Category: writing

The truth inside the lie

In 2003, Stephen King received the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Many in the world of “lit’rachure” were not amused, and a few went all foamy-mouthed bugshit crazy (a pause to imagine many froth-flecked moths batting frantically against a lit window, bump bump flutter flutter bump).

And then Stephen King made his acceptance speech..

The story and the people in it may be make believe but I need to ask myself over and over if I’ve told the truth about the way real people would behave in a similar situation…. We understand that fiction is a lie to begin with. To ignore the truth inside the lie is to sin against the craft, in general, and one’s own work in particular.
 
— Stephen King, accepting the National Book Foundation Medal

I have read everything King has written. He’s one of my favorite writers because in his work I always find joy (and you know I’m big on joy) and hope and truth. I find real people living real lives, and when the monsters come they heighten rather than diminish that reality. The everyday people in King’s work are laid low or made great, found wanting or given a chance for redemption when the monsters come.

And they take me with them. Their bewilderment and fears and unexpected joys in the midst of their own personal armageddons are mine too. I understand their metaphors and their rhythms of speech. They are quintessentially American people, and their stories are plain and visceral and rooted in the deepest layer of the country’s collective psyche in way that, for my money, the “great American authors” do not routinely achieve. Those people are not my writers. They do not speak for me or about me or to me as a reader. Stephen King does.

And when I re-read his speech yesterday, I found him also speaking to me as a writer:

There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there’s a time when things can go either way.
 
— Stephen King, accepting the National Book Foundation Medal

I had that time fairly recently. I fire-walked my own hopes and fears and other people’s expectations, and now I am in a place where the air is cleaner and the world is bigger for me. I found my truth inside the lie. It sounds like Stephen King found his a long time ago, and good for him.

I’d love to meet him. Not to make forever friends — just for a beer and a burger and a conversation between two writers who are fascinated by the things people will do if given half a chance. I wish that someone who knows him would give him a copy of Dangerous Space and point him to the title story, because I think he’d like the rock ‘n’ roll of it, the everydayness in which Duncan and Mars find their whole world made new by music… I would like something I wrote to put a smile on Stephen King’s face, the way he has so often put a smile on mine.

Connections

Many thanks to you and Nicola for signing several books for me in the past few months. I gave them to my partner, Lisa, as a wedding present. We will be getting married next Tuesday, September 2nd, in San Francisco. She was terribly surprised and especially happy to receive a copy of Dangerous Space, a book she’d wanted since she found out it had been published.

I really appreciate you both going to such trouble to accommodate your readers. After Lisa told me how much she loved The Blue Place, I read it and the two other books within the span of a week. I just read your short story, “Strings,” that you mentioned in the past day or so on your blog, and I enjoyed it very much. I will read the rest of the stories after Lisa finishes the book, as well as your novel Solitaire.

Please pass my thanks along to Nicola. Very best wishes to you both.

Patti Weltler

And our best wishes to you! My apologies for taking so long with this — you’re practically an old married couple already (grin). I’m delighted for you and Lisa, and hope your wedding was absolutely splendid.

And you may have squeaked in under the wire on this incarnation of personalized books. I think we’re going to have to find a better system for the future. Since we moved, it’s very tough to get to University Books to sign things — we end traveling anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes each way, plus the time it takes to park and get into the store and sign, and then we get distracted by all the pretty books… It is a much larger cost in energy and time than it used to be. We may have to get people to start sending books to our post office box or something instead. We’ll see.

Because it pleases me to accommodate readers when I can. It’s a relationship, after all, albeit a distant and single-stranded one. It may only be a few words written on the title page, but I value it as the often most direct and personal connection between artist and art and audience.

And on the practical side, I think artists can no longer afford to ignore the importance — the imperative — of the direct and the personal. I imagine it’s a huge challenge for A-list actors and rock stars and mega-popular authors like Stephen King. There’s always been a cultural tension between privacy and access: the assumption that it’s okay to insert oneself into the private experience of famous people in a way that one would never do to some random stranger on the street. That’s been exploded by the internet — the ability to keep tabs on people anywhere in the world, to monitor everything they say and do in public, to “stay close” in a way that (I worry) feels “real” to people because it’s happening in real time. And I think the end result is that famous people no longer feel like strangers to us. We confuse (or choose to ignore) the difference between our personal connection to their work, which may be very deep, and our personal connection to them, which is usually none.

I certainly wish for personal connection with artists whose work touches me. But my mom and dad raised me right, so I don’t march up to celebrities in the middle of their dinner and demand an autograph. And it wouldn’t satisfy me anyway: that moment of interaction does not constitute a real relationship. It’s not a connection, it’s an encounter. It’s one of the unexpected consequences of art, I think, this blurring of the lines between art and self that translates into a desire to blur the lines with the artist. I don’t know what everyone else seeks when they approach an artist: I seek to touch them in an instant as deeply as they have touched me in hours or years. I seek to matter to them as much as their work matters to me.

Which is a fool’s game, of course. There is no way to re-balance the scales in an instant, unless you pull someone out of the way of a speeding bus or something. The truth is, I cannot have “a relationship” with these people. They are for the most part beyond the reach of the small-crowd appearance where everyone in the room is real to everyone else, the random-but-real moments of encounter, the situational golden moment.

But I’m not famous. I am a common artist, and it is both professionally important and personally rewarding to me to read for people, to sign books, to have the occasional beer, to have conversations here in my little corner of the internet about things that interest me. I’m glad I like it: not all artists do, and I think those who are not willing to create some space for connection with audience will find they have less audience as time goes by. This is the world we live in. And I’m glad to be in this world, Patti, to sign books for you and Lisa, and to wish you both a marriage full of joy and love.

Let’s talk about short stories

A while back, Tania Hershman, editor of The Short Review, published a review of Dangerous Space that I appreciated for two reasons. First, because she liked the stories (I am not immune to this, says the writer with a smile). And second, because she did not come to them as a fan of speculative fiction: her perspective was that of an avid reader and writer of (what I would call mainstream) short stories. She crossed genre lines to read my work, and discovered that, like the mainstream, speculative fiction is a big space with room for many different kinds of story, many different kinds of reader.

Tania talks about this over at Vulpes Libris in a guest article that I recommend to anyone interested in the writing, publishing, reading and general vitality of short fiction. There’s also a good discussion in the comments, including remarks by a reader whose resistance to short stories is grounded in the common experience of (rant alert! rant alert!) the kind of short stories that pass for “real literature” these days. You know the ones I mean. You can read them every week in The New Yorker. They are precious and self-conscious and all about the writer’s voice. They are often dreary beyond belief. They revolve around characters whose purpose is to be small in some way — trapped and fearful, or hapless, or so quirky that it makes my teeth ache — and to stay small, because that’s how we know that the story is “meaningful.” I choose the word revolve carefully, because these stories are designed as collections of beautiful phrases that turn in stately (or in carnival) fashion around the “idea” of the character, around the “theme” of the story…. oh, please shoot me now. No wonder readers complain: even those whom the literati would characterize as “unsophisticated” (a word that just makes me want to howl in rage when applied to readers — hello, Ms. LitSnob, these people are reading!) can tell when they are being fed 5,000 words of self-indulgent bullshit whose deepest message is look how well I write!.

I want more than that. I want stories of people who feel so real to me that I hurt and hope and laugh with them, so real that they carry me out into a wider world, or deep into myself. I want writing that is so good it isn’t even there, writing that is not a performance but a bridge, a transporter beam, a mainline to the heart of the story.

Okay, rant off. For now.

I’m grateful to Tania for her passionate support of short work of all kinds. One of the grandest things about the InterWeb is that there is room for so much more than there used to be — more opinion, more art, more stupidity, more curiosity, more silliness, more difference. More connection, if we want it.

And certainly for more story, which is nothing but good.

I’m especially pleased today to point you to a couple of those stories. Sarah Kanning is a writer who generously gave a lot of time and words-in-email to a stranger (me) to help with background for my Kansas book. Sarah’s first fiction sale “Sex With Ghosts” is up at Strange Horizons.

And Karina Meléndez, who frequently comments on this blog and is currently translating Dangerous Space (the writer bows in the direction of Canada), has “The Sound of Morning Glory” up at Joyland.

Congratulations, Sarah and Karina, and my best wishes for many more stories out in the world.

I’ve been writing stories since the days when there were only a few print publications that would publish “that sci-fi stuff.” These days are better.

A good day for bad medicine

We had a table right next to the dance floor. People buzzed around us, Fantastic show, Love the album, Oh my god that song makes me so hot. Nice for the band: but right now was for us, so everyone was politely turned away while we drank and laughed and dissected the show.

 

I sat next to Con. Duncan was on his other side, still cranked on music: his eyes shone and his body wanted to touch. I watched the crowd watching us, and said to Con, “œSo, is this how you imagined it when you were a kid?”

 

Con made the huh face, and then grinned. “œThe first band fantasy I ever had was that Tico Torres would get run over by the tour bus and I would be Bon Jovi”™s new drummer.”

 

So unexpected, and so perfect: Duncan and I nearly fell out of our chairs laughing. Con went on, “œSeriously. I loved those guys, I still do. And I could totally see myself in the really tight faded jeans and the hair”””

 

“œStop,” said Duncan, who was by now gasping for breath. A wonderful thing, to see him so abandoned to joy. He came out of his chair and straddled Con”™s lap. “œPlease, mister rock star,” he said, “œcan I be your groupie tonight?”

 

“œGet off,” Con laughed.

 

“œLove to,” Duncan said, looking particularly wicked as he always did when he saw a chance to tweak Con, who was undoubtedly the straightest man on the planet.

 

“œYou”™re a fucking pervert,” Con said with genuine love. “œGet off me.” Duncan laughed and went back to his own chair.

 

“œAnd what did you see yourself playing?” I said.

 

“œEasy,” Con said, “œ”˜Bad Medicine.”™”

 

— from “Dangerous Space” by Kelley Eskridge

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Link change for Mad Rush vid

There is a new YouTube link for Karina’s Mad Rush vid for “Strings”. Karina has added a title at the beginning and credits at the end and re-uploaded the vid. I have fixed the link in the original post, but wanted to make sure people knew about the change.

I’m going to be spreading the word about the vid because I think it’s an absolutely awesome idea for generating online buzz for fiction, and a cool and intensely personal way for people to interact with stories they love. I’m totally jazzed about it.

Thanks again, Karina!

Mad Rush for Strings

When I first wrote about vidding, I said:

I wish there were a way to respond like this to a novel or short story. Imagine. Wow. If someone did something like this in response to my work, I would cry like a baby and count myself blessed. — from my post “Vid it“

And today comes this from Karina Melendez — her response to my story “Strings”.

The words are taken (a bit randomly) from…”€œStrings”€. The music is by Philip Glass. The beautiful footage belongs to Patricia Rozema and Aaron Platt. — Karina Melendez, describing the origins of “Mad Rush“.

And so I’m crying and I’m blessed. I’m overwhelmed by this beautiful gift. It’s just astonishing.

Because apart from the incredible personal meaning this has for me, I stand in awe of what she’s done for fiction. It would never have occurred to me to use words in this way, and I think it’s fucking brilliant. This is not a “video of the story” — it’s a response that uses the story I wrote to show the story that she feels. This is not the story of “Strings,” it’s the heart of “Strings” — what music means, how it feels, what it does. And how what we keep inside us will always find a way out.

Watch it, please, please. And please go let Karina know what you think.

Saying thank you doesn’t seem like enough, somehow. And so I thought that along with my thanks, I would offer the story itself. Here is “Strings”. It’s one of my best. I hope you enjoy it.

F&SF questions about online publishing

Gordon Van Gelder of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is asking for input about publishing short fiction online. His questions are an interesting indication of how print publishing, especially for fiction magazines, is changing. The responses are equally interesting. I’m in particular agreement with the folks who say with regard to magazines, free fiction online benefits the writers more than the publishers.

Knowing where to find it

On Lisa Gold’s new research blog, you’ll learn that Samuel Johnson didn’t actually say “œThe next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.” Although he should have, it’s a lot more pithy that what he did actually say… which you can read for yourself in Lisa’s post.

If you’re a writer, or a research junkie, check out the blog and get in on the ground floor — there is already a pile of useful information, with the promise of much more to come. Lisa is a research specialist with years of experience and a lot of good pointers for finding those needles in the great big haystack of the internet. Next time I don’t know where to find something, I’m betting that she will.

Gone from the game

In case anyone was wondering, this is why I love her. One of the many reasons. I love that we feel the same way about what we do: this urge to tell a story so well that it takes you, heart and mind and body, so that you are inside the story and it’s inside you, and you become each other for a while. And perhaps when you put the words away, some small scrap of the story lives on inside you.

I love that Nicola speaks so fiercely of her work, and I love that I am feeling so fierce about mine these days. That I have given myself to it in a whole new way. And even so, even with all that re-found passion and the tidal wave of change it has brought into my life, I have still been struggling with a thing….

Here’s a story. Last year, when Dangerous Space was released, I had occasion to spend time in a bar with one of SF’s pre-eminent critics, someone whose conversation I’ve enjoyed over the years and whose professional skills I have always respected. This person told me they were reading the collection and considering it for review, but had noticed that most of the stories had been published previously. That’s right, I said.

Well, said the critic, that’s not much to show for 20 years, is it?

I answered politely that I hoped quality counted for more than quantity. But I was hurt, and I was rattled. And ultimately there was no review from this critic, so perhaps I gave the wrong answer.

And since then I have been chewing on this, trying to understand the helplessness and the anger and defensiveness that I felt. Who cares what this person thinks? Well, clearly I cared. And what I have come to believe is that it’s not about this person specifically — it’s about my certain knowledge that a lot of people feel this way about writing, or any other creative and/or professional pursuit. Many people will believe that the worth of my collection is diminished by the ratio of old to new work, and that my worth as a writer is best measured by my churn rate. That quality is only important in concert with quantity.

This is a game that I can never win. Many writers can — they produce good work very quickly, and all props and happiness to them. I think it’s a good thing they can do that. But why does this have to be a zero-sum game? If it’s good they do that, why must it therefore be bad that I do not?

Eleanor Roosevelt said No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. And she was right. But withdrawing that consent is not as easy as stamping one’s foot and saying Stop diminishing me right now! It is a process, and I have been processing.

And today I read Nicola’s post, and I felt the cumulative rush of all the moments of good work I have done in 20 years. Every time I wrote a sentence and felt it ring true. Every time I felt a character come a little more to life within me and on the page. Every time I’ve read the stories or the novel and bam, I’m back in worlds and characters that I love, fictions that vibrate with some of the deepest real things within me, things that I’ve managed to transmute into stories that make other people vibrate in turn.

And you know what? This is where I want to play. Consider me gone from the other fucking game. I will do my best to write everything I want to write, as best I can, and I hope I make a boatload of money. But none of that is the measure of my worth. My worth as a writer is measured by what I write. End of story.

As I’ve said recently, it’s huge for me to be a writer, and I am in charge of how I feel about that. And here’s how I feel: in 20 years, I have said things that only I can say, and other people have heard them, felt them, shared them. I have burned, and I still do. I have done well, and I still do. I have found my own way here, in my own time, and it’s been a marvel. I’m looking forward to doing better and burning harder the next 20 years. I intend, as Nicola does, to reach so far inside you that you’ll have to dig me out with a spoon.

And anyone who doesn’t think that’s much to show for 20 years can go fuck themselves.

And a poet for Sunday

To follow on from Saturday’s poetry, here’s a poet for Sunday.

Kay Ryan is the new poet laureate of the United States. I’ve read some of her work, and I think I like it best when I hear her read it; poems, like play scripts and song lyrics, are sometimes impenetrable to me on the page. I think they are less like fiction and more like music for me, that I rely on the human engine behind them to build the bridge between us.

I like Ryan for poet laureate. She’s plain-spoken and real. She makes poetry that teases out complicated human truths from simple things. She writes about the beauty of the natural world and that’s something I think we need right now. Her poems are often very compact, with just a few syllables on each line so that it looks like the poem is sliding down the page… about which Ryan says:

I like it because it is the most dangerous shape. If your line is about three words long, nearly every word is on one edge or the other. You can’t hide anything. Any crap is going to show.
 
— Kay Ryan, talking about writing her poetry

That quote is part of this article on Ryan’s personal history and career, and here’s an extensive analysis of her poetry.

I’ve been writing this post about poetry while drinking a cup of tea and listening to Nine Inch Nails, which seems somehow exactly right. The brain likes to play… I hope your day brings you some similar small pleasures.