My Deepest Darkest Secret

Ready?....Here goes:

Sometimes I hate good writers.

Whew, I feel better already....

As a certified wordnerd and aspiring novelist, I usually enjoy good writing.  I love finding witty, brilliant, subtle, and blood-freezing authors in libraries and on the interweb.  I like them because they entertain me and take the edge of my aesthetic appetite (see blog title and overarching philosophy).  And when people are reading my unfinished stuff, my favorite bit of feedback, the one that makes me toasty inside and keeps me at my keyboard, is not "This is really good and polished and stuff" but the half-exasperated "You can't DO this to me!  I need more!  Don't you DARE kill that character off!"  That way I know it's no longer an academic exercise but an enjoyable experience for the reader.  And that's what it's all, ultimately, about. 

(Aside: bonus points if you started singing the Hokey Pokey song when you read that line.)

Now, there are many online writing sites out there and occasionally I get dumb enough to check them out.  This is always a mistake, and a near occasion of sin, because much of the writing is SO BAD.  All the authors seem to be fifteen or so.  I was fifteen once, and I learned something from that horrible experience: DO NOT PUBLISH WHAT YOU WRITE AS A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD.  Until you can look back at some of your angst-ridden, self-indulgent rants and cringe and want to claw your eyes out, you're still in the "tripe" stage of writing.  Don't worry, we all go through it.  Some of us, though, go through it publicly, and this creates a negative experience for the reader, who is forced to sit in a cold bath and put extra glass shards in her shoes to combat the rising tides of Pride In One's Developed Authorial Prowess. 

My general response, then, to reading bad writing, is a wince, a swelling of vicarious embarrassment and sympathy for the fledgling author, the realization that there are some pieces that constructive criticism cannot save, and almost immediately thereafter a self-congratulatory round of "I'm not as bad as that, thank the Lord I'm not as bad as that, in fact, I'm much better than that, in fact, I'm the best ever."

Time for the cold bath.

(Intermission no.1: a trend that really grinds my gears in recent fantasy literature, professional and otherwise, is the ubiquity of exotic/archaic spellings.  Vampyre.  Faerie.  Magick.  Werwolfe.  Okay, I may have made that last one up.  But you get the idea.  Usually it just makes people look pretentious and is an attempt to hide their hackneyed concept/plot behind "unique" or "creative" spelling.  A caveat: I do prefer 'faerie' to 'fairy' IF you're talking about Wild Hunt Fair Folk type beasties and not tiny, possibly winged, Artemis Fowl-style things.  But even better than faerie is fay/fae.  Best of all is the euphemism -- the idea is that these fairies are so terrifying (what with their packs of ghostly mastiffs hunting the souls of dead children and hexing innocent farmers into insubstantiality) that no one wants to say their proper name aloud.  Because I am a Terry Pratchett fan, my preferred euphemism is "the Lords and Ladies," but there are others.  End Intermission.)

Then there are the thresholders.  The ones who have clearly been writing for a while and have some sense of what they're doing, but still have a few brain-itching flaws.  Everyone seems to be so kind and encouraging to these people.  And sometimes, technically, there's very little wrong with their writing that could not be ascribed to a matter of taste.  But when you stumble upon one of these actually-not-half-bad writers, especially after reading a few poems about how no one understands the cry of the darkness with the sweet taste of bloode and going on the inevitable resultant superiority trip... well, the defensive insecure little girl in me who read too much Strunk and White and not enough Natalie Goldberg starts to get snappy.  "Oh, yes," she sneers, "that metaphor was indeed striking, but your exposition is clumsy, your voice insipid, your characterization uneven, your pacing slightly off."  (All this, needless to say, in her best upper-class British twit accent). 

And really, there is no call for that.  The writing is decent; get over it.  Yes, there are others in the world besides me and my pets capable of writing decent fiction.  Are the criticisms unfounded?  No.  But do I perhaps need to chill out and congratulate someone on a nice piece that they've probably put more work into than you've done in a year of recreational scribbling?  Most certainly.

(Intermission no.2: the above does not cancel out my belief that when it comes to writing, there comes a point where either you feel it or you don't.  Some people, with hard work and dedication, can transform themselves into very good writers who nonetheless will remain very good forever and never quite get to great, because feeling the differences between the words and sensing the rhythm of sentences and the rightness of dialogue are not natural to them and can never quite be taught.  Now, for every really good writer who will never be great, there are probably five potentially great writers who, because of laziness or cowardice, will never get much past mediocre.  But I think it's still something to keep in mind.  End Intermission.)

Finally, there are the legitimately good writers.  The ones who might (gasp) be a bit better than me.  More drive, more heart, more raw creativity, more experience, a more lyrical mind, better educated, snappier, more decisive.  Doesn't matter, really.  They're better.  Or at least as good as.  And these are the writers whose work we enjoy, even though we notice a resistance to that very enjoyment deep in ourselves.  Definitely not charitable or in keeping with the philosophy of The Snarling Id (namely: aesthetic pleasure is to be cultivated regardless of personal prejudices).  But there, and a result of that same frightened inner child that took such pleasure in tearing down the awful and OK writers.  Something I'm working on, and something I wanted to get off my chest. 

Any other talent-haters out there, who must struggle not to be outright envious and hateful towards people who outskill you at your chosen skill?

On the lighter side, to cheer us all up:  more hypothetical band names
Life Force Cubicle -- this one is a Google translator version of the Russian word for hemoglobin.  I'm thinking office industrial, with some Lady Gaga-esque birth imagery and staplers used as percussion.

Asymptote of Insanity -- if the genre mathcore has not yet been created, I propose a long-haired make-up-wearing screamer call up his bass-playing buddy and start it.  Could be the biggest thing since Nirvana.

Finally: a song, highly applicable to the fifteen year old writer of tripe.  (I love ya, girls.  Keep on writing.)

Miscellany

Don't hate me, my life is full, rewarding, and frequently NSFB (Not Safe For Blogging).

Speaking of 4-letter acronyms beginning with N... any old-school Dexter's Lab fans out there?  Yeah, you know who you are.  Enjoy the infamous Star Trek parody.  "NRFB!"

In Word News:
~After consulting the Online Etymology Dictionary, I've determined the difference between prescribe/prescriptive and proscribe/proscriptive.  The first means to mandate, the second to forbid.  Interestingly, both have the same root meaning of "to write down, publish, legislate" -- but now one means to make mandatory, and the other to make abstinance mandatory.  More interesting: these are Latin roots; their Germanic equivalent bannire has a similar history -- wedding banns were published announcements of intent to marry, wheras to ban something is to forbid it, and a bandit is someone who's been published against.  But they all essentially mean "to write down (publicly)"

Ahh, words.

~OED added some new words to its lexicography, as it does every year.  Among the new additions:
hikikomori -- loan word from Japanese, describing a withdrawal from society, as well as someone who's made this withdrawal.

fussbudget -- surprised this one was a new addition.  Just like it sounds; a fussy, complaining person

Then there are the words I have problems with:
hater -- okay, I know this is an important part of contemporary slang, but doesn't it really just mean "one who hates"?
The portmanteaus: bromance, automagically, freemium. chillax, turducken -- with the possible exceptions of turducken and bromance, I'm pretty sure these are all ridiculous, unnecessary, redundant (how, precisely, is chillax any different in meaning from chill or relax?) and not only Not Real Words, but not even used as real words.  Heavy sigh.

Finally: Regarding Really Cool Places

There's a site called Ani located somewhere between Armenia and Turkey (no one's sure who it really belongs to, because Armenia and Turkey) known as the City of 1001 Churches -- all of them falling into ruin and dripping with history.  There's something haunting and sad and somehow very important about all these beautiful buildings sitting alone on a plain, meant to be enjoyed and inhabited, but instead invaded by silence.  Someday I would like to go there.

Here are some pictures.

Hope everyone enjoys Holy Week and has a lovely Easter.  Call your mom!  She loves you!

"Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia" -- "Yep."

Your Correspondent Nerds Out

Cool Things of Recent Times:

So, guys, it's official: the Muse Calliope, lover of Ares, mother of heroes, and inspiring force behind Epic Poetry WILL NOT LEAVE ME ALONE, even when I'm supposed to be studying or sleeping; she delights in forcing me to chronicle the sad, sad stories of (among other things) supernaturally interrupted marriages, benevolent crow-demons, disintegrating kingdoms, families with fifty-odd offspring, all of whom are more interested in power than in each other's well-being and development, disowned gods, the politics of immortals, nuclear weapons, amoral soul-snatching bands of hunters, Stolkholm Syndrome, and psychic three-year-olds obliged to battle the forces of darkness with only the aid of a pack of ghostly mastiffs. 

It's not that I want to engage in egregious worldbuilding (though sometimes I do find it fun).  I'd much rather write a short, pointed little piece of literary fiction set during the French Revolution that illustrates the ultimate meaninglessness of life.  That'd be much less time-consuming.  Unfortunately, the Rule of Awesome still holds sway.

With respect, then, to this, a few Cool Things related to aspirations of being a great novelist some day:

Writing Blogs: Tricky to find good and relatively current ones, but I keep looking.  Milk Fever hosts some really impressive Bad Poetry.  Ink Stained offers a helpful series of posts on differentiating the various speculative fiction genres (after all, what exactly distinguishes Epic, Mythic, and High Fantasy?) 

These are Robert A. Heinlein's rules for succeeding as a writer.  They make me quiver and cringe, considering I still have to master rule #1, much less rules 4 and 5.  But they are somehow encouraging; they are simple and demanding, like most things that I've found give results.  They're also things that pretty much anyone can do.  So even if I do suck, there's hope, yes?

Finally: I like to dream about being present when the 30th Anniversary Edition of my blockbuster instant-classic saga is being issued; specifically, I like to plan the lavish binding, the gorgeously understated typeface, and who I will pick to do the full-color and line-drawn illustrations.  Because old people get to do fun stuff like that.  In terms, then, of fantasy illustrators working today, specifically those specializing in illustrating Tolkien:

Alan Lee: Probably the most well-known, since he was one of the minds behind the look of the LotR films.  I like his devotion to hinting rather than revealing everything; he leaves misty spaces and shadowy areas and is fond of thorns.  Therefore, we are fond of him, yes precious. 

Ted Nasmith: Also rather famous, for treating the Silmarilion with the attention it so richly deserves.  While I enjoy his sense of dramatic lighting and attention to detail, sometimes it all seems a bit too much: too posed, too mannerist, too brightly lit and staged.  Almost more akin to the sci-fi book covers of the 80s.  Still, he does both Valinor and Luthien very, very well; something that I find rare.

John Howe: Oh, John Howe.  Combining Lee's soft, artistic sensibilities with Nasmith's flair and attention to detail; when he's at top game, he's my favorite.  For example: of all the many depictions of Balrogs, his version (in which a certain blond warrior who might or might not end up saving Frodo from Ringwraiths a few millenia down the line battles one of the nasty beasts) is my favorite.  He also does Ungoliant (the Spider of Doom) very well.  Also note the presence of Morgoth, and his devil-may-care stance, illustrating that he is indeed the sexy Lord-of-Darkness all us eeevilll fangirls know him to be.

However, he commits howlers.  In illustrating the Duel before the Gates he clearly shows Fingolfin with blond hair, something that is explicitly NOT the case.  Furthermore, I am a huge fan of his dragons... except where Glaurung is concerned; the phrase "fat grey iguana" has been too justly applied by cleverer wits than mine to this picture, which is a real shame.  Glaurung is not a fat grey iguana!  So why does Howe paint him so?  We know he's capable of better!

So ultimately none of these famous people will be let at my 30th Anniversary Edition of "Insert Title Here;" who, then, gets my vote?

I am sorry to say I know her only as Ivanneth.  I hope and pray this lady (?) is fabulously wealthy and in high demand, as she deserves to be, because oh.  My.  Sweet Deep-Fried Snickers Bar.  She's done the House of Feanor to the letter: this picture of Maedhros and Fingon makes me want to cry and tell the subjects that everything will be all right (which is a blatant lie, but still); this one of Celegorm makes me want to smack him and then accept his invitation to dinner and listen to him talk about birds (so he's blond; so it's not canon.  IT SHOULD BE!).  The ultimate test, though, is Feanor himself: ideally, a portrait of Feanor should be utterly terrifying, tragic as all-get-out, and hauntingly beautiful.  Does (s)he succeed here?

Oh yes.

Brr. I have seen the face of madness and the face looked very unnervingly calm.

There; that should be your pretty pictures quota for the day.  And should give us all a better idea of how to do art for a literary world without being stupid, silly, or contradictory.

Thank you, and keep trucking.

Adventuretime!

Travel is fun.  And when I say fun I mean simultaneously the most miserable and most sublime experience one can have.  I just got back from doing travel.  In light of this, a travel-related post describing things that Make Me Happy (TM) and Make Me Less Happy:

Happy: Awesome hotel suites to yourself.  You can dance around in your towel, use all the shampoo, watch whatever stupid show you want on the telly (for me, Squidbillies), sleep in one bed and jump on the other, and fling your coat on random chairs.  Also, you can sing.  Quietly.

Less Happy: Insomnia.  Time changes, scary huge rooms, a nice helping of existential angst, bedclothes that smell unmistakeably hotel-y and too-fluffy pillows meant that I'm cruising on an average of 5 hours for the past three days.  Joy.

Happy: Really Cool Stuff: one of the problems about living in South-central Washington is the lack of cool stuff.  I mean, there's a lot of cool stuff in SCWA.  Wineries and cafes and the Columbia River and big dirt hills that always make me happy.  But to get the really tongue-numbing, piercing-shriek-inducing cool stuff, you have to get out a bit.  Mostly the Really Cool Stuff I gravitate towards when Travelling is museums.   Of course there's the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in DC, containing much taxidermy and strange rocks.  In Kansas City, though, of all places (that's Kansas City, Missouri, not Kansas City, Kansas) there's the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which is wonderful and glorious and really, really well done.  It's got an Assyrian relief with cuneiform.  It's got Caravaggio, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Durer , and the remains of a medieval French cloister.  It's very cool.

Less Happy: Total overstimulation.  I have a very low threshold for excitement, and the combination of no sleep (see above), the physical stress of travel, the disruption of my routine, and even all the Really Cool Stuff that I get to see, but have to process very quickly, renders me adrift and frankly cranky.  Fortunately, I can ground myself rather quickly upon returning home.

Also, forgetting one's toothbrush.  Never fun. 

Happy: Transportation.  I love watching the view from a plane.  I love taking off and watching everything shrink.  You can get a whole different perspective on topography by seeing it from above.  Also it makes me want to write poetry.  Taxis, too, get love, when they're clean and the driver is friendly (and I find that most of them, in my experience, are.)

Less Happy: Transportation.  As fun as planes can be, they get really cold.  I hate cold.  Also it's pretty much impossible to be comfortable in them.  Plus, the dry air, the changes in pressure, the unexplained swoops and dips, and generally my own less-than-stable mental state make me feel achy, queasy, and overall weird after about an hour.  Ugh.  Planes.

Taxis are also not pleasing when they are grimy, smell funny, and get flat tires at 3 AM.  No, not very nice at all.

These, then, are my reflections on travel, and what it can do to/for one.