Stay away from the future...
Dec. 16th, 2006 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastThe comments to the last entry were much appreciated. Though I think the idea for that novel first occurred only as an angry, vengeful rant, by the time I crawled away to bed last night (4 a.m. CaST), I'd started looking at it much more seriously. If nothing else, it is a safe place where I can pour all my frustration and anger and spite for humanity. Better than going postal with a pointy stick or turning the violence inwards upon myself (my usual strategy).
I started thinking, the story will likely begin a few centuries after the aliens have completed their clensing of the planet. The central character would be an unsuspecting human girl, a teenager who has been befriended by one of the aliens. The aliens would be something completely non-humanoid. insectile, perhaps. This girl lives on the African preserve where humans have been allowed to survive, co-existing with other wildlife and getting by with only the most rudimentary sort of tech (stone tools, at best). All memories of the World Before have been lost. It would seem to the reader, at first, as though we are looking at the Earth in the latest Pleistocene, not the Holocene. These would seem like pre-agricultural humans, hunter-gatherers surrounded by elephants and giraffes and zebra and so forth, who have been visited by an alien civilization. But then this girl is befriended, and the alien teaches her things, and she begins to learn about the purge. She is eventually given access to historical records. This way, it becomes more a novel about the consequences and cultural evolution and conflicts than a space opera about alien invasion. These are, of course, only the most initial ideas. All is yet in flux, back there in my head where stories slowly, slowly take shape. My agent will tell me that there's no money to be made these days in publishing "literary sf" (she's told me that before), but I might just write it, anyway. I feel like it's a book that I need to write, and these days I feel that need all too infrequently.
Today was my first productive day since Tuesday. It has been a black and futile week. An ugly week. The deep trough between the towering waves which bear we forward. Here I cannot afford to lose even a single day, and this morning I had to sit down and mark three full days L. I do not know for sure what dragged me down this time. I never do know for sure. I strongly suspect that proofing Low Red Moon — rearranging those deck chairs — played a role. But it "had" to be done, or I'd have just had to deal with all that nasty regret. Now, at least I know the book that comes out in August will be better than the version released in 2003. And I suspect the nightmares and insomnia played a large role, as well. On Monday, I go back on the damned Ambien. Anyway, I've already canceled plans to see my family in Alabama on the 23rd-24th, to help make up for those three lost days.
The most productive thing about yesterday was an hour or so I spent tinkering with Second Life. I couldn't get very far in my investigations, however, as my iBook's OS is too antiquated to run the requisite software. Once a certain publisher sees fit to finally pay me, there will be a new Mac in Casa de Kiernan y Pollnac, and I won't be limping along on OS 10.2.6 any longer. I can play with the big kids again. Anyway, the thing with Second Life, it's actually research for the piece I started writing today for Sirenia Digest 13 (December), an sf story called "The Path of Silence." Though I'm intrigued by these attempts at creating cyber-environments, I am appalled that they are all so goddamned obsessed with commerce. Linden dollars and the buying of virtual land, the paying of taxes on that virtual land. Shopping in virtual malls, even. What the frell? Isn't there enough tedium in the real world? Is this the best humans can do in their fantasies? Shop? Spend pretend money? Are the masses really that imagination deprived? I'm sure there's more to Second Life than that, but the commercial/capitalist aspect seems awfully front and goddamned center. That shit interests me about as much as fantasy football. Leave the mundane behind, people. It'll still be there when you have to come back.
I believe that the Immaculate Order of the Falling Sky is adopting -H as it logo, in opposition of the singularitarian, transhumanist use of >H and H+.
I wrote 1,101 words this afternoon on "The Path of Silence." Spooky and I had a walk, as it was very warm and sunny, and I'd not set foot outside this dismal house since Wednesday. I read William Gibson's "The Winter Market," which is one of my very favourite sf stories.
All 274 copies of the numbered state of Tales from the Woeful Platypus have, at this point, sold out at Subterranean Press. But there are still copies of the cloth-bound trade hardcover ($20) available.
Also, please have a look at the eBay auctions. These are genuinely unique items. I know Xmas is not the best time to be eBaying (actually, Poppy says it's an excellent time for eBay), but I already explained about the belated check, etc. I really want to see the green-haired boy go to a good home. I'm going to try to list some other items tomorrow, once the writing's done.
As all the gloom began to lift last night, I did get in a couple hours of Final Fantasy XII. Fran, Penello, Ashe, and Co. made their way through the Stilshrine, found the lair of the beautiful Mateus the Corrupter, and kicked her butt. We'll, since she's sort of mermaid-like, maybe it would be more accurate to say we kicked her tail. Either way, we prevailed. Sure beats virtual shopping and paying virtual land taxes.
I started thinking, the story will likely begin a few centuries after the aliens have completed their clensing of the planet. The central character would be an unsuspecting human girl, a teenager who has been befriended by one of the aliens. The aliens would be something completely non-humanoid. insectile, perhaps. This girl lives on the African preserve where humans have been allowed to survive, co-existing with other wildlife and getting by with only the most rudimentary sort of tech (stone tools, at best). All memories of the World Before have been lost. It would seem to the reader, at first, as though we are looking at the Earth in the latest Pleistocene, not the Holocene. These would seem like pre-agricultural humans, hunter-gatherers surrounded by elephants and giraffes and zebra and so forth, who have been visited by an alien civilization. But then this girl is befriended, and the alien teaches her things, and she begins to learn about the purge. She is eventually given access to historical records. This way, it becomes more a novel about the consequences and cultural evolution and conflicts than a space opera about alien invasion. These are, of course, only the most initial ideas. All is yet in flux, back there in my head where stories slowly, slowly take shape. My agent will tell me that there's no money to be made these days in publishing "literary sf" (she's told me that before), but I might just write it, anyway. I feel like it's a book that I need to write, and these days I feel that need all too infrequently.
Today was my first productive day since Tuesday. It has been a black and futile week. An ugly week. The deep trough between the towering waves which bear we forward. Here I cannot afford to lose even a single day, and this morning I had to sit down and mark three full days L. I do not know for sure what dragged me down this time. I never do know for sure. I strongly suspect that proofing Low Red Moon — rearranging those deck chairs — played a role. But it "had" to be done, or I'd have just had to deal with all that nasty regret. Now, at least I know the book that comes out in August will be better than the version released in 2003. And I suspect the nightmares and insomnia played a large role, as well. On Monday, I go back on the damned Ambien. Anyway, I've already canceled plans to see my family in Alabama on the 23rd-24th, to help make up for those three lost days.
The most productive thing about yesterday was an hour or so I spent tinkering with Second Life. I couldn't get very far in my investigations, however, as my iBook's OS is too antiquated to run the requisite software. Once a certain publisher sees fit to finally pay me, there will be a new Mac in Casa de Kiernan y Pollnac, and I won't be limping along on OS 10.2.6 any longer. I can play with the big kids again. Anyway, the thing with Second Life, it's actually research for the piece I started writing today for Sirenia Digest 13 (December), an sf story called "The Path of Silence." Though I'm intrigued by these attempts at creating cyber-environments, I am appalled that they are all so goddamned obsessed with commerce. Linden dollars and the buying of virtual land, the paying of taxes on that virtual land. Shopping in virtual malls, even. What the frell? Isn't there enough tedium in the real world? Is this the best humans can do in their fantasies? Shop? Spend pretend money? Are the masses really that imagination deprived? I'm sure there's more to Second Life than that, but the commercial/capitalist aspect seems awfully front and goddamned center. That shit interests me about as much as fantasy football. Leave the mundane behind, people. It'll still be there when you have to come back.
I believe that the Immaculate Order of the Falling Sky is adopting -H as it logo, in opposition of the singularitarian, transhumanist use of >H and H+.
I wrote 1,101 words this afternoon on "The Path of Silence." Spooky and I had a walk, as it was very warm and sunny, and I'd not set foot outside this dismal house since Wednesday. I read William Gibson's "The Winter Market," which is one of my very favourite sf stories.
All 274 copies of the numbered state of Tales from the Woeful Platypus have, at this point, sold out at Subterranean Press. But there are still copies of the cloth-bound trade hardcover ($20) available.
Also, please have a look at the eBay auctions. These are genuinely unique items. I know Xmas is not the best time to be eBaying (actually, Poppy says it's an excellent time for eBay), but I already explained about the belated check, etc. I really want to see the green-haired boy go to a good home. I'm going to try to list some other items tomorrow, once the writing's done.
As all the gloom began to lift last night, I did get in a couple hours of Final Fantasy XII. Fran, Penello, Ashe, and Co. made their way through the Stilshrine, found the lair of the beautiful Mateus the Corrupter, and kicked her butt. We'll, since she's sort of mermaid-like, maybe it would be more accurate to say we kicked her tail. Either way, we prevailed. Sure beats virtual shopping and paying virtual land taxes.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 12:49 am (UTC)Isn't it? I find that my winning bids increase significantly in the weeks before Xmas, and usually set aside a few premium items throughout the year to list during this time.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 12:55 am (UTC)Oh. Well.
Never mind, then.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 03:27 am (UTC)I did not think that for a moment.
But a mint would be nice right about now.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 12:56 am (UTC)This is why I play World of Warcraft - I like escape in my video games. I have to struggle every day in THIS world with my bills and taxes, why in the heck would I want to do it for fun? *L*
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 03:31 am (UTC)See, I just don't get this at all. It's just frelled. It's like, oh, I shall escape my humdrum existence by becoming a virtual CPA!
Of course, I just noticed that 7 of the top 20 video games (according to Game Informer) are sports games — two of them golf — and I don't get that either.
Or the Sims.
Basically, I think a lot of people take this reality thing way too seriously, thereby missing the point of fantasy altogether.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 03:24 am (UTC)I will read it.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 06:56 am (UTC)Nar', you have no idea how much of my day has been preoccupied with this story idea. I'd like to see it, but I fear that it would either break my heart or drive me into a frothing rage. Maybe both. But, seeing as those two emotions are likely the inspirational font from which this was drawn, that's probably appropriate.
... But then this girl is befriended, and the alien teaches her things, and she begins to learn about the purge....more a novel about the consequences and cultural evolution and conflicts than a space opera...
Are you thinking of this as one of those potential Young Adult forays? And are you still considering taking your writing in that direction (at least partially)?
I believe that the Immaculate Order of the Falling Sky is adopting -H as it logo...
That's probably more web friendly than an H overwriten by two overlapping X's, manual-typewriter style.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 05:49 pm (UTC)Are you thinking of this as one of those potential Young Adult forays? And are you still considering taking your writing in that direction (at least partially)?
No, this would be an adult novel. But yes, I still hope to write a YA novel in 2007, Joey Lafaye.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 09:51 am (UTC)Me too me too!
Date: 2006-12-17 01:52 pm (UTC)As to literary SF and its potential for selling... which of your novels/collections have sold the best? If I remember correctly, you've said Low Red Moon was a disappointment in terms of sales and reception. I haven't (yet) read every last thing you've published, but it seems more "approachable" than some of your other books as far as the general reader is concerned. Which of your works would you consider literary vs. non-literary? I have a hard time imagining you writing, you know, simple space opera or other "non-literary" SF.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 02:05 pm (UTC)Do you see science fiction being the direction that you are most drawn to at this stage in your career?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 05:47 pm (UTC)If you'd have asked me this question in 2004, I'd have said yes. Now, I not entirely certain.
Preserve
Date: 2006-12-17 06:52 pm (UTC)Phil
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 07:05 pm (UTC)I was planning on creating a character, making a protest sign, and then hanging out in front of a store to loudly protest the commercialization. But then I lost interest in the whole thing. I did talk to a virtual sex worker there, who seems to lead a staggeringly bleak life.
Did you hear about the first virtual reality virus they had? The grey goo? The rings?
~Jacob
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 07:23 pm (UTC)Did you hear about the first virtual reality virus they had? The grey goo? The rings?
That sounds interesting. Tell more.
The whole place looks ripe for subversion and invasion, to me.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 10:31 pm (UTC)~Jacob
PS Any word on when we'll be converting those stories? Did I miss the boat?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 11:31 pm (UTC)Brilliant!
PS Any word on when we'll be converting those stories? Did I miss the boat?
Nope. It's just gonna be a while yet till I can get around the sending them out.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 10:32 pm (UTC)could i be more of a nerd?
also, add me to the ranks of those who would read the sci-fi novel. but then, i'd read just about anything that is written by you.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 11:29 pm (UTC)Ah. Well. There you go.
could i be more of a nerd?
Probably not.
also, add me to the ranks of those who would read the sci-fi novel. but then, i'd read just about anything that is written by you.
I bet you say that to all the nixars...