What's New?     June 25, 2001

Forward to July, 2001...

6-25-01

NEWSFLASH!

Ron had a link to Karen Meisner's journal entry about writing or not writing, and why, and wisewomen talking in your head, deep in the wee hours of the morning, and other Good Deep Stuff.

Get ready for lots of Words Capitalized for Emphasis (TM). *grin*

Good stuff indeed, I say. Here is my own take on one of the interesting things Karen's wisewoman noted. It's about the fear of not being able to write.

Well, folks, all I can say is, been there done that, and now my Fear has Evolved (TM) to a Higher Plane of Fear (TM).

I remember years ago when I used to agonize over not being able to summon my emotional /psychological /creative resources to write. This agony of writing / not writing / procrastination or fear, trying to fill that blank page or to maintain some kind of regular production has been with me for so long that I used to think it is a normal thing.

Well, in some ways it is normal. But I think it is but Step Two out of Many Steps (Step One being the sudden self-realization usually at an early age, that you can write, need to write, and it is obsessing you). The reason the Fear of Writing is Step Two is because at last you are letting the idea of writing really control you and take over your life goals, and that is Suddenly Scary. Fear grows like a big monster under the bed of your somnolent subconscious mind and because all kinds of intimate things are suddenly compromised -- things like your self-esteem, your sense of creative worth, your relationships with others -- because of that you become paralyzed in your ability to actually write.

Yes, we all know how that goes. And really, procrastination is not a kind way to put it, because it is really not. You are NOT lazy, you are simply paralyzed by fear of failure and the unknown because writing has suddenly become so Important (TM) to you. It's like falling in love with someone -- it can make you paralyzed when you are near them. You are locked and reserved until you take that next step to actually break the barrier of intimacy and get to know your potential lover better.

Well, to many of us, Writing (TM) is that lover. We care for it so much, that we are incapacitated by the intensity of our own feelings and needs for it.

There is a solution, however. It is to Break down that initial barrier and to find yourself on Familiar Terms (TM) with this Activity that is the most important thing for you, really.

Getting back to what I had mentioned earlier, about my Fear having Evolved (TM). Fact is, I am now so intimate and primed with my Lover Writing that I can just write and write and write. I no longer have any problem, or compunction, or doubt about putting my words down on the page (how good they are is a different matter *grin*). Indeed, given the chance now, I would be a gusher, and would probably produce several novels a year (for me that's a grand output).

The fear is now different. I Fear that I Have No Time (TM). And it is true. I have no time to bring about all those wonderful ideas and dreams and thoughts and feelings and that great explosion of experience, and Time is my Enemy, holding me back cruelly from my Lover Writing. I am afraid of Time. I crave more of it.

And so much for my rant... Got no time, need to get back to work! *grin* (And gotta stop those Capitalized Words, Criminy!)

Oh yeah -- on the actual writing front, I have turned in my finished book galleys for DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE to my editor, and I now have an ISBN number, and a tentative publication date! More on this later! :-)

6-21-01

NEWSFLASH!

Very very busy... both at my day job and at night at home... I have my first book galleys!!! The feeling is unbelievable, to hold galleys of your own work -- not an anthology or magazine story, but a whole book! I mean, my name is like ALL OVER it! And I got a running header on every page! And the title page is MY NOVEL! Wow.

One more time... WOW!

Now, I need to turn them in ASAP. I also need to turn in an author bio and an author photo for the book jacket cover of DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE. For that purpose my mom took a whole roll of pictures of me in our front yard in front of our rose bushes. Roses, get it? It's in the title! :-)

Meanwhile, I also received a request for an additional bio paragraph for my story "Swans" that is due to appear in On Spec. One of the editors Jena Snyder is asking the authors of this issue for a word or two about the story itself and what inspired each one of us to write them. Gotta get that done soon!

Oh and if you think that's not enough to do, I just went to RingSurf last night and created a Wildside Press Net Ring for all Wildside Press authors! So, if you have a book or story with Wildside, please join the ring! It's a great promotional tool, and the more of us are in the ring, the more hits we can all get on our websites.

*grin*

6-7-01

NEWSFLASH!

Wow, another update! *grin*

Actually I've added a whole bunch of new NAWticisms today... So go and read several months' worth of wisdom from the collective maw of the NAW! :-)

6-6-01

NEWSFLASH!

It's done. :-)

The complete novel manuscript of DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE was finished and turned in to Alan Rodgers, my editor at Wildside Press at 3:00 AM this morning. *grin*

The book consists of 14 works -- 7 short stories, 6 novelettes, and 1 novella. Of these works, 4 of the short stories have been previously published. The rest are all original works, and most of them have never been submitted anywhere on an individual basis.

Here is the Table of Contents and the Dedication for each story:

1. "Amarantea" dedicated to Steve Algieri.
2. "The Miracles of Ris" to Lisa Silverthorne.
3. "Sailing The Eye Of Sun" to Wendi Gansen.
4. "Goddessday" to Paul Melko.
5. "Tale of Nadir" to Tippi N. Blevins.
6. "Shimmering Scythe" to Kurt Roth.
7. "City Of No-Sleep" to Lauren Oliver.
8. "The Garden, The Wind, And The Gong" to Sherwood Smith.
9. "The Compass Rose" to James A. Bailey.
10. "Gods And Fleas" to Marion Zimmer Bradley. In Memoriam.
11. "Night Of A Thousand Moons" to John Sullivan.
12. "The Cup" -- to Patricia Duffy Novak.
13. "Caelqua's Spring" -- to James D. Macdonald.
14. "The Story Of Time" -- to Fiona Avery.

I still can't believe I am done.... The book will probably be available by MilPhil Worldcon, and I plan to promote it strongly there. Meanwhile, I decided to take some time off to recuperate, and will finish my last edit of the second book, LORDS OF RAINBOW, so that it comes out some time in November, just in time for LosCon 28 and for the early Christmas/Holiday season shopping rush... :-)

And in the meanwhile I feel like God on the Seventh Day. :-)

6-1-01

NEWSFLASH!

"The Garden, The Wind, And The Gong" -- the Compass Rose story that had come to me out of the deep blue yonder is now finished in first draft. However I still need to finish editing it and "The Story Of Time" before I am all done...

I've also decided to coin a new term for this Compass Rose collection/novel/whatever thing. It is a Noveliad.

A Noveliad is a new literary "grouping" I use to designate a "collage novel" or a loosely related bunch of stories that, when read together in a specific order, create a panoramic mental insight, or a greater story arc. Not sure if the publisher will let me get away with it, though, since they want to market it as a regular novel.... We'll see....

In the good news from the Gods of Writers Payment department, my payment for "Swans" that is due to appear in On-Spec had arrived, and I had fun haggling with my American bank to convert Canadian dollars....

I also received the program participant membership refund check from Chicon which came in not a moment too soon since I used it immediately to pay for Philly Worldcon. :-)

Oh, did I mention that I am now doing Credit Counseling with the help of the non-profit NFCC to get rid of my huge credit debt, and have gotten rid of all my credit cards? Scary! So now every bit of cash helps....

Lately I've been a very bad NAW Mom, and not very observant of what's going on there with the rest of the Not-A-Webring bunch, but this 5-30-01 journal entry by Steven Leigh has got me absolutely having to respond....

Before I say anything else, I do want to say that I actually agree with what Steve's saying, in a weird way, and yet I also disagree. It's very much a two-sided thing here, and I do think Steve says it rather eloquently and beautifully:

"It's strange, this slow process of letting go. I'm a writer, and like other of my peers, I've sometimes described my stories as 'my children.' I created them, after all. I've put together plots and characters, and scultped them with the words I chose. But when the story's finished and printed, it can no longer change -- it is what it is forever. It always reflects the place its author once was, even though the writer has since moved on to other things. That's not a 'child.' A child is always growing, always changing; dynamic and never static. You set a child in motion. You give her your love and your understanding and your feelings. You show her, by words and example, the path you've chosen, and you help her take those first stumbling steps along that path. But with each year, you have to let go more and more, until eventually all you can do is watch from behind, sometimes calling out encouragement or warning, but knowing that the steps she takes are now her own, and the path she must find will diverge from yours. And you trust that this path is the one that is best for her, because she is not a character you direct. She is her own character, and will go where she chooses. That hardest thing is not the creation. It's not the helping. It's the letting go."

The place where I beg to differ is the idea that a story or novel or other creative work is there "forever" and never changes, and always reflects the place where the author was when he or she wrote it. You see, it's true, and Steve has nailed it, and yet, the written work does change -- it changes the reader, the person who is on the receiving side of this work, so in that sense it has a strange secondary indirect effect upon the world. In some ways it's almost like a pre-set program or macro that executes a set of instructions (something) and acts upon its recepient -- except that it's not that either, but so much more!

The effect of any created work is as mutable and undulating and chameleonlike and unique upon every individual as there are individuals out there. And yes, it is perversely true that the work itself appears to be fixed, and has no life of its own until it is interpreted by another. So indeed, it is not living in the same sense as a real child of flesh and blood is, and yet it is living as a propagated essense of thought, of experience, of living energy.

Where a human child becomes another standalone entity and separates from one's progenitors, a created written work is like a bit of a living yet fixed mindset that can be attached to other entities to result in unpredictable unique change.

Wow, this is really interesting to me. I think there are other things I can say on the subject, but I think I'll leave it for now and see if anyone else in the NAW would like to comment. :-)

Thanks for a great thought starter, Steve!