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25/5/09 00:35![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlectomyLet me just say how exhausted and how energized I feel at the same time. This is a place where I feel that the things I care about are also things that other people care about. I think the sense of community that comes from that can do incredibly powerful things. There's that song,
Many drops can turn a mill, singly none, singly none
Many stones can build an arch, singly none singly none
And I think it's easy to fall in this trap of thinking, the only things that I can do are the things that I can do by myself. I'm, like, notoriously bad about being able to ask for help in the first place, and at the same time I'm notoriously bad on not following through on help I volunteered to provide. But I would like to think about what I can do, perhaps in the context of WisCon, perhaps in other contexts.
--
I want to come back to that authorial intent panel because there's this dichotomy that comes up that is so interesting to me. It's the things that slip out into your writing when you're not looking.
When I'm writing something, I am building myself a house, and I am building all these rooms for myself. And it's inevitable that eventually I'm going to build a closet, and I'm going to open the door of that closet, and a grizzly bear is going to leap out from inside. It's this scary issue that I'm writing around and trying not to talk about. And this is why I need to write a bad first draft, right? It's only once I'm finished the house that I'm able to say, Okay, there's a bear here, and I'm not going to get mauled by it and I'm not going to run screaming from it, and what am I going to do about it? And what I'm going to do about it is what gives power to my writing. This is what great books do. They find the scary thing at their center and they look it in the eye. And -- here I'm not talking about the writer but about the book, right? I don't think it's necessarily that the author consciously examines whatever scary issue they're writing about. I think that can sometimes result in books that are too obvious. Sometimes it's just a matter of the author writing in a way that's honest, and unflinching, and letting things develop as they will -- sometimes there's an honesty there that can only be seen in retrospect.
But when it's something like Jack Chalker's ungulate prostitutes (band name: Jack Chalker and the Ungulate Prostitutes!), that's not read as powerful, often. That's read as squicky, often. And what I feel sometimes when I read Chalker or John Ringo is embarrassed on behalf of the author. Like he's walking around with his underwear sticking out or toilet paper stuck to his shoe, and you just cringe.
I want the author to take me to a place that's dark and scary and deeply personal. But I don't want the author to take me to a place that's squicky and cringeworthy. So I'm still not sure where the dividing line is between one and the other.
So, I'm going to bed now. I'm going to think about that and think about my magical-realism-with-real-estate-broker story, and see if either one goes anywhere. (The magical realism story has a jaguar in it!)
Many drops can turn a mill, singly none, singly none
Many stones can build an arch, singly none singly none
And I think it's easy to fall in this trap of thinking, the only things that I can do are the things that I can do by myself. I'm, like, notoriously bad about being able to ask for help in the first place, and at the same time I'm notoriously bad on not following through on help I volunteered to provide. But I would like to think about what I can do, perhaps in the context of WisCon, perhaps in other contexts.
--
I want to come back to that authorial intent panel because there's this dichotomy that comes up that is so interesting to me. It's the things that slip out into your writing when you're not looking.
When I'm writing something, I am building myself a house, and I am building all these rooms for myself. And it's inevitable that eventually I'm going to build a closet, and I'm going to open the door of that closet, and a grizzly bear is going to leap out from inside. It's this scary issue that I'm writing around and trying not to talk about. And this is why I need to write a bad first draft, right? It's only once I'm finished the house that I'm able to say, Okay, there's a bear here, and I'm not going to get mauled by it and I'm not going to run screaming from it, and what am I going to do about it? And what I'm going to do about it is what gives power to my writing. This is what great books do. They find the scary thing at their center and they look it in the eye. And -- here I'm not talking about the writer but about the book, right? I don't think it's necessarily that the author consciously examines whatever scary issue they're writing about. I think that can sometimes result in books that are too obvious. Sometimes it's just a matter of the author writing in a way that's honest, and unflinching, and letting things develop as they will -- sometimes there's an honesty there that can only be seen in retrospect.
But when it's something like Jack Chalker's ungulate prostitutes (band name: Jack Chalker and the Ungulate Prostitutes!), that's not read as powerful, often. That's read as squicky, often. And what I feel sometimes when I read Chalker or John Ringo is embarrassed on behalf of the author. Like he's walking around with his underwear sticking out or toilet paper stuck to his shoe, and you just cringe.
I want the author to take me to a place that's dark and scary and deeply personal. But I don't want the author to take me to a place that's squicky and cringeworthy. So I'm still not sure where the dividing line is between one and the other.
So, I'm going to bed now. I'm going to think about that and think about my magical-realism-with-real-estate-broker story, and see if either one goes anywhere. (The magical realism story has a jaguar in it!)