Category: writing

Of interest to writers

Well, certainly of interest to this writer.

First, John Scalzi’s excellent post on the harsh realities of the business (and this follow-up). I wish I’d had this when I taught Clarion West this past summer. It would have saved a lot of conversation. I could have just said, “Go read Scalzi’s #4,” et cetera.

Speaking of which — the 2008 Clarion West workshop is now accepting applications, but put your skates on. Deadline is March 1.

Looking for an agent? Colleen Lindsay has just hung out her shingle…

If you’re at all interested in screenwriting, I recommend looking back through the comprehensive coverage of the WGA strike at Deadline Hollywood Daily. If you’re not too worried about being linear, then start with this blow-by-blow reporting of the recent events leading to the recently-announced deal. And don’t just read the post — ponder the 300+ comments that follow, and what they reveal about the human cost of the strike. The last strike was in 1988, when there was no technology for this kind of immediate, urgent public discussion — and it reveals the huge losses for many below-the-line people who aren’t writers and didn’t have a choice, and the long-term damage to writers and the industry as a whole. In these comments are redline levels of excitement, despair, empowerment, uncertainty, and vitriol, interspersed with some thoughtful examinations of Hollywood business and the writer’s place in it.

Book publishing isn’t as different from Hollywood as you might think — book writers may not have a union, but we do have some of the same issues. There are lessons here for every writer.

Naked truth

Question for you.

Do you have secrets? I ask that because as a writer, I imagine many of your personal theories and philosophies and fantasies and the like get written down on the page, in one way or another, disguised or not. You’ve also down your share of interviews (although I’ve only read two) where you answer personal questions. And you’re very candid, very refreshing.

I guess I wonder if you have boundaries that you don’t cross in interviews, or even on the page. Things that you keep close and keep closed, if you would.

Writers always say that if you can’t tell the truth about yourself then you can’t tell the truth about others, and that in order to write — really write — you have to be willing to be excruciatingly honest with yourself, no holding back. You write and by doing so you look at yourself in the mirror (so to speak) and write from what you find. When that happens, when you write a novel, when you do an interview, do you feel hollowed out afterwards? Are there things you hide from the general public (which I realize would include me)?

I truly apologize if these questions are intrusive. I am just curious, but sometimes my curiosity can get the best of me. I’m just very intrigued.

Luey

Hi, Luey.

I think healthy people have boundaries, and I certainly have them.

I have secrets, too. But “secret” is one of those words that means enormously different things to different people. And it’s meant different things to me at different points in my life. I’ve kept secrets at times in my life because I thought I would break if anyone knew them, that my life would be over…. I don’t have those kind of secrets now. They are not worth it.

But I am in many ways a private person, interview candor notwithstanding. I think it’s possible to be both candid and private, it’s just a question of where those boundaries are. I can tell the truth about myself: I just don’t always choose to. Not that I lie about myself routinely, that would be exhausting, but just that my personal boundaries are more rigorous in interviews, in conversation, in the world of human interaction. There are things that I don’t share because they will hurt other people too much. There are things I don’t share because they will hurt me too much. That’s life.

But the boundaries between me and my work are much more permeable. I use myself in my work all the time, all of me, even the parts that would hurt me or someone else in the real world. Some of those things are obvious to people who know me. Some of them, no one but me will ever recognize. Sometimes I don’t even know until they are on the page — but at some point I always do know. That is what comes from expertise — knowing when a piece of writing is true, and knowing (often only later) what it is true of.

I had an extended conversation with Robin on Virtual Pint (the “let’s sit down and talk” area of my old website before I discovered the Beauty That Is WordPress) about this notion of when/how the writer finds herself on the page. The VP archives are a total mess right now, but I plan to move them all over here at some point, so I’ve decided to start with that conversation. Here it is, in chronological order:

Meaning and vulnerability (April 2006)
Naked (July 2006)
More naked (November 2006)

As you’ll see, I’ve been through some changes on this. And that’s the thing about being honest, you know? We can only be honest (or not) about what we know… but I don’t know all there is to me yet. When I was younger, I thought that I was supposed to know all about myself, that self-awareness was a zero-sum game. And that if I didn’t have it, I wasn’t a real adult, I was only pretending — or worse, trying my ass off and failing, failing, and that any second now the real grownups around me would realize it.

I don’t think that anymore. Now I see it as a process, a becoming… much the same way I currently see writing. The more I see it this way, the more closely bound my self and my writing become for me.

But I don’t look in a metaphorical mirror when I write — I look at the characters. I don’t write “about myself.” I don’t use consciously use fiction to explore my own issues or my own psyche, although every story has some of me in it. Characters turn up with hopes or fears or dreams or joys or grief that feel just like mine…. and when those moments are real on the page, that’s when a story starts being true.

Interviews do not hollow me out. They are work, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes a chore. Writing fiction and screenplay makes me temporarily insane in ways that I very much enjoy, but I suspect are sometimes a trial to the people around me. If you want to know more about that, you can find it in a story called “Dangerous Space” — the relationship Duncan Black has with music is a very extreme version of my relationship with writing. And the way Mars feels about music is exactly how I feel about it.

Was that conscious? No. I wasn’t planning to write about my stuff. But it was right for those characters, for that story, so I used it without hesitation. I will put myself on the page anytime I need to if it’s in service of the characters, of the story, of making it true. If it’s just to roll around in my own stuff, well, I hope I am enough of a real writer to know that wouldn’t be real writing.

And no apology necessary. The nice thing about being a grownup is I don’t have to answer people’s questions if I find them intrusive (grin).

Short stories

Kelley:

Recently I have been reading a short story book by Jeffrey Deaver called “Twisted Stories.” Reading the book, and comparing it to similar books I have read by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, leads me to one question I have about short stories.

I like to think I am good at reading character, in people in general. So my question is can a good writer, reverse that type of process, and give a reader a good solid character in a short story?

It’s especially obvious in Deaver’s book that characters take a back seat to get a good shock by the ending. Surely you can manage a short story while still giving your character some depth if movies can do it, it’s a very similar format in pacing and length. Thoughts?

I absolutely believe that three-dimensional, emotionally true characters are possible in short fiction. I would have to put a fork through my forehead if I didn’t (grin), since those are the kinds of stories I try to write.

I agree with you about Deaver and many, many other writers of short fiction, particularly in crime/thriller genres. I’ve read very few short stories in those genres that paid much attention to character. In those stories, the point is the twist at the end, the shock (the big reveal, they call it in screenwriting). Some science fiction is like that too, although much more SF these days tries to focus the “cool idea” through the lens of character. Some people are more successful than others.

And some writers just don’t do short stories very well.

And some writers believe short stories are not to be taken as seriously as longer ones, which makes me exceedingly grumpy. There’s a school of thought that says novels are “better” than short stories because they are longer, more complex, require more carefully blended layers. Et cetera. I think it is certainly true that novels are more work than short stories; they take longer to conceive and longer to write. What pisses me off is the assumption that doing more work automatically makes a work more worthy, and therefore short fiction is automatically lightweight not just in word count, but in intrinsic value. Stories certainly can be lightweight, sure — you’re reading some right now. But they can also be luscious and dense and have as much layering, pound for pound, as a novel; and to create compelling character in 5,000 or 15,000 or 25,000 words is neither an easy nor a less worthy thing to do.

Not sure I agree with you about Stephen King. I think he’s a master of character. There’s no one who does a particular American voice and manner like he does, and with such obvious love for his characters, even the real shitheels. I love his work. If you’re not finding enough character in the shorter stories to interest you, then I highly recommend any of his novella collections (writing as either Stephen King or Richard Bachman): Different Seasons (amazing stuff, including Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body), Four Past Midnight, and The Bachman Books, which are actually short novels but rip along so fast they feel like novellas.

I’d love to hear anyone’s recommendations for short fiction with great characters. Let’s talk.

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And if anyone wants to start a different conversation, just use this link (or the Talk to me here link on the sidebar). It may take me a little time, but I will respond — I love these conversations.

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Edited to add: Jocelyn just turned me on to the short review “where short story collections step into the spotlight.” A brief wander through the site already tells me that there are plenty of collections out there dealing with character-based fiction…. so let’s all go find something good to read.

Also check out their blog.

Giving it up in ’07

It’s my turn to talk on the Aqueduct blog about my favorite books, movies, tv and music of 2007. It turned out to be less of a list and more of a rant, or maybe a riff…

If anyone has suggestions for the kind of text I’m looking for, let me know — I’d be grateful. Or we can talk about what you’re looking for in text right now. Use the comment form below, or start your own conversation (the link takes you to a form where you can submit a question or comment about… well, anything. As soon as I can, I’ll respond and post both your question and my response to the blog).

EW thinks @U2 rocks!

Entertainment Weekly has just published its list of the 25 Essential Fan Sites of 2007, and I’m totally jazzed that @U2, the U2 fan website I write for, is #4. We are the highest-rated music website on the list. Congratulations to the amazing @U2 staff. I’m proud to be among you.

If you’re interested, you can read my @U2 articles here. But don’t stop there — stay at @U2 for great interviews, essays, news reports, album and concert reviews, and more.

@U2 is special not just for its content, but for the quality of the writing, the wonderful sense of teamwork among the staff, and the great leadership of our founder and editor, Matt McGee. I’ve said before that Matt is one of two or three people on the planet that I’d actually consider working for in a real job… and I’m pretty picky these days.

And Matt’s writing a very cool book!

Waiting in the GA line to see U2
My total fangirl goobiness is revealed.
I waited in this line for 12 hours to see U2 in Seattle in 2005. And once inside, I got supremely lucky and ended up in the front row, 8 feet from the band. There is nothing like seeing the music being made, nothing like it. It was a beautiful night.

Old story, newly found

Nearly 10 years ago, Ellen Datlow (in her role as the fiction editor of Omni Internet) invited me into an online round robin storytelling event. From the time I began writing in my 20’s, Ellen was “the editor” for me, the person I always wanted to sell to. (And I did — Ellen published the first two Mars stories, and I’ve always been particularly grateful because those stories are so close to my heart.) So when she said Do you wanna, I said yes.

Here’s how it worked. Ellen put together a group of four writers — me, Graham Joyce, Kathe Koja and Ed Bryant — to take turns writing installments of a story that were posted online as they were written. We were meant to write quickly, so that a new installment could be published every few days, and of course we had to build off what had come before — the point was to write an actual story, not just get wacky on the internet.

We got together through email and settled on a loose structure — the order of posting, and the general framework of the story. I’m not sure whose idea it was to do a Shirley Jackson hommage, but we all fell on it with glee (and if you haven’t read Jackson, please, please go do so immediately! She rocks. The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and the stories, oh my god….).

And so our round robin story became a sort of flash-Jackson — we’d show up on the interweb, see what the person before us had done, and then do our own thing with it. I don’t know how it was for the others, but for me it went like this: come home from the corporate job, kiss my sweetie, grab a beer on the way downstairs to my basement workspace, and… just do it. Write the damn thing by the time the beer was finished. Let it sit overnight, fix it the next day, send it off.

It was a rush. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and more to the point, I found out I didn’t have to get all precious or superstitious about writing — I could just do it.

I was sad when Omni went dark months later. And after several years, the archives disappeared as well. Ah well, I thought, there goes the story.

And then today I found it online, on Pamela Weintraub’s site. She was the Editor-in-Chief of Omni Internet, and I’m thrilled that she’s preserved all four of the round robin stories. This is a huge thing — you can read collaborative fiction from some of the best writers in the field: James Patrick Kelly, Rachel Pollack, Pat Cadigan, Nancy Kress, Karen Joy Fowler, Maureen McHugh, Roasaleen Love, Terry Bisson, Kathleen Ann Goonan, John Clute, Elizabeth Hand, Kim Newman and Jonathan Lethem. I’m so glad I got to be a part of this, and that I can point other people to a part of SF history that wasn’t always so easy to find.

The writer does the happy dance.

And here’s our story. Enjoy.

Can the lady write like a man?

*Snork!*

Gakked from Cheryl, who very sensibly points out that if Drs. Riccobono and Pedriali really think this is such a new topic, they should sit down with a cup of coffee and a few Tiptree stories. (Mom, can I be ineluctably masculine when I grow up? Of course, dear, now put your pith helmet on and go outside…).

You can learn more about the fascinating Tiptree from the fascinating biography by Julie Phillips.

Interview: The Seventh Week

I taught Clarion West this past summer. A beautiful, inspiring, bone-tiring, heat-wave-in-Seattle experience in which I had the pleasure and privilege of working with some great writers…

I taught Clarion West this past summer. A beautiful, inspiring, bone-tiring, heat-wave-in-Seattle experience in which I had the pleasure and privilege of working with some great writers.

The Seventh Week, the Clarion West newsletter, published a brief interview in their Spring 2007 issue. The interview was edited for length (I’m sure this surprises no one who has ever talked to me), but they graciously gave me permission to post the entire interview here.

The interview includes talk about why I write, and my advice to Clarion students (and by extension anyone who wants to learn to write).

Interview: Speculating Gender

I recently sat down with Jesse Vernon of Aqueduct Press for beer and conversation about Dangerous Space, Mars, and gender in life and fiction. I enjoyed it: I hope you will too.

Read the interview on the Aqueduct Press blog, and wander back this way if you’d like to talk more about it.