The marvels of internet communication; first there was ePublishing; now we have eQueries, eBadgering, eSubmissions, eDeadlines and...
*You've got mail*
...Hey look eForm-Rs!
Ahh the marvels!
-=Jeff=-

Posted February 16, 2005 10:00 PM by J.K.Richard

A neatly numbered list of reasons why (and what shall happen if she isn't nippy about it) will await her in her LJ upon her return from points east.

Posted February 16, 2005 10:11 PM by Sherwood

I will if she'll tell me to finish editing mine. ;)

Posted February 16, 2005 10:20 PM by Anna

Well, I'd read it. And I'm picky.

C'mon, Lucy. Finish the book!

Posted February 16, 2005 10:54 PM by Madeleine Robins

But she says she has finished it on her biography page, penultimate paragraph:

She decided to end the diary at the same time in order to concentrate on writing her first novel. She finished the novel September 1, 2004.

Posted February 16, 2005 10:58 PM by Lisa Spangenberg

We're talking the revisions. Ahem.

Posted February 16, 2005 11:20 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

That was the first draft. She's now balking at revising it.

Posted February 16, 2005 11:27 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

She's in the City, right? You want I should go lean on her, boss?

Posted February 16, 2005 11:32 PM by Stephan Zielinski

Yeah, that'd be good. She just muttered "Bring it on," but I think you can take her.

Posted February 16, 2005 11:46 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Maybe I should try some sympathetic magic and work on finishing this dissertation.

Nah. If that trick worked, I'd have finished the dissertation by now.

Posted February 16, 2005 11:58 PM by Brooks Moses

You want I should give her The Look? I got lotsa practice.

Posted February 17, 2005 12:05 AM by julia

Once upon a time, Lucy gave the following annotations about me:

"Sharp mind.
"Sharp tongue."

Oh, Lucy, finish your revisions...

Posted February 17, 2005 12:21 AM by Paula Lieberman

I don't know her, but I think she should finish her novel.

Finishing is the nice part. Or, at least, it beats the stuffing out of middles.

Posted February 17, 2005 12:47 AM by elizabeth bear

<shame class="heaping">
September was a while back, wasn't it?
</shame>

Posted February 17, 2005 1:29 AM by pericat

Lovely code, pericat!

Posted February 17, 2005 1:35 AM by Linkmeister

Well, it's kind of up to the artist whether he/she wants to make the suggested revisions. It can be an "invasion" of your creative vision, and it can be really tough to visualize what will turn up once you've started cutting and pasting (you think it might be a patchwork quilt and a mess, and it scares you.) I have no influence on this lady. Were it I, and I had a book contract in hand (which is, I presume, the reason she has said revision letter in hand as well), I'd be all over it like stink on s--I mean, like white on rice. However, it's an artistic decision, and it can be painful to take out all those lovely descriptions of the Ukranian sunset as seen from inside one's bellybutton (I saved mine in the "Deletia" file for the fifteenth book in the series, when my readers won't mind so much). Sometimes you'll envision revisions (that's a cool phrase), and it'll seem the book *was* better from an artistic viewpoint before you revised it, and other times it *wasn't*, but if that's what's going to make it commercial . . . all I can say is, I wish THAT were my problem (having an editorial letter in hand, I mean.) I have to send out, get rejected wordlessly, and then figure out whether/what to revise. Which is far more chancy, quality-wise (and may lack wisdom entirely.)

So I suppose I'm kind of on "her side" in a sense and hoping you'll be patient, and in another sense I'm impatient with her as well--not because I know anything about the book, but because my life (unlike hers, judging by her bio page) has seemed like one long endless struggle (interrupted by a few long, soaking baths and several temper tantrums) to write something that a New York editor would buy , and I would hope that people who *do* sell would be all over doing whatever it takes to get that book into the production line. But what do I know?

Posted February 17, 2005 3:23 AM by Shalanna

I should mention that Nietzsche said, "He who would be a creator must first become a destroyer and break tables of values." So there you are.

Going off now to bust up them multiplication tables.

Posted February 17, 2005 3:31 AM by Shalanna

Can I join the growing chorus of 'someone tell me to finish MY novel, too?'

Posted February 17, 2005 6:12 AM by Dorothy Rothschild

And mine, which has sprouted so many changes recently that it has no right to call itself a third draft any more.

Posted February 17, 2005 7:59 AM by Eleanor

The text that you perceive is not the text that you have written.

All drafts are illusion; all words are illusion; all readers are illusion; all questions of meaning are built of illusion.

So, too, with editors; the text that they perceive is not the text that you have written. To revise is only to alter the editor's illusion, the editor who is also a reader and so themselves an illusion. The market, that myriad of illusions, asks "Are they a worthy tale-teller? Can they change a dream's dream?".

This is only as air demands to be breathed, and not knowledge, for the myriad of illusions posses custom, and not knowledge.

The story is not an illusion; it is not the dream of the text, nor the dream of the artist, nor the dream of all artists. It is only itself.

The words are a signpost, a window, the edge of a shadow unto the story, and so others -- who are themselves illusions -- can find where the story is only itself, through the mist of words.

So it is that the dream of some words serves one story better than another, for if the story is not like unto a distance and the illusion of words is like unto a signpost, the illusions of readers who dream that they have found the story will be few.

Even so, the story is not always lost. That-which-is is glimpsed, and the illusions change themselves, because knowledge has passed through them.

This is not a miracle, but the nature of the world.

Posted February 17, 2005 8:28 AM by Graydon

Lucy: finish your novel already, eh?

And *everyone* else, finish your novels too (and I will finish mine, I promise). I just built an entire room's worth of bookshelves[1] and for the first time in more than a decade I actually have room for new books. (-:

([1] the construction of which led to me to wonder if there is a way of specifying the sturdiness of bookshelves based on how many Hartwell anthologies it will hold without bending)

Posted February 17, 2005 8:40 AM by Suzanne

Dear Lucy:

We've never met. In fact, we've double-never-met, as I've never even met the person who's just urged me to email you. I am therefore a Stranger Once Removed, but my medium of non-meeting you was the Internet, and as such I'm allowed -- nay, encouraged -- to stick my nose where it doesn't belong and involve myself in situations which I am only vaguely familiar.

Thus armed with a powerful mandate, I want to talk to you about this novel of yours.

You are, no doubt, being browbeaten by dozens of people with a view towards getting you to finish your revisions. My advice to you: Resist. Buck. Follow the fine example of the five-year-old kid whom I encountered the other day at the supermarket, somewhere near the Dairy aisle. When her parent confronted her with a directive with which she desired to show a vote of unequicoval non-confidence, she immediately threw herself to the ground, hitting it on the very first try, and proceeded to stage a tantrum whose scale and passion caused the local barometric pressure to drop by fourteen millibars for the entire afternoon.

Why resist, Lucy? Well, clearly you know full well why. You seem like a sensible woman. But I'll explain it for the benefit of anyone who is (naughtily) looking in on this highly personal and private discussion between you and me: if you finish your revision, then your novel will be one step closer to being pubished. And we certainly can't have that, can we?

You and I know better. If your novel is published, terrible, terrible things will happen. The specific wording of the incantation that breaks the seal on the tomb of the Damned and floods our earthly plane with the Forces of Darkness is lost to the ages, but historians note that it's supposedly a simple phrase of eight words. Your novel is considerably more than eight words long. It's therefore conceivable that it contains the Phrase That Must Never Be Repeated. I pray, Lucy, that you stick to your guns and take no chances. I have a small wager on the outcome of the Academy Awards and I'm keen to live long enough to see how that works out.

Even in the unlikely event that pubication of your novel will _not,_ as you suspect, set alight the Curtain of Pain and lead to the subjugation, torture and execution of all life on Earth, would there be any benefit to putting this novel of yours behind you? Of course not. Editors keep nudging you to finish it because they're selfish, selfish creatures. The more books they move through their offices, the more comp copies they receive, which means more titles that they can sell off at yard sales and online auctions, and more money to spend on the highly-specialized roasting pans and silverware with which they cook and eat the hearts of innocent children.

You don't want to be a part of that, do you?

No, your plan is much, much better. If you finish your novel, you'll only have to start writing another one. Remember how hard it was to get the first one finished? Hell, think of how hard it was to even start the bugger. You don't want to go through that again, do you? Plus, once you've finished and published the second one, there's the risk that your work would develop a devoted and passionate following. What happens then? Yup: these so-called "fans" of yours would only demand a THIRD book. A third opportunity to accidentally unseal the tomb of the Damned, more comp copies that fund your editor's pursuit of his or her unholy appetites...no, no, no. It's a vicious cycle and you're wise to jump off at this early stage before it even really starts spinning.

Besides, there's nothing more satisfying than being one of those writers who is fond of saying -- repeatedly, thoughtfully, and without provocation -- that You're Working On A Novel, No, it Hasn't been Published Yet, You Haven't really Finished yet, you Can't Rush these Things, Can You?

You did, of course, make a common rookie mistake in that you actually completed the draft. See, the great thing about being One Of Those Writers is that the people you meet will never actually demand that you show them some sample pages. It does help if you can say "Think 'The Hunt For Red October' meets 'Rendezvous With Rama'" if you're pressed for a general impression of the alleged work, but that's just insurance.

No, usually, the people you meet are impressed enough with your thoughtful, writerly expression, you see. It's a terrific labor-saving device. You want to know why P.G. Wodehouse was forced to write a hundred novels? He had this social-anxiety disorder that kept him inside the house most of the day. Wanting to describe himself as a Writer, but lacking an audience for the Thoughtful Expression that he'd spent much of his late teen years cultivating, he had no alternative but to actually sit down and write the damned books and then have them published.

What did that get him, I ask? A huge personal fortune, a knighthood, an international reputation as the greatest writer of humorous English literature, key influence of untold generations of writers, and the satisfaction of having created a fictional character equal to Sherlock Holmes and Superman in terms of immediate worldwide recognition, even eight decades after its creation.

Meanwhile, for decades, the neighborhoods and playgrounds near his publisher's offices was curiously free of the sound of children. The guilt gnawed at Wodehouse, even though he surely didn't know any better. He did not, after all, have the benefit of my reassuring words. Perhaps if he'd followed the same advice I gave you, he'd have lived to be 100 years old, instead of dying at the green age of 93, the terrible burden of remorse having taken hours, or even days, off of his natural lifespan.

Stick. To. Your. Guns. Lucy.

That manuscript of yours of much, much more use to the world sealed up there on your hard drive than it would be if it were revised, edited, typeset, proofed, printed, and distributed to bookstores and readers all over the world. You know it and I know it. So don't let these thoughtless jerks wear you down.

Your Pal -- A.

Posted February 17, 2005 8:46 AM by Andy Ihnatko

Graydon...you think that's air you're breathing?

(Seriously, though...step...away...from the Kant...slowly, now!)

Posted February 17, 2005 9:03 AM by Skwid

Lucy, get a move on and finish your novel. The very existence of this thread strongly implies that it's a good one. So, naturally, I want to read it, but I can't do that until you've finished it. You don't want me reading your unpolished first draft, do you?

Posted February 17, 2005 9:43 AM by Eleanor

I don't know that I type for laughing after that, Andy. Do you mind if I print that off and substitute my name for Lucy's? It will be ever so motivating....

Posted February 17, 2005 9:45 AM by Pronoia

I'd also like to make some minor alterations to Andy's sterling effort, although it will be not just changing names, but slight tweaking to fit my problem, i.e. to suggest that it is time I did something about making up a submission package to add to the Tor slushpile.

(I'm home again. I have DSL. I have free time. I have not having to explain "what I'm doing on that computer". I have not having to explain "what this stuff on the printer is". For about three weeks until I go off on my travels again. I *will* get that submission package done and in the post before I go.)

Posted February 17, 2005 10:22 AM by Julia Jones

Skwid --

Were it not air, it would not burn.

Posted February 17, 2005 10:26 AM by Graydon

Lucy: I don't know you either, but after reading that biography on your site, I'm dying to see any properly revised book you care to write.

Screwtape...er...Andy: That was brilliant.

Posted February 17, 2005 10:47 AM by Andy Perrin

Andy Ihnatko: Where were you when I was not-finishing my dissertation?

Posted February 17, 2005 11:00 AM by TexAnne

Andy:

You win the internet. For at least a week.

HEY LUCY DO IT I WANNA SEE TERESA EAT A HEART THAT'D BE RAD 'COURSE I DON'T MEAN ACTUAL KID HEART THAT'D BE LIKE CREEPY BUT, DUDE, TERESA + HEART = GNARLY*2^10e4.

Posted February 17, 2005 11:02 AM by epistole

Dear Lucy:

I do know you, and I don't dare poke you about your novel because you know where too many of the bodies are buried. But, um, I'd like to see it one of these days. Of course, if I say that then you will turn around and say the same thing to me. Tricky business this.

P.S. It is always good to have continued affirmation that Andy Ihnatko, whom I have never met or even corresponded with, remains true to form.

Posted February 17, 2005 11:03 AM by Columbine

Kant, Skwid? I'd be telling Graydon to lay the Duns Scotus on the floor and assume the position, only just at the moment I've no idea what the position is.

Eh, Lucy, I've got 25K words to go on mine. Wanna drag?

Posted February 17, 2005 11:17 AM by Dave Luckett

If Lucy finishes her book, I will undertake to roast and eat a heart. I don't guarantee that it'll be the heart of a child, virgin, or other member of a traditional sacrificial demographic group. However, I do guarantee that I won't wuss out and eat a chicken heart, or anything like that: Arthur is safe.

Posted February 17, 2005 11:29 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Lucy: Do finish the book, but let us know when that happens so the rest of us know when to avoid Teresa and her cutlery.

Posted February 17, 2005 11:48 AM by Beth

Kant? Duns Scotus? Maybe I'm mistaken, but Graydon's post sounds Buddhist to me.

Posted February 17, 2005 11:50 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Hearts are on sale a lot of places this week, Teresa.

I'm a little confused about what Shalanna said, though: are we talking about, "I, Teresa, would like Lucy, my friend, to finish revising her book to the point where she considered it finished"? Or is it, "I, Teresa, would like Lucy, who happens to be my friend but is in this case also someone under contract to publish a book with the company that employs me, to finish revising her book in the ways we discussed professionally"? It seems to me to change the situation.

In either case, Lucy, my sympathies, because revision makes me cranky, but if I have to do it I don't see any reason you should be exempt. Misery, company, etc.

Posted February 17, 2005 11:51 AM by Mris

Mris: the former.

Posted February 17, 2005 11:55 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Lucy: Screw the revisions. PublishAmerica will take your book without crushing your artistic vision!

Posted February 17, 2005 12:07 PM by Christina Schulman

Christina: Santa Fe-style rice and beans nearly decorated my monitor just now. (And my boss has asked me to not eat over the keyboard anymore.)

Lucy: Finish your novel.

Self: Finish your novel. But first finish the short story.

Posted February 17, 2005 12:16 PM by PiscusFiche

Teresa --

Thank you.

I was starting to think my estimation of my command of tone was entirely awry.

Posted February 17, 2005 12:43 PM by Graydon

Well, I just got here, so it's too late to say "Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond, Gone Altogether Beyond! O what an awakening! Glory!" to Graydon's post.

Duns Scotus, feh.

I will instead say that when I mail my yet-to-be-finished-or-even-begun stories (about 3 in my head with plots and big chunks of actual text, just waiting to be written down).

Posted February 17, 2005 1:13 PM by Xopher

Oh, and Lucy? Finish the damn novel already, OK?

Posted February 17, 2005 1:14 PM by Xopher

Hi Lucy! Teresa says to finish revising your book or she'll cook and eat your heart!

Posted February 17, 2005 1:23 PM by Mary Dell

So offer her a small tasty contract while she's there--then she'll have to finish it. And Lucy, my mom's waiting to read it!

Posted February 17, 2005 1:47 PM by Cathy

Hi, Lucy.

A lot of people have already told you to finish your book. Instead of repeating that, I'm going to suggest that you have some fun. Life is short. Do things that you enjoy.

If you enjoy finishing the novel, even better.

Posted February 17, 2005 1:59 PM by Harry Connolly

To reiterate, Teresa is not the editor to whom Lucy will be showing this book. Neither am I. It's not the kind of novel in which we specialize. This is the recreational harrassment of an old friend, not a devious editorial scheme.

Posted February 17, 2005 2:08 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Duns Scotus and Buddhism are not exactly polar opposites.

Posted February 17, 2005 2:40 PM by Metal Fatigue

Graydon, I'm going to print that out and hang it up. It's eerie and weird and I think it will scare me into doing this faster.

The hing about writing, at least in my condition, is that the work doesn't matter to anybody but the writer until it's a thing in someone else's hand. And if that hand never takes it up -- well, that's a terrifying thing -- like contemplating the abyss, or what happens when entropy wins: or like watching "Ed Wood."

Posted February 17, 2005 3:25 PM by Lucy Kemnitzer

Now I'm confused. It appears that Teresa and Patrick are "Playing Hardball." As Patrick has explained:

Just in case you were contemplating a pickup game. Evidently, Republicans have special rules for baseball, too:
“I can play hardball as well as anybody. That’s what I did, cut people’s hearts out.” —Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).

Skwid correctly noted that: "Heart Cutter outer ...that's that guy that stands behind the catcher, right?"

But now I can't understand when the Heart Cutter Outer eats the heart. Is that during trhe 7th-inning stretch? And I can't remember Teresa's explanation of the issues in the American League versus the National League, in terms of the Designated Heart Cutter Outer. That was back when Boston was in the process of winning a World Series, while Hell froze over. Now the New England Patriots won the superbowl twice in a row (3 of the past 4 years). The NFL policy on cooking and eating hearts differs, especially regarding steroids.

So please, Lucy, finish that novel so that I can learn the answers to these throbbing problems.

You really aorta do as they suggest!

Posted February 17, 2005 3:27 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

Teresa has not said what kind of heart she would roast. So we don't know, and we should not jump to conclusions.

May I recommend roasted artichoke hearts, on a bed of braised hearts of palm?

Posted February 17, 2005 4:09 PM by TomB

Jonathan Vos Post:

You really aorta do as they suggest!

SO FIRED.

Posted February 17, 2005 4:40 PM by epistole

Lucy K. -

The question of audience and futility, oh yes.

That first post of mine is about where I've managed to find myself attempting to deal with the niggling feeling that I'm either going to write for stupid people[1] or I'm not going to have a measurable chance of an audience adjudged sufficiently numerous to be worth any risk of publication.

So, having hauled my head of to a relatively detached place about it, managing revisions when someone can tell me why they're getting tangled is easy, mostly -- the point is after all to point as clearly as I can to the story-that-is-itself. (example "not easy" - I would have to be able to notice the subjective completions reliably to reduce their number.)

But there are some things that I can't yet do, starting with story past or third person viewpoints, and if Lucy H. is finding herself obliged to do something that she cannot herself yet do in order to perform the necessary task of revision, I have a lot of sympathy for her state of stuckness.

[1] this is my emotional reaction to something that is much closer to 'write stuff I don't particularly like to read' than the emotional reaction's description. My attempts at a writing process still have to deal with that emotional reaction, however unfair it might be to everyone else on the planet.

Posted February 17, 2005 5:03 PM by Graydon

Futility is too strong a word. What does one expect to come of a story, anyway? It's not a revolution, or even a baby.

Posted February 17, 2005 5:11 PM by Lucy Kemnitzer

Andy: I come to this thread late, but...

You rock. You so flippin' rock.

Posted February 17, 2005 5:19 PM by sGreer

Lucy --

Futility of striving, like building a road no one walks on or cooking a meal no one cares to eat.

I don't mean general, pervasive futility -- the idea that striving in general is without use -- but futility is how I feel about the possibility of writing stuff that no one wants to read. It's a lot of effort to entirely fail to have anyone else more likely to find the story-that-is than they were before I made the effort.

Posted February 17, 2005 5:27 PM by Graydon

Lucy's got a novel? Damn, I want to read that.

Finish the novel, Lucy!

Posted February 17, 2005 6:16 PM by John Scalzi

From a random, complete stranger...

If an utter nobody like me can revise a novel, ANYONE with THAT bio can.

As long as the cat doesn't decide to help. *looks more clueless than reality would dictate*

Posted February 17, 2005 7:29 PM by S. E.

Graydon:

Every time I try to read the sentence

> It's a lot of effort to entirely fail to have anyone else more likely to find the story-that-is than they were before I made the effort.

I get anoxia before I'm halfway to the top. Possibly I should establish some sort of base camp halfway through the sentence, rather than trying to make the entire climb in one go.

Posted February 17, 2005 7:48 PM by Steve Taylor

Steve -

A lamentably common complaint.

((It's a lot of effort) (to entirely fail)) ((to have anyone else) (more likely to find) (the story-that-is)) ((than they were) (before I made the effort.))

That help?

Posted February 17, 2005 7:55 PM by Graydon

Graydon writes:

> That help?

Yep. And it gives me the strange feeling that I've finally got around to learning Lisp without having noticed.

Thank god you didn't translate it into perl instead.

Posted February 17, 2005 8:15 PM by Steve Taylor

I believe that *all* authors should write thier books. Every. Single. One.

No, I'm not using this as another way to harrass my father into writing his book. What would make you think that?

Posted February 17, 2005 8:16 PM by Pippin Macdonald

Hey, Andy Ihnatko has discovered Making Light! Cool!

Or rather, Andy has chosen to let us know that he knows about Making Light. Quite possibly he has been lurking for eons.

I am a fan of his writing, not least because he has one of the all-time great titles for a Web site: Andy Ihnatko's Colossal Waste of Bandwidth. Think what a mind like that could have accomplished, if only he had turned to fanzines.

Posted February 17, 2005 8:21 PM by Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

And I can't remember Teresa's explanation of the issues in the American League versus the National League, in terms of the Designated Heart Cutter Outer.

It's not a league question. You gotta have heart.

Miles and miles and miles of heart.

Posted February 17, 2005 9:13 PM by julia

Dear Lucy,

Behold the POWER OF THE INTERNET! There are hundreds, if not thousands of us willing to follow the words of Teresa and Patrick.

Therefore, finish your revisions, or more of us will bug you.

Sincerely,
Sara E.

Posted February 17, 2005 9:48 PM by Sara E.

Hmm, Graydon. Something out of the Yoga Sutras, perhaps. Definitely not Kant.

Posted February 17, 2005 9:59 PM by Claude Muncey

Don't Eat Heart! Write! Write! or Dictate Well! OK!

Posted February 17, 2005 10:02 PM by Tina

Dear Lucy,

If you're reading this, you've obviously spent far too much time avoiding your revisions.

Posted February 17, 2005 10:39 PM by Rob Callahan

lucy, i am not going to bug you to revise. everyone else has.

instead, i think we should get another book out of teresa. what do you say??

Posted February 17, 2005 11:27 PM by sdn

Graydon:
We've never met, and I know your writing only by what I've seen here - - but if you're writing a grocery list, I'd like to read it. Please, proceed.

And Lucy Huntzinger: you sound like you have something interesting to say, so, you too, please.

Posted February 18, 2005 12:24 AM by Bob Oldendorf

Okay, Lucy, and everyone else, including me: take a break from messing around online, and get back to the writing and revision of less ephemeral words.

Karen

Posted February 18, 2005 12:24 AM by Karen Funk Blocher

I was starting to think my estimation of my command of tone was entirely awry.

Heck, one need not have studied Buddhism extensively to recognize that quote; one need only have read Lord of Light. Sam filed the serial numbers off that same passage himself.

(I likewise remember finding enormous chunks of Rild's dialogues with Sam and Yama the first time I read Yeats' translation of the Upanishads)

Posted February 18, 2005 1:11 AM by Ray Radlein

I wish you luck and perseverance, Lucy. Luck and perseverance to all.

One of the mantras that got me through the end of my dissertation was, "Completion requires sacrifice." Of course, at the time, I was thinking about giving up my Babylon 5 habit, rather than about the sort of Aztec performance TNH proposes.

Posted February 18, 2005 1:21 AM by Sarah Avery

...but if you're writing a grocery list, I'd like to read it.

When there's no bread, my dearest
Bring home rye loaves for me;
If there be none, some seven-grain,
And Twinkies, all for thee.
Bring the green grapes of Thompson
And kibble for the pet;
If there's nice Brie, remember,
If Camembert, forget.

We have a need for black tea,
And also camomile;
Fifty Melitta filters,
And Skippy, chunky style.
Of pork loin you are dreaming
The beer you'll not forget,
But never have remembered
The toilet paper yet.

Posted February 18, 2005 1:42 AM by John M. Ford

Okay, I couldn't resist either, but mine's kind of long, so I stashed it elsewhere.

Posted February 18, 2005 3:00 AM by Lucy Kemnitzer

Gosh, this is one of those small world things. Andy Ihnatko is the chap who used me to demonstrate a totally cool method of taking photos of yourself with another person, the first time I set foot in that hallowed ground that is the Apple Store on Regent Street. Utterly cool speaker. Keep going back, only to find some brainless Apple Store employee explaining how cut and paste work.

Posted February 18, 2005 6:11 AM by Alison Scott

Oh yes, absolutely, so she should. If only for the purely selfish reason that I want to see what the two characters allegedly based on Judith and myself are like.

Posted February 18, 2005 7:39 AM by Joseph Nicholas

Sharon -

You have a truly admirable degree of focus on your calling.

Bob --

Thank you!

Current shopping list:
TP
clear file bucket
SD card
non-LG DVD drive
food

Not much entertainment value.

Ray -

Lord of Light and a Taiwanese cartoon series on traditional Chinese philosophy is where I got the tone, so I should hope it's recognizable.

Posted February 18, 2005 8:15 AM by Graydon

John Ford - you've totally destroyed my favorite poem for when I'm feeling melodramatic. Perhaps I should thank you. Heh.

Posted February 18, 2005 8:24 AM by Jeremy Preacher

John M. Ford, Lucy Kemnitzer:
I'm pleased to have sparked such outpourings - that'll put a bounce in my step all day.

I've never thought of myself as a Muse.

Posted February 18, 2005 8:45 AM by Bob Oldendorf

Graydon: "Not much entertainment value."

Maybe for some values of 'entertainment' - -
but I was correct to predict that your list would be at least interesting.

Posted February 18, 2005 9:58 AM by Bob Oldendorf

Lord of Light and a Taiwanese cartoon series on traditional Chinese philosophy is where I got the tone, so I should hope it's recognizable.

What, he asked with some trepidation, was the episode on Han Fei Tzu like?

Posted February 18, 2005 10:01 AM by Dan Blum

Dan --

Printed cartoons; I only got to the ones on Zen and Zhuangzi. I quite enjoyed them, but cannot of course speak to their faithfulness to the original texts or traditions.

Should try to find the rest, one of these days.

Posted February 18, 2005 11:24 AM by Graydon

Pippin Macdonald

I believe that *all* authors should write thier books. Every. Single. One.

No, I'm not using this as another way to harrass my father into writing his book. What would make you think that?

I saw you doing a live harangue, that's what.

Posted February 18, 2005 11:24 AM by Paula :Lieberman

Heart Cutter-Outer, Gallic Style:

"... But we should be careful: Gods are not mocked. Better perhaps to keep one's distance from mighty Eros, as the French so often and so wisely do, than to see one's heart served up on a salver."
On Love
As the French know, love --
like good food and wine --
is a stimulant best consumed in small, very pretty portions.
By Michael Dirda
Sunday, February 13, 2005;
Page BW15

Posted February 18, 2005 12:29 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

John M. Ford:

"If there's nice Brie, remember,
If Camembert, forget."

I am informed by those who know these things that real Brie (i.e. Brie de Meaux) and real Camembert (i.e. Lait Cru, A.O.C.) are identical in their method of manufacture and components, aside from the variations in grass used to feed the cows due to regional differences between Normady and the Ile-de-France, and the size of the cheeses produced, so you may want to rethink this ...

Posted February 18, 2005 2:44 PM by James

Lucy, if you don't finish, how are you going to get to the really fun part: Rejection?

Posted February 18, 2005 3:32 PM by Robert L

James, possibly, though I wonder what component of the grass in Camembert country makes their cheese smell like that particular that. Admittedly, nous barbares Americains* cannot eat them ŕ point; we get the cheese more traveled, and that has made all the difference.

*Barbare l'Elephant is, of course, a powerful monarchical/imperialistic symbol in certain circles.

Posted February 18, 2005 3:59 PM by John M. Ford

Printed cartoons; I only got to the ones on Zen and Zhuangzi. I quite enjoyed them, but cannot of course speak to their faithfulness to the original texts or traditions.

Should try to find the rest, one of these days.

Ah, I get it now. Amazon has a few others in the series, but they don't appear to have done Han Fei Tzu, the cowards. They did do Sun Tzu, but who hasn't by now?

Posted February 18, 2005 4:11 PM by Dan Blum

Mike Ford, your grocery list reminds me of the Williams poem about the plums.

Posted February 18, 2005 4:34 PM by Xopher

Beware of infant hearts, for they are small, and crunchy, and will make you ill from over-indulgence.

Lotus.

Arthur is not a chicken, he is a coyote.

I rather wish this sort of group behaviour were any good at motivating me; I would have my MA and my TAFF report done by now. But I progress apace, and look forward to the day when I can apply peer pressure to other incomplete TAFF reports...

Posted February 18, 2005 6:11 PM by Ulrika

Revolutions and babies have gone awry before this. Stories hardly ever kill people.

Posted February 18, 2005 6:14 PM by Ulrika

Ah. Graydon most naturally writes in English-like programming code. The hotdog is enlightened.

Posted February 18, 2005 6:17 PM by Ulrika

Dan -

The idea that punishment produces virtue perhaps doesn't need present elaboration, having found so many philosophical devotees?

Ulrika -

I would have said that I most naturally write in a way that has bad judgement about what many other people consider a complex sentence.

Posted February 18, 2005 6:40 PM by Graydon

Andy has chosen to let us know that he knows about Making Light. Quite possibly he has been lurking for eons.

I am a fan of his writing, not least because he has one of the all-time great titles for a Web site: Andy Ihnatko's Colossal Waste of Bandwidth.

I saw this on Andy's site and came by based on that. I need to stop by more often.

I'm a fan of Andy's writing because he likes words, which is always a plus in a technology pundit. Besides, Andy has to do something now that there aren't new Dysfunctional Family Circus cartoons to caption.

Posted February 18, 2005 7:13 PM by Michael Croft

Graydon-

The way you write has bad judgment? Buggy code.

Posted February 18, 2005 7:34 PM by Ulrika

I wouldn't call it bad judgement: misapprehension at the strongest. Not even.

There are different levels of effort and concentration which are appropriate to different types of art. For one of those narcissistic close-to-me and alien to others examples, there's music: I mean bagpipe music -- some other person would be able to talk about classical or something (hush. bear with me). When my kid plays some jaunty march or jig as the fanfare for the brass band, everybody gets it (all 12 notes): it's fast, fun, and easy to follow. Or when she plays "Amazing Grace" which is now, for some reason, a pipe tune, though it wasn't in times past.

When she plays a piobaireachd, that's a different story. The listener has to concentrate, to exert effort on the piece to get it. Casual listeners don't enjoy it like they do a reel or an ordinary slow air or something. But they could, with effort.

All I'm saying is, not everything needs to be equally transparent (ooh: "you make a better door than a window").

Posted February 18, 2005 8:25 PM by Lucy Kemnitzer

Lucy Transparent writing appeals to the broadest audience. The less transparent the writing, the smaller the audience that will appreciate it. Also, the more you make the reader work to understand what you are saying, the more significant the payoff you have to provide for the reader. There has to be a reward for the extra work. Few writers provide enough of a payoff to justify making their readers work more than necessary.

To use your analogy, most people are willing to glance out a window to see what is going on. Fewer people will open a door out of curiosity. Fewer still will open a door that is stiff or seems to be stuck. And if you are making the would-be reader struggle to open the door, what lies behind it must be worth the extra effort.

To me, "difficult" writing usually indicates a writer unwilling or unable to express things clearly. In most cases, I unpack the dense writing and then wonder I bothered. I usually find a simplistic or malformed idea hidden in the cloud of obscurity. More typically, I lose patience and switch to something else. The writer's role is to send the message, and the reader's is to comprehend it. As a reader, I have no interest whatever in doing the writer's work of communicating clearly. Not my job.

There's a related issue with "making a reader concentrate." By doing so, you've pretty much eliminated 90% of your potential readership. So you have to really target your work to some definable subgroup of the remaining 10%. Much "difficult" writing languishes because the potential readership is too small to justify publication.

It is all a matter of what audience you are trying to reach. Define the audience for your novel, and you'll pretty much defined how you need to write to reach that audience. To me, the worst possible target readership as a writer is "people like me." I don't know anyone who is really like me. If I define the audience as effectively "Greg and his ilk," I run the risk of writing for myself alone.

On the finishing-your-novel thing: what would I know? I've never actually finished one of the damned things -- at least, never finished one of the ones I've tried to write. (I've finished many many as an editor. Polishing prose comes far easier to me than writing from scratch. For me, it's the old "an editor is a good writer with nothing much to say" thing.) Maybe some day I'll cobble together all the unrelated eight-chapter fragments I've written and try to palm them off as some experimental narrative form.

Finish it! Inspire those of us who are stuck infinitely rewriting a chapter that just won't click, or reworking a "sympathetic" character that all the poor guinea-pig readers hate.

Or don't finish it. There's a comfortable familiarity about old projects that linger, half-finished, dimly unforgotten on a mental back burner. Revisited them sometimes brings the joy of rediscovering just how good the work you have already done actually is. I think for some of my writing projects that the real audience was the small number of friends that I showed it to, and myself in the future, looking back as a reader. But that's a variant of "Greg and his ilk" -- the worst possible target readership.

I revisited an old old writing project yesterday, by accident, while I was looking for something else. It was an interesting rediscovery -- finding that some parts I'd remembered as clever really fell flat, while other bits I'd struggled with and given up on actually worked well. There was one section that I remember thinking through, but have no memory of actually writing. It was really quite nicely done. I'm tempted to go back and fix the bits I now see don't work -- it has become an editing project, as if someone else had written it. But I have no interest in finishing the manuscript; whatever muse inspired me to want to tell that particular story has long since moved on. Maybe I should have finished it at the time after all!

Posted February 18, 2005 10:13 PM by Greg Ioannou

My son, for reasons unknown to me, has The Writer's Block Calendar, with a snippet of advice for each day. The only one so far that has seemed worth keeping is 11 Dec 2003:
When you edit your work, pretend it was written by someone you don't like.

Posted February 18, 2005 10:51 PM by Barbara Gordon

Oh, and Lucy? Finish revising your novel.
I'd use my Mother Voice, but it doesn't work on my own child, so I'm not attempting it on someone else's.

Posted February 18, 2005 10:53 PM by Barbara Gordon

Greg, I don't know if I'm misreading you, and I probably am, but that analysis makes me nervous - it's coming across to me as only paint in blue and green because your viewer is wearing red lenses.

Isn't the point to put enough interesting detail in the blue and green to tempt them to take their glasses off?

Posted February 18, 2005 11:17 PM by julia

Julia I'm not good at visual analogies. Let's do popular music. Look at two extremes: Celine Dion and Fred Frith.

Celine performs in a style that is very easily accessible -- lowest common denominator stuff. Almost anyone can understand what she's trying to do. The music is basic pap. There's a certain segment of the population (myself included) that rebels against the shallowness and emptiness of her music, but it sells like crazy.

Fred Frith is a guitarist who composes and performs very experimental pieces. He's written for dance, artsy films, and in various rock, new music, and classical groups. Among many other things he's a Professor of Composition at Mills College in California. I love his music, and own many of his recordings.

Celine's music is easily accessible. The content is pap, but she makes trainloads of money.

Fred's music at first sounds strange. It always takes a while to get used to a new piece. But the more you listen to it, the more you hear in it. He is constantly innovative, and takes you to new places with every recording. He was the most talented, uncompromising musical figure I could think of. Fred doesn't make trainloads of money.

All musical performers are on an accessibility continuum that ranges from Celine near one end to Fred near the other.

Most listeners are most comfortable at the Celine end of the scale. Few would be willing to listen to more than a minute or three of Fred's experimentations.

At Celine's end of the spectrum, there is little need for successful experimentation; no requirement to challenge the listener. At Fred's end of the spectrum, the chances for "success" at any level are slim. The music can be challenging to listen to and grow comfortable with. He expects a lot of the listener. His relatively small group of listeners only listen to him because of his ability to make that investment in getting to understand each piece of music worth the effort.

Most performers find an appropriate place on the continuum between the two, being somewhat less accessible than Celine and somewhat less challenging than Fred. And there is more content to their music than there is to Celine's pap, yet less than there is in Fred's often-challenging pieces.

Similarly, there is a continuum in fiction, ranging perhaps from Harlequins on one end to Finnegan's Wake on the other. Harlequins are easy to read, and offer no surprises and no challenges. Finnegan is a challenge to read but is for some readers worth it. Finnegan only has an audience at all because of its ability to make it worth the reader's while to make the effort. Despite its relative prominence, ol' Finnegan sell fewer copies than the average Harlequin, to put it mildly. (Finnegan is ranked #509,983 on Amazon.)

Writers have to place their work on that continuum. At one end, mass sales but no real creativity. At the other, sometimes prodigious creativity but usually few sales. The problem with many writers is that the content tends towards the Harlequin end of the spectrum, while their writing style drifts towards the Finnegan end. If the writing is going to be difficult to read, there has to be enough payoff to make it worth the effort.

It is very very easy to write sentences that are a challenge to read. Few thoughts are complex enough to require complex sentences to express them. Simple thoughts expressed in complex sentences are just plain irritating.

More often, the complexity of the writing is not a result of the complexity of the underlying ideas. It is more the result of the writer being unable to express simple ideas clearly. Clear, easy to understand writing can be difficult. Empty bafflegab is easier to write.

I was responding to Lucy's "When she plays a piobaireachd, that's a different story. The listener has to concentrate, to exert effort on the piece to get it. Casual listeners don't enjoy it like they do a reel or an ordinary slow air or something. But they could, with effort." The piobaireachd is at the Frith/Finnegan end of the spectrum. When it is done well, it is challenging but rewarding (but not likely lucrative). Done badly, it is challenging yet unrewarding (and still unlucrative).

In some ways, I'm a lazy, impatient reader (and listener). If you are going to make me work at understanding what you are trying to say, it better have been worth listening to or you lose me utterly.

Posted February 19, 2005 1:48 AM by Greg Ioannou

What Greg say, with swords, diamonds and palm leaves. May I quote you?

There is one further touch I would add. Among the rewards to be found in reading fiction is the sudden realisation that it has told the truth about human beings, or at least about a human being - truth in a sense that goes deeper than the words themselves. For some, that truth is told about the Blooms in 'Ulysses', and it justifies the prose.

For me, it doesn't, but that's me.

Posted February 19, 2005 3:23 AM by Dave Luckett

Graydon, having grown up in a household where Taoist philosophy was discussed fairly often, I'd say that you did a pretty good rendering of the spirit of Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi (I'm not sure what the current romanization is). In fact, that would've been my first guess if the mentions of Kant and Buddhism hadn't scared me off.

Posted February 19, 2005 5:51 AM by Edo

As long as we're talking about audience, shall we think of what a small audience means in a large world?

We live in a huge world full of people many of whom read things printed in the language we're writing to each other. Even small audiences are significant groups of people.

I don't believe writing exists in a spectrum for two reasons. One is that a spectrum has one dimension, whereas writing varies over multiple dimensions. The other is that there are discontinuities: it's not all continuum. And things that are contiuously related in some dimensions are discontinuous in other dimensions.

And I'm not just fooling around with abstract ideas, here. I can't think of more down-to-earth ways to say it at the moment because it's really early in the morning and I'm only up because I had to interrupt another loud discussion between the dear dog and the raccoon thugs and I can never go back to sleep right away after that.

Posted February 19, 2005 6:54 AM by Lucy Kemnitzer

Edo --

Ooh, thank you.

I suppose it is entirely proper that I didn't do it on purpose. :)

Posted February 19, 2005 6:56 AM by Graydon

Peer pressure is a brutal but effective tactic, and I bow before it. I will finish the novel.

Then I will rise up and smite Teresa with it on the head.

Posted February 19, 2005 9:00 AM by Lucy Huntzinger

Okay. I'm cool with that.

Posted February 19, 2005 9:09 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Greg: ol' Finnegan sell fewer copies than the average Harlequin, to put it mildly.

This brings out another aspect of your spectrum. I have heard the Amazon ratings are almost as shallow as Celine; i.e., they rate quick gratification over slow, steady sales. I suspect that the total sales of Finnegan's Wake are well beyond that of a Harlequin; the Frith end of the spectrum continues to be interesting for decades or centuries, where the easily-comprehended is just as easily exhausted and discarded for the next facile bit.

Some of this is accumulated reputation; is Shakespeare really so much better than Marlowe, Jonson, ...? (Pick your own neglected favorite; I'm not expert in the literature of any period. And for amusement, read Shaw lacing into Shakespeare.) But some of it is that the qualities you describe are hard enough to find that their fans will continue interest in old examples. I'm conscious of this because I've sung classical choral music even longer than I've been an SF fan; there are pieces approaching 300 years old that I'll go back to again and again, even as I prepare and appreciate a Pinkham premiere.

Posted February 19, 2005 9:11 AM by CHip

Lucy Huntzinger's will has been broken by the relentless onslaught of Making Light readers' comments! Hurrah for distributed brainwashing technology!

Posted February 19, 2005 9:50 AM by Metal Fatigue

Something else about Graydon's writing: it isn't deliberately obscure. When he's writing in his natural language, he makes sentences like gripping-beasts. All the parts are present, and they're logically connected, but there's an unusual degree of compression.

Posted February 19, 2005 10:52 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

"Despite its relative prominence, ol' Finnegan sells fewer copies than the average Harlequin, to put it mildly. (Finnegan is ranked #509,983 on Amazon.)"

Quite wrong. For one thing, there are multiple editions of Finnegans Wake in print. For another, the very first edition that comes up for me when I type "Finnegans Wake" into the Amazon search bar is the Penguin "Twentieth-Century Classics" paperback, which currently shows a sales rank of 45,021.

For a third, CHip is exactly right--any trade publisher would be delighted to have a canonical literary classic like Finnegans Wake on its backlist, no matter how opaque the prose. A popular paperback romance might sell 100,000 copies in a year, at considerable expense of new typesetting, art, printing, sales, promotion, and distribution. A book like Finnegans Wake sells every day, every week, every month, and every year with almost no effort or expense whatsoever, aside from that entailed in designing a new cover every decade or two, and thinking up new formats, critical editions, and other ways to increase the revenue stream. Speaking as a commercial fiction editor, I'll be glad to take over publishing rights to Finnegans Wake any time somebody wants to offer them to me. Books like that are like printing money.

Posted February 19, 2005 11:36 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Oh, and while we're on the subject, riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, Lucy should finish revising her novel.

Posted February 19, 2005 11:38 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

About transparent writing and accessibility -- I think this is a mistaken categorization without providing fairly specific context.

All narrative fiction is to some extent or another ritualized and codified; if you don't know the protocols, it's going to be hard slogging, never mind how straightforward it is to people who do know the protocols. (Don't believe me? Watch no television for a decade, and then try to make sense of some. Or try to make sense of a third-tier Victorian romance novel.)

So 'transparent' has to answer 'transparent for whom?'

Transparent also has to answer for throwing out evocation.

Invocation is naming things -- that hat, the car, the man with the gun. Evocation is producing a space into which the thing can be placed by the reader -- tip of the rain-shedding felt, conveyance of contained explosions, hard of heart with death in hand. Evocation is more work for the reader, but there are things you can do that way and no other, particularly when it comes to building significance over time.

There is no way anyone could ever have written The King of Elfland's Daughter or Serpent's Reach or Fool's Run using purely invocational prose; couldn't begin to be done. (These are the first three samples that come to my mind; my view is that there are more books of which this is true than not true.)

Yes, this does mean hauling the reader in as a collaborator, and fewer readers are likely going to be willing to do that than otherwise. (Unless you luck out and change the language, and the shifting tide snares all who speak.) But there are still things that you can do that way that can't be done with the transparent prose, and I don't think there's any reason an author shouldn't want to do those things.

Posted February 19, 2005 12:06 PM by Graydon

Graydon: You mean in a few more years I'm going to be irrevocably estranged from a primary medium of cultural evolution?

I think I should be frightened by that idea, but instead I'm pleased. Perhaps I am growing old.

Posted February 19, 2005 12:52 PM by Metal Fatigue

Peer pressure is a brutal but effective tactic, and I bow before it. I will finish the novel.

Hooray for peer pressure!

Posted February 19, 2005 1:00 PM by Harry Connolly

The example that springs to mind here is Umberto Eco. I find Name of the Rose compulsively readable even though it's explicitly about semiotic analysis (which drives me up a wall), but what got me to the end of it in the first place was a damn good mystery.

Foulcalt's Pendulum, on the other hand, was a slog even though the style was similar because it read to me like a semiotics lecture with a plot hanging off it by safety pins. I couldn't get past chapter three of Island.

So I guess I agree that felicity of language probably won't sell a book in and of itself, and that a lot of what people buy these days is something they vaguely recognize as lifelike because it reminds them of what they've seen on TV, but it seems to me that if you write something compelling they'll buy it even if they have to work at it.

Whether you can convince a publishing company of that is another question, although I've just finished a fascinating book that I understand Teresa got off the slush pile, so it does happen.

Posted February 19, 2005 1:03 PM by julia

A couple of things, quickly while I take a quick break from trying to salvage a book that is going off the rails quite horribly:

-- I hadn't intended my comments to apply to Graydon's writing. I was responding to Lucy's bit about accessibility, which I think was in response to Andy's writing, not Graydon's. But my posting was supposed to be in the abstract, not specifically about anyone's writing.

-- Finnegan's Wake was a poor choice of example, and Patrick is of course correct. It would be a cash cow as a backlist title. I'd originally written that section about a specific writer's current book, and then realized that one of my New Year's resolutions was to never again comment publicly on the work of living writers, unless I was lavishing unambiguous praise on that work. (Criticizing people's writing in public always seems to get me into trouble or at least dispute -- and it has cost me a couple of friends.) So I tried to go back in time for a work by an apparently dead writer. Oh well!

Posted February 19, 2005 2:27 PM by Greg Ioannou

Greg -

Didn't think you were commenting on my writing, and did recognize what you were saying as an abstract point about accessibility.

My reply is meant to be an abstract address of the question of accessibility, too.

It's a set of questions I've thought quite a bit about while arguing with my instances of a fabulator.

Posted February 19, 2005 2:42 PM by Graydon

Julia:

You might enjoy "Baudolino" by Umberto Eco. Semiotics is muted, except so far as it underlies theology; medievalism is intense; Fantasy is overt; and the mystery resolves neatly at the end.

Greg Ioannou:

It was widely believed in the Caltech Physics department that Murray Gell-Mann named the subatomic particle the "quark" in order to implictly boast: "I read Finnegan's Wake and you didn't."

Many Joyce scholars find quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics to be terribly obscure, and many particle physicists feel the same way about modern novelists, at least if you believe C. P. Snow's premise in "The Two Cultures," which I do not.

Posted February 19, 2005 3:37 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

Julia: Like you, I loved The Name of the Rose, but not Foucault's Pendulum. Shortly after I finished reading the latter I had a memorable lift ride. The office-building lift was packed; I didn't know anyone in it and had the impression that most of the passengers were strangers to each other. Suddenly a man at the back, whom I couldn't see, started ranting loudly about Foucault's Pendulum: the biggest load of crap he's ever read, should never have been published, what a wanker Umberto Eco was, etc. Presumably only he and I and perhaps his invisible interlocutor knew what he was talkng about, but he clearly was so overwhelmed by passion he didn't give a damn.

Posted February 19, 2005 4:28 PM by Jonathan Shaw

Graydon wrote:

About transparent writing and accessibility -- I think this is a mistaken categorization without providing fairly specific context.

It isn't a category. It is an attribute of writing, one that is on a continuum -- one of many dozens of such attributes.

All narrative fiction is to some extent or another ritualized and codified; if you don't know the protocols, it's going to be hard slogging, never mind how straightforward it is to people who do know the protocols. (Don't believe me? Watch no television for a decade, and then try to make sense of some. Or try to make sense of a third-tier Victorian romance novel.)

Agreed. That is true of any mode of communication. You can't communicate with someone without having some idea of what that person already knows and what the person will be able to understand.

So 'transparent' has to answer 'transparent for whom?'

Yes. I was trying to say the same thing when I said, "It is all a matter of what audience you are trying to reach. Define the audience for your novel, and you'll pretty much defined how you need to write to reach that audience."

Transparent also has to answer for throwing out evocation. [Examples snipped.]

Invocation versus evocation is another continuum, one that is unrelated to accessibility. Very simple writing can be powerfully evocative. For example: rather than trying to describe a character's complex stew of emotional reactions, one writer came up with the perfect evocation: "Jesus wept."

There is no way anyone could ever have written The King of Elfland's Daughter or Serpent's Reach or Fool's Run using purely invocational prose; couldn't begin to be done.

Their evocativeness and their accessibility are unrelated. (Out of curiosity, I pulled Serpent's Reach from the shelf. The writing is very accessible, even at its most evocative: "The Hald pulled off a frond. Others furled tightly, remained so, twice offended. He began to strip the soft part off the skeleton of the veins. It left a sharp smell in the air." I think the book is an example that undermines the point you are making.)

Yes, this does mean hauling the reader in as a collaborator, and fewer readers are likely going to be willing to do that than otherwise. (Unless you luck out and change the language, and the shifting tide snares all who speak.)

Perhaps, in some cases. (Changing the language is a bit beyond the reach of most writers. The best most can hope for in that regard is to introduce a new cliche.)

But there are still things that you can do that way that can't be done with the transparent prose, and I don't think there's any reason an author shouldn't want to do those things.

I think we're simply going to trade assertions here, which isn't likely to be very enlightening. I agree that there are some things that cannot be done in transparent prose. Complex ideas often require complex language. But simple ideas are usually best expressed in simple language. And few people write solely about complex ideas.

I was reading a piece Jame Gleick wrote on phase transition in physics a couple of days ago, and was struck by one sentence he used to introduce a discussion of how a scientist went about designing a complex experiment: "Swinney was experimenting with stuff." That introductory sentence, by its child-like simplicity, eases the reader gently into a complex topic.

(TWO discussions of the work of living writers in this post, and not the slightest hint of criticism in either. I'm being so well-behaved!)

Posted February 19, 2005 4:32 PM by Greg Ioannou

Greg, Julia, Jonathan Shaw:

Umberto Eco (1932-): major semiotics and bestselling author of Italy; of
all the sparkling intellects I'd met before their bestsellerdom, I'd have
least expected his. I met him at Amherst College circa 1979, where my
friend Timothy Jessup and I totally disagreed with his statement that
DNA had no semiotic significance because it only copied information.
Through his lecture, we drew a complex chart of the DNA-RNA-Protein
repressor/derepressor interactions, which baffled him. He hit the big
time with:
* Il nom della rosa [1980; tr. William Weaver as
"The Name of the Rose", 1983] {film hotlink to be done}
* Il pendolo di Foucault [1988; tr. William Weaver as
"Foucault's Pendulum", USA: 1989]
* L'Isola del giorno primo [1994; tr. William Weaver as
"The Island of the Day Before", 1995]
Other Non-Academic Works:
* Postille a Il nom della rosa [1983; tr. William Weaver as
"Reflections on The Name of the Rose", 1984] nonfiction
* Travels in Hyperreality [1986] story/essay collection
* Il bomba e il generale [1989; tr. William Weaver as
"The Bomb and the General", 1989]
* Tre Cosmonauti [?; tr. William Weaver as
"Three Cosmonauts", 1989]

Posted February 19, 2005 6:24 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

Okay, so if Lucy H finishes her novel, will Tor slushreaders get to Lucy K's novel?

(all of a sudden, "Lucy" looks wrong)

Posted February 19, 2005 7:08 PM by Marilee

When you edit your work, pretend it was written by someone you don't like.

Lambchop, when I write my work it's being written by somebody I don't like. If it weren't for shitty first drafts, I'd have no drafts at all.

Posted February 19, 2005 8:45 PM by Jonquil

I'm glad I'm not the only one (I also really do know how to spell Foucault, dammit).

How to Travel With a Salmon, on the other hand, is delightful.

Posted February 19, 2005 8:59 PM by julia

We seem to have wandered away from needling Lucy. Sorry. I meant spurring her on. It involved doing something with a pointed stick, anyway.

Invocation. Would this count?:

"The centipede lovely-faced stork-colored daughters of the Bald Lady struck maiden-slaying Thetis with their blades."

It means "the black ships rowed up the Hellespont." Every word needs exegesis. It is the effusion of Lycophron of Chalchis, one of the Seven Pleiades of Alexandria, about 200 BCE.

Personally, I think this and "Finnegan's Wake" are both examples of obscurantism, the wilful hiding of meaning behind literary figuration, allusion, abstraction and cloaking devices. Further, I think this is done so as to gain a specific readership: those who read so that they may congratulate themselves on their culture, learning and sophistication.

There is, of course, such a readership. Its existence is even fairly harmless, so long as it remains a minority taste, like flagellation. But woe to the culture that it takes over!

Posted February 19, 2005 9:35 PM by Dave Luckett

Lower-case-j-jennie has argued (in person -- we work together) that she likes the challenge of reading difficult writing, and that she finds some of the stuff I like to be simpl