greygirlbeast | The Pink Zone

Current Mood: okay
Current Location: Phaenna Dorsum
Current Music: David Bowie, "Wishful Beginnings"

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The Pink Zone

1) I slept eight hours, and I'm still not exactly what passes for awake.

2) We've laid in supplies. The snow is coming. It should arrive around midnight tonight. Heavy, heavy snow. If I were still in Birmingham or Atlanta, this sort of snow would spell the beginning of a week or two of havoc. Here, we may be unable to leave the house for one day, maybe. By "leave the house," I only mean get the car out of the driveway.

3) Yesterday, I wrote 1,142 words on Chapter 4 of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. I'm starting to suspect I'll finish the chapter on Thursday. I'm on manuscript page 162. But, even as I begin this seemingly marvelous progress, the insecurity mounts. The fear that I'm not even half smart enough to write this book, and that there's no audience who wants to read a novel of this sort. I have begun heavily second guessing the reader.

Fuck the so-called wisdom of writing workshops, of instructors, and fuck all that shit about reader/writer contracts. This sort of anxiety is poisonous to good fiction. One does not write for an audience, unless one only wishes to pander. One writes. The worth of a novel is not determined by the opinions of those who read it, collected and averaged to yield an objective rating that may be expressed in stars given and stars withehld. It's all a lonely mess. The book's "worth" lies in the mind of the author, and in the mind of each reader. Each is alone with the book, and everyone who reads it is subject to their own unique experience. Nothing is generally true. That said, I sit and try to just let Imp speak and tell her story, but I begin to hear the complaints to come. The shitty Amazon and blog "reviews" it may receive in 2012. These things shouldn't occur to me, and certainly they shouldn't give me a moment's pause, but they do. "It takes forever before anything actually happens." "It's slow." "It rambles." And so on and on and on and so forth.

4) Yesterday, after the writing, we had to go to our storage unit in Pawtucket. Outside, the world was bitter cold, scabby, too sharp around the edges. Anyway, we needed to drop off those files I mentioned having boxed up back on the 7th. That was the easy part. I also needed to find the missing files for The Dry Salvages, which I'm revising a bit before it's reprinted in Two Worlds and In Between. The files weren't in my cabinet, or anywhere in my office, or in the house. So, it stood to reason, we'd find them in the storage unit, where most of my old manuscripts and notes are kept. Nope. They may be there, but we didn't find them. Which is going to make revising The Dry Salvages much more difficult. I'll say more on this later.

It was depressing, seeing all my paleo' stuff, my Lane cabinet and all the rest. Things that have been in storage since August 2001, when I only thought I was briefly putting my paleo' work on hold.

5) Few things are so capable of filling me with despair as the paperback rack at the market. Who actually reads this crap? I mean, clearly lots and lots and lots of people do, because every one of those books has some bestselling pedigree slapped across its foil embossed cover. These are the forgettable books that everyone reads. Maybe not me, or you, or you, but everyone else. They all seem to amount to little but a combination of fourth-grade reading-level prose and woozy melodrama with bland, idealized characters. They are not meant to be good books. They are meant to be easy reads. Good reads (a phrase I loathe, a dismissive, backhanded slap of a compliment). They are meant to be consumed and then disposed of, like all the best products of this society. I know the money would be heavenly, but I don't think I could sleep at night. Okay, touché. I already have trouble sleeping.

6) I'm starting to think I'm sitting in a great empty room, talking to myself, listening to my hollow voice echoing off the silver walls.

7) Last night we watched Michael Winterbottom's excellent The Killer Inside Me (2010; based on Jim Thompson's 1952 novel). A few lapses in logic aside, I liked it quite a lot (and the lapses are only problematic if we assume the characters are especially bright people, and mostly they don't appear to be). Western noir set in the 1950s. It felt a lot like what you might get if the Coen Bros. and David Lynch made a film together. As usual, Winterbottom doesn't pull his punches, and so the brutality and loss rings true. Casey Affleck delivers a chilling performance as a small-town sociopath who also happens to be a deputy sheriff. Highly recommended.

8) I ordered my new iPod Classic yesterday. My thanks to Steven Lubold, who made it possible for me to get a new iPod. I've been trying to decide what I'll name it. My first iPod (the one from 2005 that recently died) was Moya. This one may be Inara. I always name my computers. Anyway, right now I see it's in Shanghai, because, you know, that makes sense. My iPod and the ramen I had for breakfast have traveled more than I ever will.

9) Last night, Shaharrazad reached Level 83.

And that's more than enough for now.

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I track your posts. I get notified in email when you update. I just don't want to miss what you have to say. I often fail to comment. I second guess what I might say and how it would come across. It is silly, but I don't want to seem like some fangirl with you. I am. However, for me the connection to your work goes so much deeper than that. I look forward to the publication of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. I want to read what Imp has to say. I don't care how long it takes her to say it. I am just one reader. The story is the most important thing. And you are in there with your searchlight finding your way through to the end. I know it is a lonely journey and it is hard. I can say don't second guess yourself; you are one of the greats. I doubt that would do any good at all. No matter the level you are at as an artist or writer, it is just the creator and the work. The challenge is to do the best you can with the ability you have.The relationship is intimate, closed to everyone else.

One thing though, whatever impatient critics you face with this one - they don't know how to savor the best things in life.

My two cents.

oh and I am sorry you didn't find your files.

My family refers to those as 'popcorn books' fast, easy and not-filling.

5.) I like to think of them less as books and more like bags of Cheetos.

7.) This was one of my favorite movies I saw during 2010, and it pleases me that you enjoyed it as well. I recognize that man, his terrible face and those washed out colors. It's rather frightening to see such an accurate portrayal of the evil you know. It made me sort of glad too that I didn't end up buying one of those beautiful old houses in the small towns scattered around Texas. With my luck, I'd end up with some bad ghosts.

Who actually reads this crap?

As you said.

Type of folks who'd vote Transformer's 2 as Movie of the Year.

There are few authors whose names will guarantee that I purchase a book, and yours is one of them. I've found everything that you've written to be interesting and thought-provoking, and that is valuable and precious to me. Diversion is easy to find. Finding something that is actually worth the time taken to read it is much harder, and I (not being a writer) do not have the skill with words to tell you how much that means to me. Whatever else is happening, you are definitely not shouting into a void.

As far as the "nothing much happened" complaint, I'm reminded of Neil Gaiman's "The Problem with Susan." Nothing much happens in that story, does it? An old woman is interviewed and reminisces - in terms of "action" that's about it, really. But what an amazing story it is!!! So as far as I can tell, people who are worried only about what "happened" aren't putting in the work needed to get everything from the story.

The only contract with the reader I care about is the one that says I will give a damn about my writing and put effort into it. I worry, though, that the books I find insultingly bland and formulaic or just poorly written were also labors of love and effort for their writers.

I'm sure I could write a book about a love triangle involving a vampire and a werewolf if I really tried, but since my favorite werewolf has always been the man with the dull, grey voice from Prince Caspian, I doubt I'd have a run away best seller on my hands.

I'm going to read The Drowning Girl: A Memoir--partly because I like your work and partly because, like The Red Tree, it sounds really ambitious and intriguing when you write about it. ("Ambitious" makes it sound like I expect some sprawling epic fantasy thing, which I don't--but it sounds like an odd, challenging book to write, and that's what I mean, here.) I do like books that make my brain work, though I'm probably in the minority there.

As a member of your audience for the past decade, I wish to thank you for never pandering to me. I don't want people in my head, picking through my likes and dislikes and constructing worlds from what scraps I already know. The drugs I come to you for are far more exotic and I look forward to the challenges they present me. I honestly believe your work will stand the test of time in libraries, personal collections, and literature classes, while the formula fiction writers can only jockey to hold a place on that market display for as long as they can remain king of the hill. As another great writer once penned, "To thine own self be true." I guess what he forgot was the bit of quotable advice on how to stick with it when you're feeling the sting of watching all the cheap sellouts reap the rewards in the moment. I haven't figured that part out yet.

I once had a friend present me with a Harlequin Romance as part of a gift. I was -sure- he was just poking fun at me, so it never occurred to me that he'd be hurt when I laughed and carried it by two fingers to the trash can, but that did hurt his feelings and I had to apologize. Your mention of the paperback rack at the market brought this memory up for some reason, and it only just now occurred to me that he -might- have intended that gift suggestively as a sort of foreplay. That was a very strange relationship and I never for even one second knew what we were to each other in all our years together. Oh well. If he had been paying sufficient attention, he would've known that my affections and my libido require far more intellectual stimuli.

Dammit, every time you do that I have that album in my head all night.

We prick you we prick you we prick you.

I've fantasized for years about being able to find small press horror or fantasy in airport bookstores; about as likely as being able to find a deliciously fresh vegetarian meal in the airport's restaurant, not to say aboard the airplane.

But who knows what the future will bring: When I was growing up, you couldn't find most fruits or vegetables (or yogurt) in the grocery stores we shopped in. Our generation's biggest contribution to the world: easy access to a greater variety of food, both healthy and unhealthy.

Not every book (or story) will suit every reader, nor should it try to. I'd personally much rather read a work that the author was passionate about writing, written in a way they feel best serves the story, rather than something tailored to fit a perceived taste. It's not quite the same, but I often feel that many movies miss their ideal audience because they are marketed based on some nebulous idea of 'this is what audiences like', rather than 'this is the story' and we'll let audiences decide for themselves.

All tangents aside, I am very much looking forward to 'Drowning Girl'.

Was it Stephen King that said one shouldn't write for all readers, but for an 'ideal reader', whatever that may mean to each individual? For him it was his wife; while he wrote he would envision her reaction, what she might find humorous, what she mind find boring and skip.

oh, lady, lady, LADY.

your #3. In spades. Right now. Right here. Am wading through the same mud'n'molasses. I have been spectacularly unlucky with things in my last publishing foray out there - I lost THREE editors and two publicity people over the lifespan of a trilogy, with predictable consequences on promotion publicity and sales - and right now I'm writing something new, but out of contract, and wondering if anyone ever will take a chance again. Second-guessing the reader? I'm second-guessing the INDUSTRY...

While the scientific world may be poorer for you putting it aside in 2001, the literary world is much improved by your addition. On my shelves, your section is catching up to my Harlan Ellison section.

We just watched "The Killer Inside Me" last week. Yeah, we swore it could be a Lynch / Tarantino duet. One of those films where you sat and went "holy shit, what just happened?" Nothing redeemed or saved and so worth watching.

I am so thrilled you will include Chapter 1 of "The Drowning Girl: A Memoir" in the next SD. If that's not incentive for other folks to subscribe I don't know what is.

As an aspiring writer, I'm about to say something that will probably brand me as a heretic: I read very few books in a given year; I actually have difficulty making myself sit down and read books these days. I have to be utterly captured from the moment I pick up a book, or must already be heavily invested in a topic or theme. I never read 'drug store' fiction, as I call it (we have drug store chains up here that seem to sell everything including supposed 'top ten' novels. They make shopping mall book stores seem positively snooty and elitist by comparison). I can't afford to waste what little attention I have for fiction on bland, pointless fluff. I leave that for more prolific readers (and writers).

I will, however, be looking for a copy of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, when it becomes available, and when I can afford the purchase. That will probably be one of the few books I read that year. It looks like the kind of fiction I am very keen on. And so it goes.

I'm starting to think I'm sitting in a great empty room, talking to myself, listening to my hollow voice echoing off the silver walls.

Can I request this as a Sirenia vignette? So long as it is not written for me.

Don't feel that you're talking in an empty room, listening to the hollow voices - the room isn't bare, it might take imagination to furnish it, but the sound of your voice will conjure up dream and myth and belief, and we are very glad of these.

The real hollowness is the emptiness of all of that disposable fiction, without anything solid to send the echo back to you. There's nothing wrong with books as fast food, just sometimes you want something more substantial. Looking forward to The Drowning Girl: A Memoir.

Last night we watched Michael Winterbottom's excellent The Killer Inside Me (2010; based on Jim Thompson's 1952 novel).

Hmm, I finished reading the book a few months ago, but didn't realize there was a recent adaptation of it. Something to look for... thanks!

I'm starting to think I'm sitting in a great empty room, talking to myself, listening to my hollow voice echoing off the silver walls.

Oh, I suspect there's a lot of us in that room with you - we're just hard to see, and don't make much noise until it seems appropriate to do so... I'll add some comments or send you a small review when I can, but you shouldn't mistake the interval between those instances for a lack of attention or interest.

"I do not read the reviews, no, I am not singing for you."
-Conor Oberst, "...To Love..."

///I like to read, you know? I know it is hard for you to believe that I would read it just because you wrote it, but it is kinda true.

I wanted to thank you for, several weeks ago, talking about the Holly Black books Tithe, and Valiant. I picked them up yesterday and read both in the span of several hours.

I really appreciate the recommendation.

Sorry if I'm late; I'm on the other side of the world (really).

Just one more long-time reader (but infrequent poster here) joining the chorus: please, just follow your muse, because you are right; everything else is bullshit. All art, be it writing, painting, or music or what have you, is best when the artist follows their muse to the exclusion of all else. Everything else is Dan Brown-ish/Stephanie Meyer-esque pablum. The fact that the masses appreciate pablum the most is unfortunate, but it was ever thus – lowest common denominator, and all that.

And while it certainly is a long, lonely uphill battle, one that only you as the artist can fight, please know – and I'm sure I speak for more than just myself here, but won't presume – know that there is nevertheless at least one person, sword in hand, who is behind you, watching your back and guarding your flanks as you fight.

P.S. Finally got around to renewing my MErVISS subscription after a year or so away, for what it's worth. Figured if I was gonna talk the talk ...

Regarding "quick reads" and grocery store type books - When I read, I get pretty clear pictures of characters and places in my head. The more engrossing and fleshed-out the novel, the clearer and more vivid the mental pictures - the more real the world and the people. So the couple of times that I've read one of these quick reads (generally by accident, or out of desperation when there's nothing else), all of the characters in my head look and move like paper dolls. Seriously. They run around like gingerbread men in an Easter grass world. It's the oddest thing :0P And pretty unsatisfying.

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Cruising around me, the flames burn my body...

Finding what we like to read

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Empty Rooms and Empty Tomes

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I WANT to read it

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Cab driver! Follow that muse!

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