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Revu2 · 10:57 AM

I'm a fan of the free libraries that pop up all over town. As I'm often busy with my own thinking and imagining to bring project in on time, a novel I can manage but it's more a chore than a pleasure sometimes.

Therefore I delight when i find a story anthology. One such find was the Story Prize anthology of the winning authors for its first 15 years.

Larry Dark from the prize team introduced the collection and made a passing mention that for about the past dozen years the project has recorded the award event of readings and interviews with the 3 finalists. I was about to put the book back into a free library when I remember that comment and kept it. Happy I did. Dark asked Ottessa Moshfegh how she thought through her stories and her answer got me thinking in a new way myself.

Found this at 35:30 on the video:
LD: So where does the story begin for you with that kind of idea?
OM: I'm not really an idea person. I'm more of a musical person. And I, when I start stories I have, I maybe know what the first sentence sounds like or the end of the first paragraph or, or the or the last sentence before the first break. Something like, okay, the cadence is like dah dah dah, dah, dah, or whatever. And it might be the sound of the sentence or the after effect of the sentence.

I'm not sure what it is but when I have that sound in my head, I can attempt to write it in sort of in the way you compose music trying to be detached from the meaning, because I don't know the meaning yet, I haven't discovered the story so I'm just listening.

Once I have that phrase or even just a couple of words that becomes the DNA for the story. The way that like I could take like, you know, a hair out of my head. Is this true? like, like DNA from anywhere it will tell you, like all the instructions for creating the organism is exactly the way that I feel when I'm writing. If I have a sentence all I have to do is go back to that sentence over and over again and it will tell me what to do for the rest of the story.
LD: So, does that sometimes not work out?
OM: It's a 100% success rate strategy.
LD: That sounds like you really have to really immerse yourself and then to really hear.
OM: Oh yeah I mean it's it's nerve wracking but once you get it—it's ecstatic. You know, I mean it's like surfing, like when you catch the right wave. I mean anyone who's felt ecstasy. I mean that that's what it feels like. That's why I love writing so much, … I love writing because of that experience.
LD: So each story in the book to you as like a different music, a different feel.
OM: Yeah
LD: I noticed that the beginning of the second story Mr. Wu has a really long sentence. I think I counted 132 words in that sentence so, is that something that sets the tone for the whole story?
OM: I think it might be the only story in the collection written in third person. I think in effect of what it did was establish the narrator thing—are you're coming with me? It's very storybook. It differs from the other stories because it's not someone speaking to you. It's someone storytelling to you. And that really long sentence somehow cast the line for how the movement of that narrative was going to go.

This will be quite fun to experiment with for my various goals and projects. Crafting that Home Sentence or description that's musical. This suggests a theme song to find for it. That's the whole DNA of the effort. And go back to it, immerse with it, wrack nerves, work without meaning, allow the alignment, step away from cliffs and enjoy the ecstasy. ####