Peg Kerr's Journal

I answered this survey and the results are in. Quite interesting.

Damn, I am sorry, I should have pointed more people to it while he was collecting answers. Still, he did get 150 responses.

I am someone who sold the first novel she wrote. But I did sell some short fiction first.

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*Falls over laughing*

I think that at this juncture, I would like to mention what I have always considered to be the best, most valuable thing another writer ever told me.

I was accepted into the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop in 1986 and attended it that summer. Six weeks of writers boot camp. It was exhausting and exhilarating, and I loved (almost) every minute of it. My teachers were Tim Powers, Lisa Goldstein, Samuel R. Delany, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight.

The first teacher who kicked off the workshop was Tim Powers, and I especially clicked with him. It was his first time teaching, and I remember that he was so nervous that the paper shook violently in his hand when he stood up in front of us the first time, but he jumped into critiquing our stories with both kindness and enthusiasm and got the workshop off to a great start.

At the end of his week, he sat us down to give us advice that he thought all writers should know when starting out in their careers. I remember it better than practically anything else I learned at Clarion, and I have always been very grateful to him for passing it on. Here it is:

When you are learning to become a writer, don't forget the importance of remaining a decent human being. Never try to get close to people only because you think they are the cool in-crowd people and could "help your career." That kind of behavior is just beneath you, and it makes you look small and petty if you are obviously angling to hang out with them. Never ever scorn people because they are not important. Instead, spend time with people--whether the humblest neo fan or the Big Name pro writer--only simply because you enjoy their company. If you don't enjoy their company, it's okay to avoid them, but always be polite, and never badmouth them. This field is small, and word gets around. Someone you badmouth today may be an editor considering your book manuscript next year. Be kind to others, and treat them with respect and forbearance.

Thank you, Tim, for those words. I have always remembered them and tried to follow them, and I have been grateful for your advice. You were absolutely right, and I have seen the awful results for people who never had those kind words at a crucial stage as I did.

And I have been thinking of them a lot the last few days, as we are all absorbing this week's disclosures.

I have sort of a hard time not taking this personally. Garrison Keillor says that writers who gripe that Writing is Hard (and you all know that I've bitched plenty about being blocked in this journal before) should just get a grip and knock it off. Writing is hard. Get over it.

Writers, Quit Whining. Spare us the self-involved moaning over the agonies of your art. Writing is no harder than anything else, and the complainers should can it.

Ouch.

Thoughts?

Through alg, pandarus's essay: "In Defence of Fanfic."

It is mostly a rebuttal to Robin Hobb's essay "The Fan Fiction Rant."

I didn't read in depth (didn't have time) but one thought occurred to me re: the discussion earlier about the United 93 movie: perhaps the disagreement is similar if you think of "United 93" as sort of fanfic of history.

I have, many times at conventions, compared writing to working on a potter's wheel.

Here is an excellent post explaining why. Found it here cross-posted on readers_list.

From The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon:

It was a clear, moonlit night a little after the tenth of the Eighth Month. Her majesty, who was residing in the Empress's Office, sat by the edge of the veranda while Ukon no Naishi played the flute for her. The other ladies in attendance sat together, talking and laughing; but I stayed by myself, leaning against one of the pillars between the main hall and the veranda.

'Why so silent,' said Her Majesty. 'Say something. It is sad when you do not speak.'

'I am gazing into the autumn moon,' I replied.

'Ah yes,' she remarked. 'That is just what you should have said.'

Such a simple little scene, deftly sketched in just a few paragraphs. One can see it--the moonlit garden, the ladies gathered, talking softly, the flutist, the Empress, and Sei Shonagon, looking up at the moon with a melancholic air. The ladies described--once living, breathing people--have been dead and dust now for a thousand years, and yet the words on the page immediately brings them to life for us again.

Shakespeare understood this to the core, and examined it at length in the sonnets. From the ending of Sonnet 18:


. . . Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this [the sonnet] and this gives life to thee.
.

I read a story years ago--and damn me for not remembering the title or author--which started, very simply, by describing a man, a simple laborer, who died in his sleep one night. The rest of the story is a straightforward account of how his presence is erased from the world. He had no children. His simple possessions are sold and scattered to the winds. The story tells of a gathering of friends twelve years later, eating dinner at a common inn. In the course of the conversation, one says to the other, "We went there with that fellow we worked with long ago--what was his name, John Josephson--" and the conversation goes on from there. And that the narrator tells us was the last time that John Josephson's name was ever spoken by another human being.

The years speed on, and then another forty years or so later the narrator focuses on something, a written record--I don't remember what it was, a written ledger, or a Bible in a church. There is a storm (or was it a fire?) and the book with John Josephson's name (or was it his signature?) is destroyed. The page is soaked, and the ink runs, or perhaps it is burned. There are five letters left in his name, then three. Then one. Then the last letter is gone, as is John Josephson from all human memory.

[Anyone remember that story??? Title and author???]

I have been thinking about the ice palace book. Well--sort of squinting at it out of the corner of my eyes without trying to look at it directly. I have been wondering, rather gloomily, whether I should just admit facts and remove all reference to it from my user profile page. I haven't worked on it in months. It was going well, and then it wasn't going well, and then it all seemed to dry up. I do not know whether I made a mistake in talking about it in this journal--did that somehow suck all the creative juices out of it, keeping me from actually writing it? Is it just that I am so busy with the kids and my job, and the fact that I am not writing is an inevitable reflection of the busy nature of my life, or am I just making lame excuses for laziness, lack of talent? Am I not working on the book because I am depressed, or am I depressed because I am not working on the book? Screw the cause: I am very very very depressed, and I haven't been working on the book. Not for a long time.

And yet, and yet . . .

I am not entirely divorced from it, it is not entirely dead for me, because I am struggling with the same things Solveig is struggling with. I always knew that there was much going on in the book about permanence, impermanence. Solveig is horrified by Rolf's quest for immortality, but she understands it, too, because, like Jack, she wants to create something that will last. I type insurance paperwork for a living, and she designs shopping malls; like me, she sure as hell isn't getting what she needs from her day job. She gets irritable--just as I do--by those who try to convince her that since she's mothering a child, she should accept that as her gift to the future. No, Solveig says, and I say--I want to do something, make something, that will last. We both want a life's work that will matter, long term, that will stand for years to come. She ponders this as she designs an ice palace which will melt, but which she hopes will live in memory, just as I ponder my writing. I have my paper journals lined up in neat rows in my office. What will happen to them when I die? I have thought about this--Rob will have the right to read them if he survives me. The girls can read them after they have reached the age of twenty-one, and they will inherit them. In my deepest anxious craving to be remembered, to matter, somehow, I wonder if they will ever be read by anyone else, people who never have the chance to meet me. Will the words be interesting--enough to last? Will anyone give a damn?

What do I have to say for the ages? Will my life be remembered years, decades, even centuries later, like Sei Shonagon, like Shakespeare, like Jane Austen, like Tolkien, because of the words that I wrote--words about my own life, or my fictional creation? Or will I be erased inexorably by the remorseless, relentless, hand of Time?

I do not know what to do about the ice palace book. I seem paralyzed about it, and when I permit myself to think beyond the blackness of my depression--which seems just about impossible these days--I am in a rage, absolutely fucking furious at myself for being so blocked.

The fury does not help. It is not a spur to action; it just makes me feel worse, if I possibly could.

But beyond that, even, there is still something there about the book that is connected to me, to my deepest concerns, so I guess it's not dead yet--even if I can't figure out how to grasp it and shape it and make it work--or if I can't somehow force myself to do the hard slogging work to bring it into being. Whatever the cause.

God help me.

(Or maybe I should just switch to sonnets.)

A woman in the middle years of her life looked up at the sky on a day that was like all the others, and yet not. She ground the flour to make her bread, and yet the bread had no more flavor than dust. She tended her children, but they wandered away, and she realized suddenly that they did not really need her in the same way that they did in the days when they were babes at her breast. She had friends, opened-hearted and true, but something plucked at her own heartstrings, stronger than any tie she had yet known. She held a hand to her brow and looked out over the desert, where the heat rippled over hot and barren sands, where it is said that one might walk for days and never see another human. The sky was lemon yellow at the horizon. The ashy taste of her bread told her that her time had now come. She scooped up handfuls of water and patted them until they were shaped like eggs, clear and yet hard as stones. These she put along with strips of dried meat into a bag of woven grass. She left the door of her hut without looking back, and walked into the desert, haven and home to none but the pitiless scorpion.

Laurie WInter did a tarot reading for me on Sunday, as she has done the past several years. (I don't know which deck it was, sorry). I have mixed feelings about tarot. I don't fear them as instruments of the devil (Tim Powers, for example, despite having written a novel all about the power of the Tarot, will not allow a deck in his house), although I am at times a little uneasy about them. I guess I treat them, as Kij has said, as something that might open a window of thought that might help you to think about your life in a different way. I have known writers who have found them to be at times helpful to use when thinking about their books.

The question (which I didn't tell Laurie) "What do I need to know about getting the ice palace book going and moving toward a full, confident, successful writer's life?

The Signifier: 2 of Pentacles, showing a woman on a tightrope, holding a pentacle in each hand. "Balance or focus." Oh, yeah. I laughed when I saw that. That's what I'm all about, definitely.

Situation Surrounding You: King of Swords, reversed. Cruel and crafty, untrustworthy, crafty pig-headed. This could be a person, but no one sprang to mind for me. It felt to me instead like writers block, like the pig-headed stubbornness of my back brain to produce words when I ask it to.

Recent past: 7 of Wands, showing a man standing on a hill, with wands pointed at him from the foreground. Being prepared for whatever comes, you've picked your high ground. Forces are arrayed against you, but you operate from a position of strength.

Bridge or barrier: Ace of Swords. Shows a sword, surrounded by flowered garlands, but the sword pierces through them. Attainment of power or goals. insight/mental/mind, "cutting through the crap."

Near Future: Page of Wands. She stands holding a tall wand with a crystal at the top, emitting rays. Firecrackers at her belt. Harnessing available energy. It felt like a card showing "focussing," which was hopeful, suggesting getting in touch with whatever-it-is that makes me write well.

Root: 5 of Pentacles. Shows a ragged man in the snow, facing away from a stained glass window (the five pentacles are in the stained glass). Another hooded woman lies huddled in the snow under the window. Not taking help available, turning away, choosing to step outside, do it my way. It felt like writers block again, the feeling of being out in the cold, not making it on my own. The writing has felt impoverished in the past.

Goal: 6 of swords, reversed. Shows a man in a boat with swords in it, floating without his guidance into a cave. Trip to higher consciousness is advised. Reversed it means you have doubts about obtaining your goal. I asked her, "Doubts about achieving it or doubts about wanting to achieve it? "Excellent question," she replied.

How you see yourself: Chariot. Balance again. About not driving (the driver is holding a lyre rather than the reins). He is focused on his art, rather than the journey, driven at high speed. This felt like another balance card, and the feeling of being slightly out of control. Interestingly enough, it was the only major arcana card in the entire reading.

How others see you: 8 of swords, reversed. This is a scary looking card, with a bound blindfolded woman surrounded by cards, but since it's reversed, the meaning is respite from fear, new beginnings, freedom, release. A very hopeful meaning.

Hopes and fears: 10 of cups. Happy family, surrounded by abundance. Home, joy, familial bliss, contentment of heart, peace, respect from others.

Up until this point, I had felt that the reading was moving in a very hopeful direction. I had been blocked, but somehow I was going to get focused and move in the right direction. Then Laurie turned over the last card.

Outcome: 6 of pentacles, reversed. Shows a man holding a scale, with hands reaching out to him. Reversed, it means unstable finances, frustrated plans, jealousy can cause harm.

I stared at the card, disappointed. Rats.

Laurie suggested that since there was only one major arcana card, this might be interpreted as a very short term reading. Perhaps the last card was a caution, rather than a prediction. Jealousy, I thought, and laughed a little. I told her how I had sat next to Jane Yolen at the signing, and there had been a long line at the table for her to sign (serendipoz probably had at least fifty books for her) and nobody had one of mine. Yeah, I have to beware of jealousy, of comparing myself to others; it will only make my frustration/dissatisfaction about the progress of my career worse.

Comments, especially about that last card?