Surreality CheckA Savage Writer's Journal
11 March 1999 I've been keeping this journal in various forms on paper for a couple of decades now. I started it as a place for ideas that didn't fit current projects, as a means of keeping track of how much I was doing, and as "scratch pad." The last purpose has dropped off the face of the planet. So . . . Today:
14 March 1999 Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes that leads to inspiration, and sometimes . . . The strain of dealing with my oldest son's problems is certainly not helping me handle my own. Maybe I'll be able to go back to work in a couple of months—if I can find a job in this closed-market town—but I despair of my son's chances of ever getting back into a "normal" school situation. And, given that, moving out of the area isn't an option. I haven't written two words of fiction in the last month, unless you count my tax records. I have, however, been reading it, and I'm getting more and more annoyed by the shallowness of much of what I'm reading. Is it just me, or do the wizards in most modern fantasy have more in common with an Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan than with Gandalf when it comes to race relations? I guess that for many fantasy writers and characters, the only good orc (or foreigner) is a dead orc (or foreigner). Given all of the other anachronistic modern attitudes that flood into modern fantasy novels—near-universal, or at least ahistorical, literacy; secular colleges and universities; regularized monetary exchange; the Republic (in Plato's sense, since his work was unknown in medieval Europe); large, standing professional armies; and laissez-faire capitalism, name a few—why hasn't racial emancipation or tolerance made much impact? Some might believe it has something to do with the largely white, largely Judeo-Christian, almost entirely middle-class background of the writers. That certainly doesn't help. There's a big difference between understanding the Other because one's thought patterns and voluntary choices make one Different and the understanding that comes from experiencing violent prejudice. I had always considered myself fairly "enlightened," but this didn't really come home to me until a tour of duty in the Deep South during the late 1980s, when I called the local Chamber of Commerce to ask for directions to a synagogue for Passover. (Hey, I was feeling lonely, and was willing to return after an absence of 15 years.) I thought it a bit strange that there were no Jewish organizations listed in the telephone book for the state capital, but the Deep South has a few quirks. I got a little surprise at that point. I politely asked the woman who answered the telephone—and announced that it was indeed the Chamber of Commerce—for directions from the base to the nearest synagogue. The reply was rather enlightening: "Go to hell, you f*%$#$ing Christ-killer! [click]" Looking at the calendar (I'm still surprised at how calmly I took this!), I noticed that Passover that year fell immediately before Easter. That incident made me realize just how little my "enlightened" attitude had progressed. I had assumed that just intellectually knowing about prejudice would be enough to prevent problems, but I found otherwise. Perhaps I am now oversensitized to all of those "better" societies invented by modern commercial fantasy authors that are even worse than the Deep South during Reconstruction. After all, it was far from unheard of then for children of different races to play together, particularly in rural areas. But when is the last time that you read of a human child from a rural village or farmstead playing with a young elf, or dwarf, or orc, except as a major plot device? I fully realize that so-called "racial integration" doesn't really get us very far today, and that doesn't include all of the gender, religious, and ethnic discrimination that still pervades American society. But I'm annoyed by the sheer blindness toward the issue. If Orson Scott Card can write (repeatedly, and usually very well) about the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, then we should certainly have more novels and novellas that draw upon the American civil rights movement, the religious troubles in Northern Ireland, the ethnic hatred in the Balkans, the gender problems in Asian and Africa, and so on for inspiration or at least background. There are a lot of exceptional stories in those backgrounds, instead of more of the same tired (and ultimately meaningless) hero quests. Reading more Shakespeare might help. Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, and The Tempest all deal quite directly (yet nonetheless entertainingly) with various forms of prejudice. But so few Americans really read anymore—and, sad to say, that includes a lot of "big name" authors—that I seriously doubt this rant will change anything. 16 March 1999 The last week hasn't been especially productive, at least not in putting words on the page:
18 March 1999 Finished the bloody page proofs. Somebody screwed up big time—lots of mistakes, particularly in foreign characters. Excuse me, but the umlaut (in German) and cedilla (in French) are actual characters, not just decoration. On one line, I had to make eleven corrections. I will not be submitting to that journal again. (No, it's not the student editors' fault. They're only there for a year. But every law journal has permanent staff members—employees of the sponsoring law school—whose job it is to prevent this kind of nonsense.) Diana, I hope that you're not expecting any puppies to spring forth from Zeus's forehead. I can almost guarantee that they won't be housebroken. At least Kent didn't suggest Heracles! (My dog is jovially known as "Dogbreath," although that's not the name on her collar.) I can definitely emphathize (in a strange sort of way) with Douglas's frustration at being "outside the box" in academia. I left my English doctoral program when it became increasingly apparent that, as a Yank, I simply would not be allowed to criticize certain scions of the Old Left whilst studying at a staunchly New Left university in England. I was not willing to eviscerate—self-censor—my own dissertation! (Ultimate irony: The approved topic was George Orwell.) Now, I find that I can't realistically expect to get a job teaching law, since I'm a white, straight male without a certified disability. So, kids, don't get the idea that corporate America is the only place that has problems with prejudice. Back to the grind. I promised myself that I would finish one story this month. So far, not so good. 21 March 1999 It looks like Sunday morning may become the traditional time for venting my writing spleen. Ewww! What's that sticky stuff on my computer screen? As a left-handed continuation of my rant from last week, is anyone else discouraged by the prevalence of wish-fulfillment fantasies in speculative fiction, particularly those involving misfit adolescents (usually girls) whose Specialness is recognized only by non-humans at first, who then use the Personal Confidence and Charisma gained from that recognition to earn Acclaim and Understanding from the Adults Who Really Matter? A lot of "misfits" are misfits for good reason. They can be protagonists, too. Given the prevalence of psychological sexual dysfunction, clinical depression, and other ailments in the "real world," why is mental illness something suffered only by antagonists and side characters? Much of the power of Hamlet comes from the protagonist's struggles with insanity, whether real or feigned. Then there's Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent Into Hell and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." There are real stories here that won't hurt anyone, even little kids, to read. I'm going to pick on an author here as a common example. It was her first novel, so she's to be excused some growing pains, particularly since much of her more recent work has grown (at least some). But has anyone ever been annoyed by the "perfection" of Talia in Lackey's original Heralds trilogy? She does not have a single problem that has not somehow been imposed from outside! Further, she outgrows even most of those. This is the "nature versus nurture" model carried to an untenable extreme (but then, I should expect this from a biologist). Even Elspeth outgrows some serious personality disorders with really very little difficulty. Pshaw. It's not just that "less than perfect" protagonists are more real. After all, it's almost expected that a teenaged female protagonist has either a sharp or a nonexistent tongue! Rather, this may be an unwelcome outgrowth of the "I'm OK, You're OK" pop-psychology theories that have pushed their way into the foreground. I think I hear the objection that "It wouldn't be healthy for children to confront real mental illness in people they admire, and a lot of children read speculative fiction, so good people in those books shouldn't have any mental illness at all." Of course, this assumes that mental illness has to be named as such. Remember the "telling versus showing" debate that "showing" has won? Here are a few examples of books that deal very effectively with aspects of mental illness in protagonists:
So, I hereby resolve never to have a perfect protagonist again. 24 March 1999 Rejection (quarterfinalist) from WotF. Back to market research. Trying to find a market for a fantasy story in which the point is that "action" is irrelevant is not going to be easy. Another 5k words on the kids' book. 5k to go by Friday. No problem. The real difficulty is going to be illustrations, since I'm responsible for procuring historical photographs and drawing anything else (mainly flow charts, so my lack of artistic talent ain't gonna matter much). Big electronic hugs for Chiara. I haven't had that exact problem (I have, umm, a somewhat different arrangement of internal organs), but when the military was contemplating neurosurgery to repair a venous angioma in my brain, I had many similar worries. Just remember: Chocolate cures everything. Diana, Zeus looks like a convention dog (a very sophisticated party animal). Maybe you can teach him to be a guide dog and take him to WFC this fall. Strange but true: I was watching a hockey game last night. Satan scored with a few minutes left in the third period to level the score with the New Jersey Devils. I'm dead serious. Look at the box score in the paper. OK, he pronounces his name "zshuh-TAN," but still . . . I'd be a bit worried if I skated out to see "Satan" on the back of one of my opponents' jerseys, and I played for a team called the Devils. My first thought would be something like, "Hey! He's supposed to be on our side!" 28 March 1999
Q. How many scholarship athletes does it take to change a lightbulb? I couldn't resist my first actual opportunity to agree with Jesse Ventura, he of the Electric Body Slam and governorship of Minnesota. In a news report (no doubt inspired by the Final Fours), Jesse said that "academically challenged" college athletes shouldn't have to attend classes. He's absolutely right. After all, do we require janitors to attend classes? How about department secretaries? How about assistant deans? In reality, the vast majority of scholarship athletes are nothing more than university employees. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. For all of Bobby Knight's personality problems, I have to admire the academic record of his athletes—but he's an exception, and the football team at Indiana makes up for it. Particularly in football and men's basketball, the sole reason most of these yoyos are at the university is their ability to contribute to the two programs that generally make money. That, my friends, is the definition of "employee." Now, before anyone assumes I am just a geek . . . I chose to attend a Division III school, at which I played on a nationally ranked team that regularly beat Division I opponents. I chose to do so because the Division I program that offered me a full ride was corrupt to the core (although I was a National Merit Scholar, I was told not to worry about classes, because they would be "taken care of"). Instead, the team I was on started over 80% National Merit Scholars, and in our worst year finished ranked number 8. At least Jesse is being honest about it.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled rant. I'd like to offer a big, fat raspberry to Writer's Digest for their so-called "Pop Fiction Issue" (April 1999), particularly the shallow and poorly edited article on fantasy by J.V. Jones. And I say "poorly edited" for a reason—while I'm no big fan of her fiction, her prose skills are one helluva lot better than shown in this article; her prose lacks the gross continuity gaps, grammatical errors, and logical gaffes in this article. Instead, I commend you to Phantastes, which (by coincidence) includes two articles covering much the same ground, at much greater depth and accuracy, at a much better price. What is it with WD? Was P.T. Barnum a founding editor? Or, perhaps, Charles Ponzi and the gurus of multi-level marketing? After examining a lot of their books (through great pain) and a few years' worth of back issues of the magazine (through even greater pain), I've come to the conclusion that the only people profiting from the advice they offer are the people writing the advice they offer. Here's a test: Name a major-award-winning author who has endorsed WD as a major contributor to his or her success. Go ahead, I'll wait. I couldn't either. WD seems to believe that, if it's good enough to sell to someone (anyone, anywhere), it's good enough. I understand that not everyone is going to win the National Book Award, the Hugo, the Nebula, or any other major award. But shooting for the minimally acceptable quality for publication is going to produce . . . Sturgeon was an optimist. And that's before considering the self-published crap, the fraudulent book doctors, the vanity presses, the non-agent agents, and so on who make their livings preying on WD's readers through the ads printed in WD publications.
Kids' book is largely finished. Now I just have to do the diagrams. Yes, diagrams. Since I'm taking a "historical development" approach to an area of the law that has had significant historical development (well, duuuuuuuh), I had the wild idea of doing a timeline of significant developments in that area of the law. Yeesh. I'd like to kill the idiot who decided that no Macintosh would ever properly translate a PC-originated bitmap, because doing simple geometrics in vector-based drawing programs is a pain in the ass. I actually wrote 500 words of fiction this week. Too bad the only audience is the IRS . . . 31 March 1999 I tried something different with WotF this quarter ("second quarter" 1999, January through March): a satire of some of the excesses of media fiction. Yeah, I know, I'm out on my ass, but it was the only story I finished the whole quarter, and the print mags just won't buy satire or humor from unknowns. (That last is almost a direct quote.) And I just dare someone to complain that the story improperly uses media properties—I am a publishing lawyer, and I'd like to think I know what I'm doing. That leads to a rather different observation. Is it just me, or has American speculative fiction lost the drive and ability to print much other than adventure stories? I'm not saying that adventure stories are bad per se, just that they should not dominate a field that is supposedly built on ideas and speculation. Anything that isn't an adventure story seems to be watered-down kiddielit (not children's literature), even if marketed to adults. Not everyone reads with the brain off. Productivity for the last week:
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