Writer's Block: Taxmen and Poetry

[Error: unknown template qotd]For lust of knowing what should not be known,
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

From "Hassan" by James Elroy Flecker

(no subject)

*finds quiet corner to recover from long and vehement comment in own thread*

*breathes deeply and slowly*

*recovers equilibrium*

I've been listening to Nebulous, and finding it wonderful fun. It's largely catchphrase-based comedy: every week the same set of things happen, the same lines are repeated. "I'm drifting." "Unlike you, I no longer have the luxury of [body part]." "I'd like to do what I can, but I'm afraid I can't." It could be (wrongly) argued that apart from the plot, it's the same episode every time, which is a switch from the argument as applied to stories, where it's supposed to be the plot that makes them all the same. People do seem to want to believe that writers are lazy bums who never do any real work, don't they?

(Incidentally, Nebulous is catchphrase comedy that works, because unlike the work of Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse, Catherine Tate and so on, the catchphrases arise from the natures of the characters, rather than the characters being created to parrot the catchphrases. That's the way to do it. {Oh look, another one.})

But yes, there are recurring elements, as there are in some stories. So let's talk about the pleasures of recognition.

We love to see old friends. Which is to say, we derive pleasure from meeting the same people over and over again. We never get bored with their company, even though they are the same person we saw last month or last year or whenever. Is this, perhaps, because we are stupid? I think not. Partly, it's because (as hinted at in that other post) each meeting is different. Different things have happened to us, different things have happened to them, in some respects we've all changed as people. And partly, it is because the things about them that remain the same--the sound of their voice, the warmth of their hug, the little phrases they turn round and say every time--strike a chord of familiarity in our hearts and make us feel good.

So. A combination of the familiar and the new is what makes each meeting different and the same, comforting and interesting at the same time. It's the ideal in relationships with people, and it's the ideal in stories and in music and in comedy and in every form of creativity. That's why abstract art, atonal music, excessively experimental fiction, only work for some people and hack other people off mightily. They have lost the element of recognisability, gone too far along the "innovation" arm of the scale. That's why Mills and Boon romances, popular classical pieces, chocolate-box pictures of kittens and country cottages, appeal to some people and bore the pants off others. They've gone too far the other way. Neither is wrong...but the perfect balance between the two is the ideal.

The people who talk slightingly of stories as described in the other post, emphasising the familiar elements that recur and marginalising the variant elements that are different every time, are missing this whole point, and (intentionally or unintentionally: I assume the latter) insulting both writer and reader by implying that the one is too lazy to do proper work and the other is too dense to realise it. There's a perception, and I'm not sure where it comes from, that innovation is good and familiarity is bad. (There's a contrary perception as well, of course. Two kinds of fool, and all that.)

It's not wrong to seek (or to provide) comfort in the familiar. It's not wrong to seek (or to provide) interest in the new. It's best of all when you can have (or create) both in the same experience.

I remember once...

...watching Junior Points of View, the BBC's lettercol for kids, at that time presented by Robert Robinson I believe. I can't remember what led up to it, but I still remember with some clarity a balding, bearded man, with a voice for which the word "sonorous" might well have been coined, explaining (and demonstrating) that to be unnerving all you had to do was speak slowly and quietly while keeping your face perfectly still except for the eyes.

This good advice has served me well throughout the years, and even though I didn't recognise the man at the time I came to know him later as a friendly and funny voice and a fund of improbable knowledge.

And now he's dead. And that makes me sad.

Innovation vs Familiarity: another sidebar

One of my friends linked to a job listing for (I believe) some sort of magazine, possibly an online one. They want junior editors. Here's the ad.

Looking at the text of that ad highlighted for me a point I made in passing towards the end of the last post. The magazine is looking for "speculative fiction and poetry that explores the edges of ideas; stories that subvert, refute and push the limits...unique pieces from authors willing to explore non-traditional narratives and take chances with tone, structure and execution, balance ideas and character, emotion and ruthlessness." They add "We also have an eye for more traditional tales told with excellence," but it looks like an afterthought, and it's clear that their main focus is on the endless search for something else that's new and different and not like the stuff people mostly like to read.

It may well be that, like a 55 mph speed limit intended to try and get drivers to please keep it down to 70, they know darn well what they are going to get will be mostly "traditional tales" (because, that being what people mostly like to read, it's also what people mostly like to write) and they're hoping to weed out the more pedestrian writers (weed out pedestrians? We're back with the speed limit). But the effect, on me at least, is quite different. I wouldn't try and send a story to that mag in a million years. I have no idea what they want. "Take chances with tone, structure and execution"? It's words on a page. They make sense or they don't. If they don't, I'm doing it wrong, not "exploring non-traditional narratives."

And just exactly where are "the edges of ideas"? Somewhere near the Islets of Langerhans, presumably.

It seems to me that the editors of this publication, like so many editors and publishers whose submission guidelines I have read over the years*, are still barking up the blind alley that Moorcock and company trailed despondently back from in the seventies. They're looking for something that's newer and more exciting than stories, which is like looking for something that satisfies hunger better than food. They think they want to put everything into the "innovation" pan of the scales and leave the "familiarity" pan empty; that if they do that, the readership will forsake their Doc Smiths and their Asimovs and their Pratchetts and follow them into a Promised Land just over the next hill where everything will be new and they will be as gods (or possibly not).

Don't wanna. I like reading stories, traditional tales if you like, and "excellence" is very much a movable feast where I'm concerned. I like writing same, and if someone can tell me a sure-fire way to add "excellence" I'll do it, but I don't think there is one. I certainly don't think "subverting, refuting and pushing the limits" is the magic formula. If it were, someone would have done it already.

People have been looking for the post-book book for a long time. There's always another gimmick. Dennis Wheatley's "Murder Off Miami" with the clues included in the book. Hitchcock's Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries. Choose Your Own Adventure books (if you bought one, turn to page 93). Interactive fiction with hyperlinks yet. And all the time, like cheap music and paintings of little doggies on velvet, people keep buying ordinary books that tell them a story they can understand, give them a character to identify with, start from an intriguing beginning, and come via an enthralling middle to a satisfying end. Because that's what pleases the active mind. And there are always more new stories to tell.

*One company told the Countess that they were looking for stories that were "post-millennial, not millennial." I eventually arrived at a sort of vague idea what they meant, but I could be wrong, and it was completely irrelevant to her story anyway.

Image-heavy post

Some of you, those who have visited us in the last five years, may remember that the carpet on the stairs, once a pleasant pattern in muted earth tones, had become a grey, frayed remnant of its former self, and in several places was positively unsafe. This, with the Countess's poor eyesight and lack of feeling in her feet, was a no-no, and so we have scraped together enough to replace it. And, to our very great delight, we managed to find one she actually liked.

( As, behind this cut, you shall see... )

It's beautifully soft and bouncy and even tempted me out of my slippers. Jan's very happy with it, which makes a nice change. Next step is the living room, though that will probably have to wait till I get a job, please GODS...