Dear Flannery,
I'm still working on my stories in between living my life. No, they're not ready. Every time I think I am finished with one, I wait a while and then read it only to find out it wasn't finished at all, that there are all sorts of things to work on and delete and fix. Oh well. I do think they are getting better than they were. But as for being any good at all I don't know. I do have fun working on them though, if you can call it that. Maybe quiet joy is more like it, just to write about the things that matter most in a creative way.
I was visiting a friend the other day, enjoying her library, and borrowed a monograph about you by Dorothy Tuck McFarland, copyright 1976. (Perhaps you know how people have continued to study your work ever since you left us.) It was wonderfully illuminating. I had to get my own copy. I think she gets you and your stories mostly right, that is, if I do, and I learned a lot. I was so blown away all over again by your --- what should I call it? Craftmanship? Imagination? Genius? Sense of humor? Focus? Insight? Vision? Daring? Persistence? Love? Yes, all of the above.
I was reading one of my stories to my husband last night (he insisted) and he actually laughed. "She's funny!" he said, about my obnoxious character, which was a great compliment. I had gone through the story that day and, among other things, taken out all the pretty words I could and exchanged them for, I don't know, not so much ugly words as realer words. Those too-nice words just ruined the tone in spots, you know? An example: "swirl of" was changed to "riot of" (as in red dust from a swerving car). And "threaded" which was boring became "needled" (as in fingers through hair). Too much? Another example: "painted" to "lashed" (as in markings on sandstone cliffs). "prosthetic" to "fake," "drifting" to "stray" (as in sand). Have I overthought? Time will tell. Sometimes I just get too wordy, period, which makes me want to throw up when later I see the awful phrases I once put down so confidently.
How, how, how did you do it?
J.
