Progress and Resolutions

YES AND far too many footnotes

July, 2024 I took my wife, Delia Sherman, to the wedding chapel at Gretna Green, which has changed a lot since the days of Jane Austen and even Georgette Heyer. The reason this picture is here is because it has never before appeared in public, and I thought it might soften you up for what comes next, which has no illustrations at first.

Yes AND

I’m not a great one for New Year’s Resolutions. ¹ But when I was a public radio personality in Boston, the gossip columnist for the Boston Herald asked me for mine for his column. I told him: I’m going to try to stop interrupting people.

Once you’ve seen it in print, you’re fully committed.²

Fast forward many years later to 2023, when I chose a new one: I decided I was going to begin consciously to replace “yes, BUT” with “yes, AND” in both speech and writing. Two years in, I can assure you it’s life-changing.

I’ve always been a big yes, BUT person - so much so that, when I was little,³ I said, “Yeah, but” (pronounced YEBBIT) so relentlessly that my mother started a limerick:

There once was a cute little rabbit
But all she would ever say was Yeahbut

I’m not sure she ever completed it, but the fact that I still remember the opening tells you it made an impression.

I heard about YES, AND from theater improv: one person starts a scene, and whatever they say, the other person isn’t allowed to say NO - they have to go with what their scene partner has said to further the action. In her book Bossypants, Tina Fey explains it a lot better, so here’s her text, in a footnote⁴ .

We all know the sound of an impending BUT in daily life. We know it so well that we can fill it in ourselves:

Me: I think you’re a wonderful personnnnn……..
You (trying to be chipper but suave because you know what’s coming) : …BUT . . .
Me: . . . but I wish you’d stop doing that thing.

Do you feel lousy now? Probably. I don’t really think you’re wonderful, do I? I was just trying to soften the blow, right?

Do overs:

Me: I think you’re a wonderful person, and I wish you’d stop doing that thing.

Oh.

So I do think you’re wonderful. Truly. AND at the same time, I am able to hold the wish that you would not do a thing. The one doesn’t negate the other.

Feel better?

Try it. It works with justabout everything - not so much to ameliorate a statement as to open up a more inclusive way of considering it, ultimately showing that the seemingly opposing statements on either side of the comma are simultaneously true:

• People should be allowed to do [thing], BUT it makes some folks uncomfortable.
• People should be allowed to do [thing], AND it makes some folks uncomfortable.

I’m a words person. As a writer, I know how subtle they can be, how using one word instead of another can quietly strengthen and sustain meaning. Words create reality.⁵

I should be able to come up with many more snappy examples, AND I’m having an awful time thinking of any.⁶ So:

WANT TO TRY THIS AT HOME?

In Comments, give me one of your own YES BUT sentences changed to a YES AND and see what happens.

Thank you. This is great!

With all that’s going on in the world, many of us are doing our best to embrace “two things can be true at the same time.” For me, Yes and is a true aid to this.

#AmWriting

On December 1st I wrote about how excited I was about my upcoming writing retreat! I was sure I’d followed it up with a report on said week-long retreat—so sure that I could picture the layout, with the photo of the snow through the window and everything!

This is the picture! But where is the Substack newsletter?

Apparently, though, said report never got farther than the inside of my head. So here it is, in brief. (For the backstory of the Novel in Progress, see May 2024’s newsletter, Introductions: Biography of a Novel. NOTE, however, that it leaves out the fact that my agent decided that the “first half” of CITY YEAR can stand on its own as Book 1 of a two-book duo.⁷ So technically I am now writing Book 2.)

When I got to the remote house in the woods, I decided to reread the completed Book 1 before getting back to work on Book 2. And it was dreadful, dreadful, dreadful!

"Mr Earbrass has been rashly skimming through the early chapters, which he has not looked at for months, and now sees TUH [The Unstrung Harp] for what it is. Dreadful, dreadful, DREADFUL. He must be mad to go on enduring the unexquisite agony of writing when it all turns out drivel. Mad. Why didn’t he become a spy? How does one become one? He will burn the MS. Why is there no fire? Why aren’t there the makings of one? How did he get in the unused room on the third floor?" — Edward Gorey

At least, the first half of Book 1 is, until it gets to the Good Part, when it takes off like a rocket and I promise you you’ll love it. After fretting & fuming & writing truly pathetic notes to my Writing Group in which I tried to say How could you not tell me how boring the first half is? in the nicest possible way, and a couple of weepy phone calls to Delia and Joel, I decided to simply go through the first half of the novel, and cut as much as I possibly could of the unnecessary bits, the faster to get to the Good Part. So I printed out the first 172 pages, and sat at the big table with all my little colored pens.

It was so lovely to have both sun and snow! I love getting out of the city.

Fast forward through the really very interesting process of decision-making - I should write about it all in detail for you soon, shouldn’t I? It being very interesting, I think - would you like to hear more? Why are you subscribed here, anyway?

Little colored pens, neatly corralled.

I cut merrily away, and to my astonishment got through the whole first half (the Boring Part) by the time it was time to pack up the car to return to Manhattan.

The state of the table, shortly before I left

Now, here’s the cool part:
I haven’t been able to write at home in ages - I’ve always had to go off on Retreats by myself so I could focus. This time, however, I got home, put the ms. on the desk, and started typing the changes in. I was so excited to see how it would come out! AND, as I typed, I did what I always do when the words flow back in through my eyes to my brain, and revised as they flowed out my fingers.

For the first time in forever, I felt like the book and I were trying to do the same thing.

And that’s a good place to stop.

……….or would, be, except I have news! I am

Coming to Gulfport, FL

I’m honored to announce that I've accepted the invitation to be the Keynote Speaker for the OUT Arts & Culture’s 10th annual Festival of LBGTQ+ Literature, READ OUT: Queering the Narrative. It takes place in Gulfport, Florida, a short drive from Tampa/St Pete, February 14-16. Register in advance for $10 here.

I’ll be hanging out on Friday, because many other fun people will be there (including my awesome Coach & Semi-Assistant, Kim!) They put me to work on Saturday with a panel at 11:00 a.m., and at 1:00 p.m. I give my keynote, Living a Queer Life. I’m around that evening, but I leave on Sunday. You can read the entire schedule - and check out the other great guests - here.

And that’s a good place to stop.

Your pal,

Ellen

Here is a picture I took of myself as I was packing to leave, because I was so impressed with how nicely my hair had dried without any help from me. I think I look a bit grim, but for a selfie it could be worse.

1. This may be in part because I observe Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, in the fall. It’s all about self-improvement, and that’s enough already.

2. And I’ve been trying ever since. Maybe this is why I don’t feel the need to make a new one every year? Because the old one still stands?

3. "When you were little,” my spouse says. “Uh huh.”

4. Tina Fey, in Bossypants, writes:

"The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you’re improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we’re improvising and I say, “Freeze, I have a gun,” and you say, “That’s not a gun. It’s your finger. You’re pointing your finger at me,” our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if I say, “Freeze, I have a gun!” and you say, “The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!” then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun...

...The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and then add something of your own. If I start a scene with “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you just say, “Yeah…” we’re kind of at a standstill. But if I say, “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you say, “What did you expect? We’re in hell.” Or if I say, “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you say, “Yes, this can’t be good for the wax figures.” Or if I say, “I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,” and you say, “I told you we shouldn’t have crawled into this dog’s mouth,” now we’re getting somewhere."

5. This is why you should not lie. With each lie, you are unmaking reality, loosening the weave. When the weave is too loose, the fabric of reality becomes a net - a net whose holes we can fall through.

6. OK, here’s the one example I can think of right now:
”Our next president won the election, BUT he’s evil.”
”Our next president won the election, AND he’s evil.”

7. Duology?