Category Archives: Reading

Anything to do with Reading and Enjoying (or not) Books.

What I Would Have Said

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chaI had originally planned to make some anouncements about changes to the web site. I’m still going to do that, but a little less so. Sorry to be cryptic, but I had a plan, as so many of us do, and then the plan got changed. You know the old saying, “You want to make God laugh? Tell God your plans.” Even a former Southern Baptist, agnostic Buddhist-curious animist like me can get behind that one.

Ahem. Where was I? Right. Changes. Well, one change. It’ll be a little one. I plan (there we go again) to add a page which will probably be called “Things I Like” since I believe in truth in advertising. I even believe in truth in politics, though it’s only revealed by accident, and usually with dire consequences for the one who so trips up. Regardless, reviews and such will still appear in the main blog, but I’m going to create a separate page, probably mostly books and authors that have been significant to me over the years, with links to their work when there are links available. Maybe some comment as to why it’s there. I’m still figuring that part out. Oh, well. It’s my blog and I’ll put whatever occurs to me at that moment. One thing I do promise is that I will be consistently inconsistent.

And a final note–The ebook sale will be ending today. Thanks to all who participated.

Letting Go

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WRITING 02I’ve written stand-alone books and stories and series books and stories. One advantage I’m finding with the stand-alone books/stories is that it’s easier to move on. Rather like the emotional difference between a brief fling and a long-term relationship. Note that this has nothing to do with either the quality or the emotional impact of a stand-alone book versus a series on the reader. I’m talking more about the length of time one spends in the headspace of a particular character or set of characters, and then one day, poof, you know you’re not going to be going there anymore. That’s the effect on the writer.

Some of you may have read a couple of my Eli Mothersbaugh ghost hunter stories. I wrote the first one, “Wrecks,” back in 1996. I wrote the last one (or rather I finished the last one, since it went through several iterations), “Diva,” in 2006. I’d spent ten years in Eli’s head, and when I finally realized that the story I was revising for the umpteenth time was going to be the last one, it was more than a little depressing. See, I liked Eli, and I liked reading about what he’d been up to, which was why I was writing those stories in the first place. Or to paraphrase The Most Interesting Man in the World (srysly?), “I don’t always write series, but when I do, they are not open-ended.” There’s always an overall story arc, even if I don’t realize what it is from the beginning. I finally realized that “Diva,” had left Eli in a good place, and he wasn’t inclined to budge from it. I haven’t written a new one in five years, so I must have been right.

Knowing where I’ve been, series wise, tells me where I’m going. The Laws of Power series, currently including The Long Look and Black Kath’s Daughter should eventually reach to four books, but that’s it. When I write the last one, Marta’s story will be told. I know I’ll grieve a little when that happens, since I’ve been writing about the character since 1994. The same thing will happen eventually with Lord Yamada. I’ll reach a point when I’ll know I’m done–or that he’s done–and that will be that. And it’s going to hurt a little when that happens. Yes, I know that none of those characters are real, but they were as real as I could make them.

The end has to sting at least a little bit, or I didn’t do my job.

Recommended Reading

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WRITING 02It’s that time again—the Locus Recommended Reading List has been published at their web site. If you don’t know what this is, Locus has more or less been the trade magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy field for a lot of years. Every year they do a recommended reading list of the previous year’s fiction in several categories – novels, YA, collections, novellas, etc. You can see the entire list here. This time, my story from Beneath Ceaseless Skies, “Cherry Blossoms on the River or Souls” is included. Keep in mind that the LRRL acts as the unofficial “long list” for the 2013 Locus Awards, which will be decided by the votes of readers and subscribers. And yes, it’s always nice when your work is noticed in a positive way. Or, really, noticed in a negative way. The trick is to be noticed at all.

If you think I’m kidding, I invite you to take a look at the Locus reading list for 2013. Notice something? Yep. There’s a reason it’s referred to as a long list. Do you know how one gets a story or novel or collection on the Locus list? Two of the magazine’s contributors/editors/reviewers have to agree it belongs there. Sometimes, I am told, if a person argues passionately enough, it only takes one. Now, think of all the stories/novels whatever that did not make the list. For example, Yamada Monogatari did not make the list for collection. I’m disappointed but not surprised. It wasn’t reviewed by Locus and so didn’t come to their attention in any meaningful way. But there’s a lot of work out there in that same boat. And a significant percentage of it is of comparable or even better quality to what did make the list.

All this is not to complain but simply to point out a very basic reality—not every piece of fiction published in a given year is going to get any significant notice, regardless. There is simply too much of it. Great from a reader’s standpoint—there’s an embarrassment of riches out there. Not so good from the writer’s perspective. It’s hard not to feel like one snowflake in an avalanche. I mean, you’re there, but so what? Almost no one would miss you, and certainly not that small group of skiers you’re aiming at. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll graduate to the status of one drop in a bucket. If you melt really well.

Put away the knives and nooses, this isn’t about despair. It’s about why we do what we do. If you’re writing to please other people, stop that. Find something more useful to do with your life while you still can. If you’re writing for posterity, for your own sake knock it off. Seriously. Posterity doesn’t give a damn. I’ve pointed out this fact before and it bears repeating—most writers, good, bad, and brilliant, are completely forgotten within fifty years of their shuffling off their mortal coils. I’d even go so far to say that most of them don’t even make it that long. If you’re doing it to make a living and you’re accomplishing that, great. You’re one of a rare breed.  If you’re writing fiction for yourself, if writing makes you a better, saner human being than you would otherwise be, also great. I can think of few better reasons

Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.

 

“Is This the Five Minute Argument or the Full Half-hour?”

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The Ghost WarThe subject came up for me because I got briefly involved in an online discussion, which on the surface was about Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy. The instigator of the discussion readily admitted that the books were classics, but by implication wondered why they were classics. After all, there was very little overt action, the pacing was slow, and thus the books weren’t that entertaining. My first reaction was something along the lines of WTF??? After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I had to think about that for a bit.

I’m not going to get into a discussion of reading protocols. I’m not qualified, for one thing. However, there is something I have known for a long time, and the ancients knew long before I did—and so I shouldn’t have been at all surprised by that reader’s reaction to a series I did and still do think is brilliant. The proper response is not “What the hell is wrong with you?” The proper response is to shrug and remember “De gustibus non est disputandum.” More or less, “You can’t argue matters of taste.”

Of course, people can and do argue matters of taste. All the time. People like to argue, and for people who do like to argue, matters of taste are simply perfect. For as humanity has understood for a long time and the Romans expressed so succinctly, it’s a completely and utterly pointless exercise. There’s no logic to express, no preponderance of evidence to introduce, no real case to be made. Every such argument starts with one basic position by both (or all) disputants, and that is “Why don’t you like what I like?” The simple and obvious answer does nothing to derail the argument. It’s pointless, but only if you don’t realize that the argument itself is the point. Nothing is settled and no one is persuaded. Arguing in its purest and most honest form.

The thing is, we never read the same books, see the same plays, hear the same music, because we can’t. In order for me to do that, I would have to be you. And frankly, I have more than enough on my plate just trying to be me. My perspective and experience are not yours, and vice versa. If someone says the Earthsea books are slow paced, I would say they are thoughtful. If someone says that there’s no overt action, I would say that most of the conflict is internal but expressed beautifully in the text. If someone says that nothing really happens I’d say nothing but an entire world changing in front of our eyes. And whoever that theoretical someone was, we’d both be right.

Sometimes I think the real miracle is that we ever agree on anything.

Wait For It…

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SleepingBuddhaI love to wait…said no one, ever. And yet it is one of those times. PS Publishing has an artist lined up for the cover of To Break the Demon Gate, but even preliminary sketches take time and I won’t have any idea what the cover is going to look like until much later in the process. I’ve got contracts and royalty payments hanging fire, but again nothing is ready now and won’t be for weeks, likely. I’ll send out the manuscript for The War God’s Son probably later this month, and there’s another long wait in the making.

Everyone has to “wait for it” at one time or another, in cases where it can’t be avoided, like the DMV or the dentist’s office. Relatively brief times, but they seem longer because there’s nothing else to do but anticipate the joy to come. But for what I call the real waiting, on matters that may take weeks, or months, even years? I sometimes think writers do more than their share. We’re always waiting, if we allow it.

Whaddya mean, “if we allow it”? It isn’t up to us! Oh, but it is. The key to bearing up to all the waiting, of course, is that you’re not waiting. Or to be more accurate, you’re not just waiting. There are things to do, stories to write, books to read, guitars to play, tires to patch and gutters to muck out. You don’t keep yourself busy as a distraction, you keep yourself busy because you’re alive and you’ve got better things to do than wait. Then one day a check and/or contract arrives in the mail, an email arrives with a decision made for good or ill, or maybe a preliminary/final cover jpeg arrives, and you go “What? Already?”

Or you can simply “wait for it” and focus on what isn’t happening and stew away your stomach lining and your last good nerve all the while, and waste one hell of a lot of precious, non-retrievable time in the process. That’s always an option. Not a good idea, but an option.

No one likes to wait. The trick, if there is one, is to simply refuse to do it.