Every so often, you know it’s going to happen. Like a dormant virus, it waits until conditions are right and then there’s the sudden outbreak, often triggered by a particular novel or story—“Is Deadbeat Downbelow really sf? I mean, its tone is very sfnal, but where’s the speculation?” or “Magic Wind Fairies reads like sf, I mean, everything’s very logical and thought out.” I follow the conversations with interest (it’s nearly always interesting when intelligent people discuss matters near and dear to them) but I don’t really have much to contribute. Maybe there really is a line, maybe there isn’t. Yet even those who agree that you can draw a line and say, “This side fantasy, this side sf” are never going to agree on where that line is going to be drawn. Continue reading
Category Archives: Process
WTF Was I Thinking?
Am I dogmatic? Sure looks that way sometimes. This or that discourse on the process of writing, filled with sturm and drang about “this is how that works” or “that is how that does not work,” and avoiding mistakes, and making the right mistakes…
While it hardly needs mentioning, I’m going to mention it anyway–when it comes to writing or most anything else, I don’t have the answers. In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand the questions. And “promotion”? Puh-lease. My canned response on any panel about authorly self-promotion is this: “Watch what I do very carefully, and then for the love of heaven do something else.” Whatever career I’ve put together has been mostly work, trial and error, and dumb luck. So just what is it I’m doing here? Continue reading
Richard Parks 