[HN Gopher] George Saunders: what writers do when they write (2017)
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George Saunders: what writers do when they write (2017)
Author : benbreen
Score : 27 points
Date : 2021-12-05 15:39 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I really liked this. It resonates with the way that I write
| software.
|
| Way back in the dawn times, I wanted to be an artist. That never
| worked out, but the process that I learned, has informed my
| software development.
|
| The best projects are the ones that I don't know how to do[0].
|
| When I write software, it is _highly_ iterative. The project I 'm
| working on now, is like that. It has taken a long time, because
| none of us really knew, exactly, what it would be. It is now in
| the final stretch, and looks good. _Damn_ good. It never would
| have gotten there, in a corporate environment. I would have been
| forced to ship garbage, months ago, and that would have
| (definitely) flamed out. It may, still, but we won 't be
| wondering if it was because we took shortcuts.
|
| I call my process "Paving the Bare Spots."[1] Works a charm, but
| bothers those with overly-exercised sphincters.
|
| [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-
| ships...
|
| [1] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-
| travel...
| Donckele wrote:
| Ha. Like your style. Whats the software you're creating?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Can't get too specific, yet, but it's an iOS app that
| combines a simple social media-style relationship graph with
| a location-based DB of services.
| beej71 wrote:
| I've always wanted to write fiction but have always been stumped
| because my plot ideas all sound lame to me.
|
| Reading this was inspirational.
| wwwwewwww wrote:
| I recommend the author's book "In Persuasion Nation", a
| collection of short stories, mostly a kind of near-future sci-fi
| satirizing excesses of commercialism.
|
| Here is a story that made me pick up the book after I heard it on
| the radio: My Flamboyant Grandson":
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/01/28/my-flamboyant-...
| powersnail wrote:
| This article seems to be a precursor to his recent work, "A Swim
| in a Pond in the Rain", a book that analyzes some short stories
| written by great Russian authors, in which he also expounded on
| several opinions expressed in this article.
|
| I really like his method of analyzing short stories, very
| practical, not too much -isms.
| 50 wrote:
| Saunders released a new book at the start of the year which I've
| been meaning to pick up: titled _A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In
| Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and
| Life_ [1], it's like a creative writing class centered around the
| Russian short story taught by Saunders.
|
| 1. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53487237-a-swim-
| in-a-...
| [deleted]
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