'aviyesindendir ki, Kur'ân-ı Hakîm, semâvâta nisbeten büyük bir ağacın küçük bir meyvesi hükmünde olan arzı, bütün semâvâta karşı, küçücük kalbi büyük kalıba mukabil tutmak gibi denk tutuyor."

Ve son darbe:

"İşte, sair mesâili buna kıyas et ve anla ki, felsefenin ruhsuz, sönük hakikatleri, Kur'ân'ın parlak, ruhlu hakikatleriyle müsademe edemez. Nokta-i nazar ayrı ayrı olduğu için ayrı ayrı görünür."

Yani, bilim-din arasında Celal Şengörîlerin teşhis ettikleri çatışma, nokta-i nazar farklılığından ibarettir. Âlem ona hangi sorularla yaklaştığınıza göre size cevap verir. Kur'an'ın ifadesiyle, ayetler indikçe, kâfirlerin dalaleti artar, mü'minlerin de imanı. Aynı nesneye bakan bir fizikçinin alacağı ile kimyacının aldığı dahi bir değildir. Bilim adamları arasında bile, merkeziyetler açısından, 'farklı cevaplar alma' kanunu câri iken müslümanın aldığı cevapların hayattan ötelenmesi elbette kabul edilemez. Bu deprem konusunda da böyledir. Müslüman depreme imanının gereği olan sorular sorar. Kendisine Kur'an'da/sünnette öğretilmiş suallerle yaklaşır. Ve deprem, Zilzal sûresinde buyrulduğu gibi, Rabbisinin emriyle konuşur. Bu konuşmayı hayattan ötelemenin amacı insana yaratılışın tam da merkezinde olduğunu unutturmaktır. Konuşulanı anlayan konuşmanın ortasındadır. Muhataptır. Yüzeydeki hiçbir izah derinlerdeki bu mesajı yokedemez.

[antigonick]

I sometimes wonder whether I’m a very keen swimmer, and whether for me, poetry is equivalent to swimming. I’ve often noticed when I swim, the strangeness of the way the body literally turns into a fish, but the head remains human and rather cold, and looking around at this strange flat reflective surface. I’m often very piercingly aware of the difference between my head and my body when I’m swimming because I’m not necessarily someone who goes underwater, I love swimming along the surface of rivers. Perhaps, my poems do feel a need to convey that continued separation of the head remaining human and the body becoming animal, or plant, or mineral, or whatever it can be. In some way, I suppose I’m trying to find rhythms that will heal that divide.

Alice Oswald, in “Between the Covers”, an interview with David Naimon

[thestoriessheshared]

We tend to, as human beings, our impulse is, once we know, once we have the answer, we move on. So we’re constantly moving from one thing to the other. I would rather inhabit the question, or dwell. For me, that is the place I want to live in.

American poet Mary Ruefle in a wonderful conversation with David Naimon.

[northwindow]

favourite podcasts? (If u don’t mind sharing)

yeah totally! here are some—

a recent favorite is you must remember this, the film history podcast by karina longworth. the show explores everything hollywood's first century can tell us about the surrounding cultural ideals, shifts, etc. and it's so impressively researched by someone who knows a ton about movies. i started with the most recent season called “erotic 80s” and now i'm in the middle of “make me over” which is about hollywood and the beauty industry. cannot wait for the next season "erotic 90s" but thankfully there's also a huge back catalog.

aack cast, jamie loftus' podcast miniseries about the cathy comics. you don't actually have to know much about cathy to enjoy this lol, the comic is sort of a gateway to investigate the lives of boomer women when it comes to feminism, consumerism, work, etc. it's a mix of interviews, jamie's writing, and even some narrating of the comic strips. i really like all of jamie's shows, she has a really natural style that is funny and curious and heartfelt. her lolita podcast is another favorite that is stylistically similar but obviously heavier territory.

between the covers with david naimon is a longform author interview podcast, i love it because david is best interviewer i have ever heard in any context. he really close-reads his guest's books and comes up with these very thoughtful thematic questions that draw out conversations about craft, social justice, society and culture, feelings, and a million other tangential things. i would recommend starting with an episode about a book you've read before, but now i use it for recommendations or just to listen to interesting people talk even if i don't know their work previously. i also really like commonplace with rachel zucker which is similarly in-depth, it has a different but also wonderful interview mood.

some other shows i like: the allusionist, everything that branched off you’re wrong about (YWA, you are good, maintenance phase, if books could kill), twenty thousand hertz, decoder ring, literary friction, poetry off the shelf, vs., thresholds with jordan kisner, articles of interest, american hysteria. when i just want to listen to friends talking i like poog with kate berlant and jacqueline novak. and the podcast form of democracy now for news. always looking for new stuff if anyone has suggestions! ❤️

[catapultbooks]

I’m thinking now of two eardrumless girls, not in Kenya but India, sisters, street children, the last people my wife and I remember before the blast wind blew us, two travelers, off our feet, unconscious, to somewhere else, ultimately to here. They too have surely lost their eardrums yet likely they live and will live, unlike us, without them now.

Catapult | Let’s Feel the Pain Together | David Naimon

[fatehbaz]

When I think about postcolonial [...] [i]t should be a series of acts or practices or a way that I encounter and move my body or the way that I encounter others and respect or honor their bodies in some way. [...] When I’m thinking about ideas of translation, I’m thinking a lot like many of us are about knowledge, what is knowledge, who determines the value of knowledge and once that value is determined, who then determines how it is disseminated and to whom it’s disseminated. The way knowledge exists [...], it’s a word I don’t trust. The very nature of the word implies that it can be extracted. It can be consumed. It can be again made sense of and it can be made to have value. [...] But when I’m thinking about these knowledges -- and there are many indigenous artists who speak about this [...] -- but the importance of having a knowledge that I don’t have to translate and most importantly that can’t be translated, that, to me, is an intimacy [...].

I guess, the basic ways I’m thinking about this is that because we live in America, because the power of Western structures [...] of empire, of nation, and the government, all of these things, because they have created this system in which they decide what knowledge is based on if they can take it, like indigenous bodies of knowledge [...]. [T]hey’re so important to resist [...] these many centers of knowledge because they’re knowledges that can’t be taken and they can’t be taken because the people who try to extract them from the communities don’t understand them. [...] This is the way we’ve pushed so many knowledges out. This is why we don’t let indigenous peoples into certain conversations. This is why we don’t want [...] trans, non-binary, and non-gender conforming peoples in conversations. This is why we don’t want black farmers in conversations. It’s because the white system of knowledge that the Western system of knowledge couldn’t take it and do or make something of it to reiterate itself. For me, whatever questions I can form from that have been extremely important and the language that matters to me most right now is the language that my partner and I are making in our home. It’s not an easy language -- my partner is black, I’m Indigenous and Latina or Mexican. [...]

To me, we have a knowledge with each other that other people might not understand. [...] I do not know what it’s like to be a black queer woman which is a knowing my partner has, she does not know what it’s like to be a native, a Mojave [...], and that doesn’t mean we won’t build our own knowledges together [...]. I really believe in misunderstanding or not understanding. I think it’s one of the most natural states of our being and yet here we are together. Here we are and living in that tension and it really is that tension where we exist as a third or a fourth entity. [...] I do think love is a-not knowing. I think that it is the willingness, the ability or the luck of being in the space between what we know of one another and again very valuably what we don’t know about one another and yet can still be alongside. [...]

-------

Words of: Natalie Diaz. Interviewed by David Naimon. Transcript from: “Between the Covers Natalie Diaz Interview.” Between the Covers Podcast. Tin House. November 2020.

[gatheringbones]

[“But I should tell you that early on when I was a baby writer, I thought my job was to fill pages. I thought my job was to get as much copy on the page as possible which led to exchanges in which there was a lot of dialogue, hell of a lot of white space, and dialogue like this, “Hey.” “Hey.” “How are you doing?” “Not bad.” [laughter] “You been here before?” “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.” “It changed much?” “Well, you know, it’s always different.” [laughter] Now that fills the page. I don’t say anything. “Hey.” “Hey.” “Hey.” That is not dialogue. Dialogue actually should accomplish something. Now, if you Google the rules of dialogue, you’ll get some stuff that I don’t necessarily agree with, but early on, one of the things it will tell you is do not reduce yourself to profanity and slang. [laughter] But I don’t actually understand anybody that doesn’t cuss and I don’t know how to talk out of people that don’t cuss or use slang. I find that dialogue with cussing and slang is like a rock and roll band with a good drummer. It works for me and it layers and textures. So let me just say that if you Google the rules of dialogue, you will find some really useful information which I can get behind and some people that ain’t writing because they’re not making people cuss. Let me be clear, people cuss in situations of extremity; and actually, shouldn’t story be extremity? Shouldn’t story be something fuckin’ happening? If something is happening, then people are going to react, they are going to exclaim, and they are going to give their own particular cussing.”]

[cheshirelibrary]

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