Friday, April 01, 2005
After all these years of writing and publishing and the often outright stupid things people say, I have come to understand that many readers have been taught to be impatient. It's entirely counterintuitive, I know, but that's neither here nor there. High-school teachers, college composition, lit, and "creative writing" professors, all of them, they've sold readers on some stripped-down, minimalist, post-modern school of prose. They've led readers to think that anything with a voice is "overwritten," that the presence of style is "pretentious," and suchlike. I am happy to disappoint, though, sometimes, I do get tired of hearing it, all the crap people have heard, that they've scribbled down in notebooks because it might be on the test, because it might help them get published, because someone else said it, someone with authority, because they'll have need to parrot it back in the future so that other people will think they're oh-so-erudite, and Heaven forbid one should think for his- or herself.
Just something annoying I woke up with, like bees inside my skull.
Okay. So, announcements first. Well, second. I will not be attending the 2005 World Horror Convention after all. I know that I've probably gotten a reputation as the writer most likely not to appear at a con that she's said she'll be attending, but it can't be helped (it never can). I'm two months behind on Daughter of Hounds, have the erotica collection to finish, a bunch of editing, work for Marvel, a chapbook to put together to accompany To Charles Fort, With Love, and there's just no time. Back late last year, when I decided to attend, the novel was on course, going well, and I thought I'd have the time. My apologies to anyone who's attending with thoughts of meeting me. Maybe next time. These days, truthfully, I'm having a lot of trouble justifying the inconvenience and expense of conventions. I'm not sure how some writers do it, attending all the big cons every year. These things are expensive, between travel, hotels, con registration, and all sorts of miscellaneous expenses. Only rarely, as was the case with Fiddler's Green, is a con willing to foot the bill. Cons always wind up costing me somewhere between $500 and $1,000, and I rarely ever enjoy the damned things. I mean, it's nice meeting readers, and I enjoy doing readings, but I hate sitting on panels — the same panels they've been doing since I started appearing at cons in 1994. I hate being in wonderful cities, but not having time to explore, even though I'm the one paying to be there. In the future, I have decided, I shall only be attending cons that are willing to cover the expense of my being there. There are just too many things I'd rather spend money on.
The talk with Liz Scheier, my new editor at Penguin, went well yesterday. What else about yesterday? Not much. I tried to write and didn't. I need to spend the weekend working on something for Marvel. I feel like there's just no getting back into this novel, between the other projects and the difficulties I'm having with the book.
I definitely should not have decided to kick my Ambien habit at the same time I decided to give up meat. But I'm doing it. It sucks, but I'm doing it.
I got the Nebari.net "winter special," Prophecy uploaded last night. Just click here, unless you don't like blue gore and naked aliens. I'm very pleased with these little stories. Sometimes they please me more than the "professional" stuff. I do these just for me. They only have to make me happy. No one gets to tell me anything should be any other way than the way I want it. I don't have to listen to anyone whine about how it ought to be and then worry that, for my own well-being, maybe I should listen to them. Frell them. This one's just for fun. I remember a time, long, long ago, when it was all fun, the writing. Anyway, at this point, we have three seperate Nar'eth narratives going — "The Girl Who Sold the World," the prose story that deals with Nar'eth's escape from the Velbidar; the manga written and drawn by Leh'agvoi, set many years later, which deals with Nar'eth meeting Syraeyn; and now this story which begins with Prophecy and will lead to Nar'eth being reunited with her two-thirds sister, Tai'lah. It's complicated, probably confusing, entirely devoid of exposition, and I like it that way.
11:06 AM
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