Via Daring Fireball, here’s a helmet-cam video of an engineer climbing a 1,700 foot tall antenna tower. There are simply no words to describe how amazing this is. He goes without any kind of tether or rope most of the time, and has a 30-pound toolbag dangling under him from a cable. Holy freakin’ sweaty palms, Batman!
(edit: oh no, pulled! I’ll seek another source)
Consolation prize: similar death-defying high-flying insanity.
Kottke recently linked to a video of Kurt Vonnegut, the great writer-character, and he talked about the semicolon. I love this quote:
“Don’t use semicolons. They stand for absolutely nothing. They are transvestite hermaphrodites. They are just a way of showing off. To show that you have been to college.”
The semicolon has drifted out of contemporary usage, and I feel generally where a semicolon is used, a period or a comma might work better. I find the semicolon has an archaic feel, and those writers for whom the semicolon works well tend to be dead and buried, or else taking on an intentionally ornate, old-fashioned, or throwback style.
Elmore Leonard is handy with them, and uses them a lot, but the guy was writing and publishing novels before my parents were born.
Stephen King uses a ton of semicolons, but he also does a lot of nonstandard technical stuff. He’s a big-time Elmore Leonard worshipper.
I’ll give the writer the benefit of the doubt with semicolons if their voice is strong and their prose is unusual. I’m halfway through Laird Barron’s collection Occultation (fantastic work, review forthcoming) and he’s got a slew of ’em in there. His writing also includes all manner of unorthodox technical stuff, though — dialog set off not by opening and closing quotes but by an emdash at the beginning, or short paragraphs containing dialog by multiple, different speakers.
Generally I’d say the semicolon bothers me less when the writer shows a confident, slightly experimental, maybe even baroque approach to stringing words together. In the middle of plain vanilla prose, however, the semicolon stands out in just the way Vonnegut describes. Beginning writers, stick with the comma and the period. It’s easy enough to remember what those guys do, roughly corresponding to the yellow and the red traffic lights, respectively.
Recently read Pretty Monsters, a collection of short stories by Kelly Link. She’s one of the most interesting writers working in the fantasy, sf, horror, weird and slipstream/interstitial loose conglomeration of genres.
This is Link’s third story collection (she has not yet written a novel, though her stories are acclaimed), and her first geared toward a “young adult” audience. It incorporates stories from her first two collections, in fact my favorite stories here were already familiar to me from her Magic for Beginners and Stranger Things Happen collections.
The stories here waver between a slightly disturbing dreamlike weirdness reminiscent of David Lynch’s films, and a more whimsical, and at times humorous, fairy tale quality. Link’s stories consistently have a casual, friendly narrative voice, and that’s a big part of their appeal. It’s a lot like having a funny friend tell you a really interesting, weird story by a campfire. There is a great deal of imagination and invention on display in these stories, and if any of the above sounds appealing, I’d definitely give Kelly Link a try….
But I’d start with one of her first two books instead, unless you’re a young reader.
All “R” posts, all the time here. I’d like to touch on something I’m doing recently: Radical Revisions. I mean, taking a story that’s so far removed from what it needs to be that I ended up abandoning or back-burner-ing it… and then scrapping most, and completely remodeling the rest of it. I’ve previously mentioned in this blog my intention to write more careful initial drafts, in the hope of requiring fewer subsequent revisions, and this would seem to contradict that plan. With my newly drafted stories, I’m still following that.
What’s the point, then, of reworking an old story by a method that takes much longer than just rewriting from scratch? I have a few reasons for trying this.
First, some of those old ideas still seem appealing and I’d like to finally see them realized as finished stories that hold together.
Second, it’s a useful editorial challenge to diagnose and fix the most extremely “broken” stories. It’s a sort of self-workshopping test to figure out what’s wrong with these pieces, and what they need added, changed, and removed. Mostly removed.
Third, my goal mindset for first draft composition is to totally trust my “editor brain” to fix any problems later. The more confidence you have in your ability to set things right in future drafts, the more you can cut loose and run. So, part of the point of this editorial challenge is what it will give me in terms of first draft freedom.
This project has me working on some very different material from what I’m accustomed to. I’ve got these:
Code name: Succubus
Originally 14,000 words in 22 scenes, dark fantasy with horror/erotic elements. I’ve cut 7,000 words and most of the scenes, and I’m working toward a 4,500 word finished story, with nine scenes that each accomplish something.
Code name: Pornography
Originally 11,000 words in 13 scenes, also dark fantasy with horror elements, not as racy as the above, nor as drastic a cut-job. Down to about 7,500 words and the goal is 4,000 words, nine scenes, of which two are very short transitions.
Code name: Ash Dream
This wasn’t too long, and it’s in my usual SF realm, so not as drastic as the above. Completely re-writing for POV and voice, resequencing all scenes so much of the story is told out of chronological order. Almost half the story is now in the form of summary or recap through dialogue. Interested to see if this works, but it’ll end up being under 3,000 words, five scenes. Oh, and a totally different ending, centering on the actions of a character who didn’t exist in the prior version.
To me this is sort of like turning an old, rotting, falling-down firehouse into a new, remodeled residence with concrete and big windows and cool art on the walls. It’s hard work, and it seems like a ridiculous impossibility along the way, but it will be so great when it’s done.
I usually keep my music stuff and my writing stuff completely separate. Hypnos Recordings and ambient music on the left, weird stories on the right. One side of my face is M. Griffin and the opposite is Michael Griffin, like those white-black split guys on the original Star Trek.
Sometimes, though, I think what I’ve learned by running a moderately successful ambient music record label for the past 13-ish years actually has gives me some insights I can carry over into the fiction thing. Particularly useful is the ability to see the acceptance/rejection process, in which eager young artist tries to gain the approval of the gatekeeper (editor, agent, label head). Having participated in this process from one side for so long, having rejected all kinds of work for all kinds of reasons, helps me understand what it means when I get a story back in the mail (or more often lately, receiving a “sorry, no” email). Also, what it doesn’t mean.
Iin the realm of music, sometimes I’ve received a demo when I really don’t have any more capacity to release new music, regardless of quality. That artist gets a rejection no matter whaty. More often, the backlog isn’t quite so distressingly full, but almost. There is a great imbalance between the number of people seeking to have their creative work released into the world, and the number of slots available. This means that lots of great work gets rejected because it’s too much like something else we’re already doing, or it’s perfectly competent but not distinctive enough. Maybe it’s pure genius, but slightly out of bounds with regard to genre or style.
I wrote once before about Degrees of Rejection, and because of my work with Hypnos, I know one thing for sure. Now, I’ve talked to writers who believe that a rejection is a rejection, and trying to argue that not all are equal amounts to self-delusion. The thing is, having sat on the opposite side of the desk taught me something. A huge difference exists between someone who is doing professional-level work, but missing certain details, or not quite a perfect fit, and someone who is falling far short. It doesn’t surprise me to read that editors reject certain stories on page one. I’ve rejected some demos less than a minute into the first track. Hell, some demos you can reject based on the dipshit cover letter, without having heard a single note, or based on the shirtless, Fabio-esque picture the guy enclosed. There is a great difference in how I respond to different categories of inquiries or demos, and I believe editors are no different.
The first thing an unpublished writer (or other artist) should seek to do, an interim goal they can strive for even before they actually break through, is to reach a level of competence and artistic potency such that their work is at least in the realm of serious consideration, even when it is not accepted. At that point, the gatekeeper listens to the whole demo (or reads the entire manuscript), possibly sticks it in the “maybe” pile, checks out the artist/writer’s web site, and replies with a personal note.
Of course, this all amounts to guessing and divination, trying to understand intention behind a rejection letter, which doesn’t really get you anything. That’s the kind of thing we grab hold of, though, while waiting.
One of the most-viewed entries to this blog is MarsEdit versus MacJournal, a months-old entry which continues to show up among my most-viewed entries every week. I’m sure those hits come from people who don’t know me, and just happened to google “Mars Edit versus MacJournal” and found that entry. That’s OK, of course — everyone’s welcome here.
For those of you who missed the original post, I compared these two programs as tools to help me manage mirrored blogs on WordPress and Livejournal. Both applications claim to support both, so I ran trial versions to see which might work for me.
I now follow-up that earlier post only because I thought the end result of my comparison of the two products might be of interest to some of those reading that earlier post. I’ll probably edit a link to this follow-up within the earlier post.
Of the two programs, I thought MarsEdit was overall the better-designed application, but it had the fatal flaw of not supporting tags within Livejournal. MacJournal had other weaknesses that made my decision not just a matter of deciding which tool I preferred to use for the job, but a realization that neither really did it properly. Yes, I could use MarsEdit to manage the dual entries in WP and LJ, then manually log into LJ and add the tags, but that was no easier than what I was already doing. In my final appraisal, neither MarsEdit and MacJournal offered any improvement over my existing workflow, which is to make entries in WordPress via the web interface, edit everything to my liking, publish it, then copy-paste the raw HTML into Livejournal’s web interface.
This method is a bit more “manual” than what I’d hoped for, but it has the advantage of being completely cross-platform (MarsEdit and MacJournal are both Mac-only) and location-independent. I can blog from any computer with an internet connection.
I wouldn’t rule out taking another look at MarsEdit, but my sense is that enhanced LJ support in that application is not forthcoming. The developer seems to consider LJ a fading platform, and though I don’t know whether user statistics support that impression, my own gut feeling doesn’t contradict it. Most likely, I will just continue the same way I’ve been doing it, as long as I’m maintaining two mirrored blogs.
Yeah, I know writing is all about The Art, and worrying about goals and milestones is all beside the point. Lately, though, I’ve been focusing on some objective goals, rather than the vague stuff.
I think it’s a waste of time to set goals that I can’t directly effect. For example, “I want to get published soon” is perfectly fine as something to hope for, but as a goal, how do you make that happen? You can’t make it happen, because it involves decisions that are out of your hands. All you can do it create a situation that makes it more likely to occur than otherwise, such as writing more stories, improving those stories via revisions, sending them out to editors, and resubmitting them as soon as they come back.
So, it’s these last things I can focus on. I can set a goal of writing a certain number of days per week, or a certain number of words per day. I can set a goal of starting one new story every three weeks, and it’s not up to anybody but me whether or not that happens. I can make sure my finished works are circulating among editors who may be interested in them, and I can set the goal of resubmitting any rejected story within a short time, like a day or two.
I was already tracking most of this stuff, like which stories were sent to which markets at what time, plus which stories are pending resubmission at any given moment. This is the kind of thing I’m talking about:
MONTHLY SUBMISSIONS (TOTAL CUMULATIVE)
2009-12… 1 submission
2010-01… 1 submission (2 total)
2010-02… 2 submissions (4 total)
2010-03… 3 submissions (7 total)
2010-04… 10 submissions (17 total)
2010-05… 1 submission (18 total)
2010-06… 7 submissions (25 total)
2010-07… 2 submissions (27 total)
2010-08… 11 submissions (38 total)
This makes it look a bit like I’ve wavered between hyperactivity and heel-dragging, but some markets reject your story right away, while others sit on them for weeks or even months.
In April 2010 I submitted ten times, but at the time I only had five finished stories in submission, so that means I probably hit several of the faster markets (F&SF, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed) more than once, in order to average two submissions per finished story that month.
Conversely in July 2010 I only submitted two stories, but that doesn’t mean I was letting rejected stories rest. It was just a time when certain markets were holding onto stuff for longer periods, so there was nothing to send back out.
Because of what happened in July, I can’t really set a goal as to how many submissions I’ll make per month. What if I don’t get any stories rejected in September? In that case, the only stories I could submit during September would be any new stories I finish. I do try to make sure I finish roughly one new story every month, but not on a strict schedule. I don’t want to get into rushing a story out before it’s really done.
Periodically I’ll report numbers like this, in case anyone’s interested. Right now, the rejection count stands at 31 (that is, the 38 submissions, less the 7 stories currently under consideration), still a very small number compared to many other writers. That number will curve upward faster and faster as I complete more stories, and diligently keep them out there in front of editors’ eyeballs. A little quick math tells me by the end of 2011 I’ll have over 150 rejections if I continue at the same pace of finishing stories and submitting them to similar markets. That sounds like a lot, but I can see how a lot of writers end up with hundreds of rejections before they get their first publication.
This weekend was one long, grueling expedition to a no-man’s-land of hard, dirty labor. Lena and I helped in the clean-up of a house vacated by a family member who died some time ago, which other family members are preparing to sell. It involved a lot of dust, mouse droppings, rusty tools, and boxes and shelves full of broken parts for long-vanished objects.
A plea to old men everywhere: be kind to your family members, and sort through your own shit while you’re still alive. There’s really no reason to keep fifty cans of motor oil in various grades that don’t work with your car, your lawn mower, your chainsaw or your wood chipper. Really, who better to throw that shit away than you, like before the garbage truck comes on Monday?
My hands ache, my wrists ache, my shoulders ache, my back aches most of all, and I have three giant, gruesome bug bites on my neck. Monster movie stuff. Lena ripped up her legs and arms with blackberry vines, and my aunt cut her own leg with electric hedge trimmers, thus winning the injury sweepstakes.
Done with that, though, and back to real life. For one thing, delving into Kelly Link, and back in love with her again. The novella “Magic for Beginners” I’d read before, as it’s the title story in her second collection, my favorite of her books. Imagine if Haruki Murakami and Russell Edson got together and had a love baby (maybe with a little Donald Barthelme mixed in for spice). If that child was a grown-up woman, that would be Kelly Link!
Now I’m into “The Faery Handbag” which is another story from the Magic for Beginners collection, and which is fantastical and at the same time, fantastic. Of course, so far the two stories I’ve flat-out loved in Pretty Monsters, I’d already read in her earlier book.
I have a good list of stuff I want to blog about so I’ll try to knock one of those out each day this week. I’m just so glad to be done cleaning out old dusty houses!
Kelly Link is one of my favorite writers of weird fiction, slipstream, fantasy, horror, or whatever you want to call her stories. Her voice is always unique and her stories are consistently fresh and surprising. Some have criticized her work as essentially plotless, and that’s arguably true. Often the stories are more about observation and atmosphere, frequently surreal and dreamlike, and less about what happens. She’s always reminded me of David Lynch, but with a slightly more whimsical, childlike viewpoint.
I just started Link’s third story collection, Pretty Monsters, and came across a more conventional plot-driven story. It’s called “The Wizards of Perfil,” and it reads like first this happened and then this and then another thing. Just a bunch of events strung together. It ended up being not only my least favorite Kelly Link story, but might be the least compelling story I’ve read in the past year.
Not trying to pick on Kelly Link here. She’s still brilliant, and if she never wrote another story she’d go down as one of the most important genre writers of the past decade.
My point is that a creative person with an idiosyncratic approach that works ought to just keep following their path. If you’ve had success writing stories that emphasize mood and voice and attitude rather than plot — and those stories win awards and convince publishers to ask you for more stories — I’d say go with your strengths.
How many wonderfully weird musicians, writers and filmmakers have tripped all over themselves in a swerve toward the conventional? Don’t!
GriffinWords 