A Word on Words; 3007; George Singleton

i know one can say in the once again welcome to our own words i guess is george sang of unwelcome trick here yet the heavier talk about though these people are us these people are us that's the book and it's a book of short stories and you are primarily a short story writer hardin about it won't stick to my guns i don't know you know that i enjoy short stories and i like george foreman think it's innocent and so it's really hard on things that hard may i don't have the patience to do to do novels i doubt i'll say to know anything about plots and again it comes in a little bit of a more poorly in her novels i'd get tired of agents and others and hadn't ever thought about writing a novel is like i'm just some idiot in south carolina know i've never thought of writing an i thought that writing haiku poetry so i'm stuck with the short stories and we'll continue i hope well thank you too because you know and in some

ways it's so lost on when i was a boy a long long long time before you were you know every magazine that came to the house head of fictional short stories for women's side even posed and cotton uses to mention a couple of very popular and up and it gave they gave other writers the market on the other hand you have been published in virtually every magazine i'd never picked up when you heard it say the underpinning of labeling of this band i've never my for shorter nineteen eighty seven a place of the place also western literary magazine and i thought this is okay let's go i can't baby without their album message to nine months it took me a couple weeks the right id got accepted diamond's letter words out without all of this but not without pay as little pained little bit but not much and then i

just and i think if i'm a voice and that was it i just kind of jumped on that pony in and start writing let's talk about these people or us these stories in this book maybe a dozen thirteen fourteen each is a is a different story each show you say i'm not much of a plot was asked about that i think you realize and their use of it there is a but others and there's a story there called hart met my second wind sure know you set up the plot they're well you know i only on your skin you know any ending their yeah i think i did a thing that is probably the most enduring issue of a group of them what and try what i think and do insurers risen start an often in the old days you'd have kind of like rising action for a long long time and you finally get to know climax denouement all that i'd start with

comfort right right off the bat i mean most of those first sentences are orgies right there and you can't go from having thomas have to do that and in this ama talk about magazines and published short stories these days they don't have room for story so easily i can spend five six pages long description and sent to jump right in now we've my wife kept talking about infection ovens that's the sentence that puts you right there are this is the first store in the book remember why we're here and then you were on the site and find this understood her i thought she said conviction in love and with her money the death penalty or i thought you said convection ovens which you're the pastries that's right but but then there is the making of a plot between two people jerry lynn and the narrator sure they're living as white which does

have formed on and does have substance and those of the beginning of a million very much like remote like a novel on the other hand they're so you're shot short stories of seeing me make a point to quit probably have properly wear is a story you don't want to let me no one will notice this unnerving that probably as a pickup well talk about that because over goes well how do you decide in the story when they light that word literally sure famous writer raymond carver the religious stories and wrote a lot of the especially they end on the beer into the page you turn the page so that was the ending release i do so but sometimes that may help me in the long run you know some people say it at the ambiguous ending isn't that clever and and i understand it you know sneaking around so no one notices it or whatever i have no clue you know i kind of i think it's simple and that

you know the protagonist want something the antagonists is in the way the protagonist get then there's the conflict right there as i can be resolved somewhat what you know girls didn't have to jump on the way and is going to go with legos young right historian and you know most times us a gadget and think this would happen but it happens and you keep going you mean usually get away from it gets away in and sometimes i'll say well as see where that goes in them and they may just thinks he had to go backwards and say where's can wear thing i was controlling take another route was how do you know when it sank twenty case miller yeah i don't know either i sing off the magazine's acid maybe the matter senators and i'm probably easier to try to work with foreign editor and they've told me this is also you know whenever you think so there's something wrong with the end whenever he had any ideas georgia's i got some ideas were wearing what are yours and i you know i think it's a collaboration it's lying and unlike in and say but these this is how the words came out this summer for sending wasn't must say that way that that's

crazy if i'm making a cajun bands everyone who reads the cake says there's not enough sugar in the skate america more sugar and in the next summer i cook so when you rely on the line now that the mother sitting in a chair to tell me that the editors were their worst enemies having their mapping his best friend a really deep the only time i've ever had trouble was a couple times with the many southern terms and i'm doing with the new york city editor wardle site others wanted a story the editor said have your narrator saying doo dah la and i said dude in a sense after and we don't even you know i don't know that i can see maybe the seventh texas or new york city we'll say dude we might say occurs or we might say bubble and they're confuse him a whole blog is it ok just leave it away it is a secular whatever we want on an odd for you know the day back to life you get degas now they're trailing first slowly takes recycling fletcher and there we meet a lovely lady yes i'm robert

i'm either violent violet violet because in atlanta thinks maybe she said her name was violent said i'm violent year let's write and an end and i think it's i'm going there sure i mean i you know the little contact and it and it looks to me like a little relationship than they were so low scheme will stand little bow and he's described at the scrap metal side has a baby maybe that's committee that society and you got in and you got me on the hook there well then i found out about us got those tattoos sure and i thought maybe you might be turned on it or not by that but only no word has gotten a whirling bob so sure that you know you started that story and you know you would take me to get it on this story i knew i was going to go through violent to that into two different women out of violence i think is going to describe his

pre pre sexy woman the woman to scrap metal places is not economists and a lot of the worst parts of speech when she speaks and then the woman at the end he says i don't i know you from somewhere in and i think you know this thing about chance and we can think about chance or and i also think the rube goldberg device is like mineral regard your fangs area the baby's crying wanted the bottle now says she's begun in at the target that does a listen rigmarole before that wind just to walk over to the bottom is about a possible that is in the us now and i think apple on my source probably do a little bit of rube goldberg device if i were not here then i would not be there and it's howdy gary and it's a power thing about heidegger of the time i would say that but i don't i'm probably think of a rube goldberg more often the tiger now let me is to bouts of names above what you get an obituary

what is a gadget that is now living nowhere south carolina and but i didn't really is about twenty miles away and i read obituaries there was a guy and this is a given name his name was the edge while and a last place team activities activity duty lesser thing you know what would be duly applied for jobs and less interested in a brown unit also try not what i think i'm doing too i do consciously this i'm trying to tell the biggest lie a possibly can while looking the reader right in the face and about a little stepping to the willing suspension this point five a little step asset i've lost the story you know i'm going off and is probably tell some you know stupid yourself like that i'm trying to push that envelope a little bit if i use an ending foot brown eyed they just say oh you're right now you know i don't read anymore one thing about leo and abstinence dip and park parks interesting character you know pork board and falls more in my better half has a some relevance named borden so i used that park i

think i use it came late in the story are ebbing and the death and only dedicated both sure park you know in earlier version or made them in the story that i just kind of gave up on but i think his eight years this is right his dad taught driver's ed you got any hitting and imparting that and the narratives as i could've been active there were seven us dollars or less let's talk about that story short report is supposed to come back the gate to dig south carolina look on the edge of the savannah river nuclear plant and every bar in twenty fourteen years old in a different way sure the most ago most of most of them when you know about ozone were immediately moines have managers sure his abnormal by and yet they get hit by car and you get it back up a telephone pole express kind of autobiographical you know i get an email when i was fourteen that

fits that miles an hour and that was gone and i was you know three days in a coma and i'm in the hospital that ten days as a decision to back then i couldn't run for a long time because of the one o'clock i didn't break a bone or anything i thought maybe from then you know subconsciously on you know ok let's go do something maybe i don't know or maybe i just got the heck out of greenwood south carolina intended let me just say though that you just tuned in to talk about his new book these people or us as a funny book to read tags and we're talking about a park and in nfl media's where you wanted to be you wanted this other place and the bureau than the low letting go any keeps going farther is of his is managed to dedicate an awful lot of time to schemes to trick as scary as i am or this is nowhere is a scam artist annie is create a stamford be sure and that

stamp is to pretend we have a tornado and as an insurance scam but a lot of federal money there have been not much federal money that it already did it back on the map sure it's a town of three hundred mostly men mostly to go where that word is that an end in park we got a college education and his teaching is is articulate and and well informed and obviously an attractive and if your dad says look telling people come in here and we need somebody different this damn sure so his wife hid out nowhere does this sort of roses come from where does an idea like that come from creative coordinator for it for a town they were pushing over there there are mobile homes fell five important i have a writer friend and they'll re philips and a night out with his mother in the us for her hands

gladys if she called me that the dataset is read this story and now i have a lot of other reality worries their names know mammoth an attack on the way of making fun of me i think this was at the end of the car backfired and she fell over like a finger or something like that i'm aware that you know that when i imagine i had fun thinking about by major went oh man fake tornado which it would not be surprised if that ever happen or parts south carolina not i'm not sure but a circle i think per capita more mobile homes than anywhere else per capita less electricity than anywhere else from there their houses visual part the state's swampy area as sports a poor region and i thought you know what all these people do if they it had a double a subplot in their you know park things here that it's in this big insurance scam ahmed get in trouble because it in and whatever ends up just as those old geezers wanted some attention from red cross women or female women or whatever had no

clue where it came from us from a walk or a wal mart apollo eleven cymbals are where he gets his ideas as a walmart and that's what i say where do you get those ideas i mean let's say someone do come walking around julia form of how much the millennial back to that first question about that little mike how much of it is what about rectal and i think something like gross plays i mean is that what a great outlet aggressor and i live in this house is a long winded story that ends up a friend of mine from like junior high school built this house we didn't know this two years later that it has a very short crawl space we would wear on the country sometimes little field mice are four fewer rats get under their we can can here and sometimes they don't get in the house that's ok i'll let them with but i'm not going to they're we have trouble has really low to stand about a foot so i thought how we are called some ways that every time we've called someone they'd come there that the purses been really mad about it and have often often

going to do something of real simple ethical it right i said you know that this be a perfect place for a little person were just run all over there they're bumping his head or anything i read the story again published a year later you know we're probably eating an air conditioned had to call up and this was that was not the little person but he was four foot eleven at the most ineligible doesn't see that don't get told is that somalis have as small sosa sometimes things will follow after awarding of rhythm i guess a lot of this had to do with couples the narrator and these stories is male all those stories are first person male narrators and i knew i didn't not in trouble at all but i noticed a boring but the bottom up the sporting stories on next book is you know half of her third person ever for aside my first reason was again a famine third person were sounds to me like i'm

writing an essay i think that born the ministry did you talk about that short opening sounds so it's short and serves as a magnet to pull the reader into the story this is the first sentence and cross place my house rebuilt by newlyweds on the verge of divorce a few new aid deliveries that's an actor as an anachronism to begin literature but yes but that's that's what sets the scene if it cost place in the back of a house down the tv upfronts know moldings didn't in there and so you know as is finishes playing and get on with our lives and put it up for sale in a saas open that my house or what new words on the verge of wars and set the tone for like oh this s can have some peace and some considerable about that also listen all the stores or come only on to lean toward the absurd you know i hope i mean toward comedic they do lean told me i mean there are the flaws

the vaccine your book i mean they're i mean it's not often that reviews get a chance to laugh out loud a lot would you give a letter that was good as good when they had to have to watch in and out like my students will tell that's an alternate cannot go towards slapstick sometimes slaps that don't work on the page and watched three stooges and it's funny but if you are read one of their own gmo folks curly curly heads mole with a frying pan is a very funny second pull back and slapstick so and i hope so medicine is nothing funnier than human misery in the sounds mean spirited so it is kind of true and these relationships or islam that is trying to do the best they can and figure out their relationship we'll wear that because in a number of your stories you use the word normal well normally it comes up again and again

i'd say in the book in half dozen stories and there is a reference to a person or a couple or situation that is normal or that circumstance normally we would know craft and what brought it to my mind is that there is a story in the book called call normal and then ian jack sure a sarcastic and cynical couple of their own laws or one not present as you they don't strike me as normal but when i looked at the cover the boat these people are us and know that in these fourteen stories you were talking about quote normal people who are us i don't identify with many people in the book except occasionally and occasionally they hit me right between the eyes it's like looking in a mirror there is something i've said to my wife something she said to me

the people i mean but sometimes what they say is what comes from my mouth or what comes into my ears what is what it what is this normal business with you oh it may be that's it than i am sarcastic and it could be that you're even saying these people are like me and thank god for that you know the old book of course as it is so i don't know i think i would like to be able to say that and so you know and still i know that in some ways they are just lighten these people are made sure i do know the sadness about the normal but i've been port is pointed out to me that i say a lot of times someone that one character so the miracle site this is no lie or i swear to god and that's my way of saying it's me as a writer sang i know that's stretched to four must go beyond this belief here but if i say that is like the real sale kelley degree assault on the swim that's about hope so i do know that us aid this is no live the woman walking man was carrying two kids a beer all by herself or whatever and you know i'm

a writer and discuss her ok bob levy on that one italian about normal i think is people are just getting normal airline and there's as their extraordinary normal people and i don't think very i don't think they are distinct due to south carolina and maybe distinctively southern italy and we do live in a bubble world i just haven't you not know been hit by a galaxy going fifty five miles an hour and they're not going to convene an unknown never face across weighs problem but only on the end an unknown been married by a judge who was married to know that was went to the doctor sure well who played a role in my life as is the case in your story call oh penny in jack only is the lead opinion jack

star and they i think they start off that's a story where there is this just luck that they need cash jack as are franchises am invited so and so over in that's right car and it only a daylight here the next thing you know they're standing in front of the judge who's got a husband who is a doctor now then you talk about that is lionel in the ending because you know i'm married and you know but what a wonderful what a wonderful lets learn when you talk about the summer of all nice yeah thanks thank you live talk about their lives there's two iraqis ever to stores account sister stores and has a lot on and that's i had one story called outlaw hidden tale booklet i had accidentally taped over is white sonogram or some a graph and then i had this and for some reason i had that in my mind it just kind of fit and there were like back to baxter has a row one row the net someone one employs one to another and a button but in normal became wings are the doctor that's

right that's right yeah and i thought that was a little of the way in the story i mean it's uplifting and also interested you also i can beat you also can be a their us there are a couple of stories that really aren't immersed in cynicism seems to me when i started tilting toward politics i am it eased up a little bit in my political views nineties over to the right to being a real liberal democrat now in maybe i was in way over there i mean i had to be the most liberal versus of your nerves of that with ted kennedy you know brilliant nice guy all that he's been on the elements are not being liberal enough sometimes it takes and you just can't do anymore against reagan and an old bush first bush kind of readings poor man's you know so sick when the week when not when the world's nuts like it is

now or in war is no way to make fun of politics or should we do it anyway because sometimes sounds like you'd use or preach to the to the reader and i wanted that but that's what i think it probably does get the most cynical services speaking of preaching religion and evidently plays some real life a very he's a christian to occasionally in your story was sure i was not brought up southern baptists whatsoever and canada this is a real autobiographical thing that happens and that would move south carolina one of seven my father's was disabled we start going to church oslo confused by was it going on sunday when zeus and it was a sunday wednesday one when stay in this bed with george question the preacher tonight solicit would do if a black person comes in here so we said normally then come back and rework are my dad stood up and europe meet my mom and me and we walked out and he and we never went back to their

church and add the opposite you know most people say please go to church teenage son i would say hey dad i'm at a church my girlfriend know you're not either don't you go to church and ago no bad this college berman's bad this then need you know monk in houston and growled every time we had to send them money so been around quite a few bed this'll much all my life in an and ends listen closely for any have a little story in there about a baptist camper campground sure that do another there was the turn in and a friend of element shore and the preacher in that comes across as a for a minute i think he's a hustler in the next minute i think may be sincere and never really come away knowing what he is i think after a long in my mind i'd you know an hour every hour or we'll send in and lead the pack but jim baker and swagger and all that just the look on live on their faces right in the tv about the like me i'm a

good person and then when the truth comes out and i just say you know all of it i want to hear about any more in quick bugging me maybe that's it was also a little bit autobiographical two it's autobiographical in the sense that among other things you say i think that these people a nurse right right right and that's the other side of these people are us i guess there are many people in your own in your in your stories socially alive who in fact were not like you had all no no there are smart people into a very small enjoyed saying about his new book these people are sort of a thank you for joining us and some might look like all of you for joining us and for watching and keep watching and dancing and off for word on words and keep reading