Sunday, September 30, 2007

Johnny Mnemonic

I was pleased recently to find out that William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic is posted online in it's entirety, here, since this gave me the chance to read the story from the comfort of my chair without paying money, or sitting in a bookstore or something.


I was pleased, reading it, because it's really not all that great. The movie might actually be a better story, minus the fact that it doesn't have Molly. I mean, it's very creative, laying out many, if not most, of the ideas and concepts and social commentary that would pop up in Neuromancer (except for cyberspace). But the story is just not that engaging. There's really no sense of building tension, it's kind of disjointed.

That said, Gibson is pretty good at the basic mechanics of writing. The final fight between Molly and the vatgrown Yakuza assassin is really well told. It's just that Gibson took the concept of "start as late in the story as possible" to its extreme, and as a result there is really no connection with the main character. I read the entire story not giving a shit that I knew the narrator was going to get offed shortly after the narration closes. That's bad.

Still, better than Pynchon's early short fiction. I think I just like novels better than short stories.

Also, I just wanted to point out that the story is really good if one is a Molly fan. It think this is the most ass-kicking she does in any story. Which is funny, because while this is Molly at her most consistently ass-kicking, she is less badass than she is in either Neuromancer or Mona Lisa Overdrive. Just not as scary and psychopathic.

Bullshit

I think this blog might actually be helping me with the writing process, to a degree. Composing short bits where I try to express my point as quickly as possible and move on, has, I think, helped cut out the bullshit from my writing. Which really, there is no need for, because there is always someone who will spot a piece of bullshit if it's there.

Best just to get an idea out there as quick as possible and move on.

New Story!

You see that post, down below? Where I tell myself I should get some writing done. Well, it worked, and I did. This weekend, I have written an entire short story. Whole cloth. First draft. Okay, it's not finished, yet, in the sense that it's not typed yet. It's about 16 or 17 pages in a notebook. Still, that's in incredible feat of writing to get done in one weekend. And it's good. I like it. The changes that need to be made are very minor, almost nonexistent. And also, it the first peice done of my wider Life's Work piece that I am always off -and-on thinking about. It feels like just to have a part of it committed to paper. There is a warm feeling of contentment infusing my body (that might be beer).

Also, I think I am getting closer and closer to my voice. When writing this, I felt like I was learning to turn off my critical voice, my second-guessing voice, and just write the story, knowing what was important, what would have to come. And it worked. I would say that 95 % of the things I thought had to be in there have ended up there. I mean, this thing will need like two edits only, probably. One when I type it and one when I proofread. And it's shorter than the long ass crap that I am writing the rest of the time. Which is nice.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Today is a Game Day.

My car is stuck in the driveway, another car parked behind. I am trapped here.

I should probably get some writing done.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

New Story

I have just started working on the third story, and it is slow going. I wrote an earlier draft, but I am not happy with it, and am starting over from scratch, trying to get the tone and voice right. The printed copy of the last draft lies on the desk next to my notebook. I'm a little over half a handwritten page into the thing, and I have little need to do more than glance at the thing. But it is slow. The voice is taking work to do, and I feel like I am fighting against a mountain right now, trying to get as much of it right without really knowing what it is going towards. I just know that I like what is down so far, and I am trying to take my time, so I don't mess it up and have to start over. No end in sight though. I hate starting new stuff. It's so...consuming.

Last story almost done

Last night and this morning—okay, early this morning and early this afternoon—I rererereedited my latest story. I think it is getting pretty good now. Yes indeedy, polished to a sheen, almost. Maybe just a few bits of dirt stuck along the edges.

Some books I like, in no particular order

Neuromancer

Man, I have just not been able to put this down lately, for some reason. I just really like the asymmetry of it, I think. The way it starts off as a tense chase sequence short story, then shifts into a film noir set up. The episodic second section, the character and atmospheric sequences from the third. And then the almost real time focus of the fourth section. Also, I just love love love Molly. One of the best characters ever.

Slaughterhouse Five

I was just thinking recently about this book, that its basically just super reliable. I really can't so anyone not liking this book for anything other than political purposes. Its storytelling is almost objectively good.

Gravity's Rainbow

Been rereading this, slowly, off and on recently. And I do mean slowly, as in that's the pace I read at. It's bizarrely become easy to read for me recently, when before could only get about 10% of what was going on. But now I am actually following it. It has the lit fiction tendency of more describing characters a states and showing them ruminating and reminiscing than just showing the fucking action already, which is the approach I prefer, but one it's terms its remarkably good at sucking me in. And the vitality of the prose is nice too. I think the main reason I picked this back up is I read a shitload of Gibson interviews and—surprise!—he's a fan too!

Neverwhere

Just the best villains ever really. Up there with Molly. I like to fantasize sticking Croup and Vandemar in other stories/mediums, delight in the damage they cause. Unstoppable Inhuman Common Thugs. Why didn't someone think of that sooner? "I'm afraid we have no redeeming qualities." Sweet.

Crying of Lot 49

What a nice compact, short, sweet little book. And not that much Navel-gazing. Well, more navel-gazing than V. but nothing interesting ever happens in V. and at least here interesting things happen in the navel-gazing. And the plot is excellent: off-kilter and of ambiguous import. I feel like I hold myself back from rereading this one, just because I know it would be over so soon, and I have other stuff I am trying to read. Or something. I don't really know why I deny myself. Maybe I am afraid I will just assimilate it into my being, and just know it my memory. I bet if I gave myself the chance, it could happen.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

The most reliable of all my childhood fantasy literature. The ones I keep rereading. Because they are so much fun.

Ulysses

I think I have read Part I four or five times. Only book where I don't mind starting over, though I got through it all once. There is a lot in this book, and I am still trying to get my head around it, every so often, but whatever is there is really interesting. I think Joyce is the only author I have read, in fact, is the only author, who is the objectively good. If you don't like it, you're wrong. Doesn't mean he isn't frustrating, or that I don't kind of wish we had three more Ulysses instead of one Finnegan's Wake, but still, the guy is good, there is no way around that. I mean, other writers are maybe arguably better, from a certain perspective, but they all have faults. Joyce is completely in control, and unlike, say, Nabokov, he also has heart. Only writer with both technical and thematic perfection. Little hard to get, though.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Where to?

I've handed off a copy of my latest story to Anne, and am awaiting her opinion of it as is. This means I should probably either start working on my next story, or go back and work on the first, cleaning up the ending. I am leaning towards the latter. I don't feel like I am allowed to move on yet, somehow, and I kind of don't feel like working on that particular story. On the other hand, I do kind of feel like working on the fourth story, but I don't really want to jump the gun.

I started readings some of the what's been written so far of the third story. I don't know what to make of it. I have this sneaking dread that I might have to completely rewrite it, start over, that the story is tonally all wrong, or at least the method of telling it, the diction, is wrong for the character. On the other hand, I kind of like the tone of it, whether it fits the character or not. There are a lot of errors. Perhaps if I clean up the errors, iron out the sentences, it might become closer to the piece that I envision.

I need to come up with better titles for these blog posts. Maybe a system or something. Or just dates.

Finally!

Well, I finally got around to editing that last thing, which I had been putting off for a while. I am not sure if it is completely done, but I think I have reached a point where I want feedback before I go any further. I guess this means I need to go back and do the edits on the last story that I know I need to do. Still, maybe tomorrow I will just dust off that third story and start working on that instead, or at least get the juices flowing on it again. I really hate editing. And typing things I write in notebooks. Still, I really do need to go back and edit that last thing. Humbug.

I'm rereading Neuromancer, by William Gibson, right now. Molly's awesome. I bought a copy of Mona Lisa Overdrive, which I am putting off starting until I finish this one. I can't wait. Been reading a lot of Gibson interviews lately too. Interesting talker. Lots of interesting takes on things. I like him. It's always nice to think that an author isn't a prick.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Collaging in the future

Shit, what is it today, Wednesday? Tuesday? Anyways, yesterday morning and the night before that I wrote a whole bunch of stream of consciousness notes in my notebook that I need to edit out and cut and past and collage into a version of the main character's thoughts in the most recent story. So, I have that to do, typing, and then grueling editing to do.

Also, I rewrote a portion of the ending from the story before that, taking into account the criticisms from Anne and Boyle and the ideas about changing it that Anne and I hammered out. I got stuck though, as I think that the remaining edits will be some combination of the old material cut and pasted and collaged, and some new material, including a mention of certain integral character who shows up at the beginning, leaves and then is never mentioned again.

So, basically it seems what I have to do next is a bunch of grunt work, which I have been putting off, on account of being a lazy bastard, and this post is a way for me to expunge all that grumpy layaboutism and get off my ass. So.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Weekend Update

Today I have written, quickly, the last two sections of the story that I am working on. They are far from finished, but they give me a good idea of the direction I need to move in with the story, and a cursory idea of the structural direction of the last two sections. I think that more fleshing out is necessary, so I think my next step is to print up a copy of the story to read, and see what I feel is lacking from the conclusion, what I need to do to punch it up, and what I need to do to fit the story more strongly into the narrative pattern of the story so far.

Also, yesterday I talked with Anne extensively about the ending of the last story, and the changes I need to make to that one's ending to give it a more fitting conclusion. I basically have to rewrite that section, expanding it, and changing the main character's response to his situation to make the ending less heavy handed than it could be. the basic idea is that, in stead of a shocking realization that isn't that shocking, I need to go for a sense of creeping unease, which will be more effective at making the point of the story, and will also work better to maintain the reader's sympathy. I think. I don't know if I want to make those changes now, or in the future. I think I should finish the present story before going back to make revisions, just so I'm not flitting around too much, but I should doo the revisions before moving on to the next story.

Friday, September 7, 2007

Literary vs. Genre

One of the things I spend a lot of my time thinking about/wanting to read about is the topic of genre fiction vs. literary fiction, what the terms means, their artistic worth, and so on. Most of this relates to the perception of the artistic merits of fiction, and whether fiction needs to have pretty words to count as great art or not. This eventually turns into a debate about what qualifies as literary fiction and what qualifies as genre fiction, and it lierary fiction is just another genre or not.

The way I see it, the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction is this. Genre fiction—it's various genres, sci-fi, fantasy, western, mystery, crime, thriller, horror, romance, etc.—is interested in the tropes of it's particular genre, and literary fiction is more interested in the use of literary devices—foreshadowing, symbolism, character, imagery, structure, etc. Its basically two different approaches to relating themes, which is what all fiction is ultimately about.

Hence the difference in the readers interest. Readers of literary fiction want to read something that is, let's say, well-written. Readers of science fiction want something that involves science fiction. This does not mean that a science fiction book can't be well-written, or literary fiction piece involve genre element. Both occur. It's a question of emphasis.

For example, lots of Thomas Pynchon novels include genre tropes, like robotic men, ninjas, walking dead people. But the emphasis is more on the prose style and postmodern plotting and structure techniques. Hence, literary fiction. Also, most of those tropes are pretty derivative. Then there is someone like Philip K. Dick, who apparently, writes like crap, but has visionary, genius science fiction concepts. Hence, he's considered a major science fiction writer. In fact, it's often the case that some genre writers who are not really good "writers" are still considered very good writers because of the content of their ideas. Most of the pulp writers whose names we still know, like Lovecraft and Howard are known because of their ideas, the Cthulu mythos and the Hyperborian Age, respectively. Meanwhile, literary writers usually become well known for their innovation of technique, like Faulkner or Hemingway or Joyce. (Although I often feel like Joyce is his own form in an of itself, as he seems to be more a writer of ideas than form, and thus became the master of form as he was the master of ideas. Or something.)

In brief, genre fiction is about ideas, literary fiction is about technique. And both forms have both ideas and technique.

Madeleine L'Engle, 1918-2007

Via the Onion A.V. club, I see that Madeleine L'Engle had died. Guess I feel I should point that out, since I wrote this post about her work not too long ago. Now I feel bad about not finishing A Swiftly Tilting Planet. So it goes.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on her.

Got nothing done yesterday.

I spent most of my night finishing my A Familiar Dragon book. It collects the first three books in a series of five, so I ordered the last two online from Amazon. it's sad that the books are out of print. I hope the author, Daniel Hood, is doing all right.

The books should be here by September 10th. It will be nice to get something in the mail. Something to make this place feel a little more like home.

And hey, it's the weekend. Hopefully the writing juices will kick back in. I feel like of thrown off my game by that long weekend. Think I need to just bite the bullet and start pouring over my notes again, get back in the mindset. Any time now.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Well, that didn't go as planned.

Got nothing done this past week or so. Last Friday got a call from mom: basement flooded. Had to drive there and help move stuff to garage, throw stuff out. This went on through Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Spent Tuesday recuperating and drove back around noon on Wednesday. This seems to have become the standard process of my weekend visits.

In between boxes I managed to read some of my A Familiar Dragon omnibus, and watch the first season of Heroes with mom, which was very good. For a show with that title, there is a surprising amount of moral ambiguity on display. Most of the characters are neither wholly good or wholly bad, except for maybe Peter and Hiro, who both still have their flaws (Peter's unconditional caring for his family often leads him to trust the wrong people, and Hiro's idealistic notions of heroism are vaguely self-centered). The characters are often depicted as people stuck in situations with no easy solutions, and having to struggle through, or making wrong but basically understandable decisions that there is no way to get out of within the system. Even the villainous mastermind, Linderman, a vaguely justifiable reasons for his actions, if you're a far out Utilitarian, and serial killer Sylar is given nuance and sympathy (a choice which actually makes him even scarier).

I had some minor squabbles: the evil masterplan is stolen wholecloth from Watchmen, and I think some of the character development is a little quick for a five week period, especially that involving the Nikki/Jessica plotline, but other than that, the show is pretty awesome. There are people with super powers in it, after all. Can't wait for the next season to start.

Unfortunately, this means I now have to get a dvd player and tv, so I can watch all the commentaries and special features. Hurm.

Hopefully, I will get back to writing my story tonight. I hope to finish it by the the end of the week. Which is what I planned last week, but, hey, flooded basement, right.