Moved my most-read blog post, THE PALESTINIAN PROBLEM, to the main dot com, and also populated a few of the sections with some work I hadn't yet uploaded. More of that over the next few days.
Penciled one page of TSG and will attempt another right after I break for some excercise.
Comp copies of DEEP DREAM from MIT Press arrived, a handsome collection edited by Indrapramit Das.
From Indra's introduction:
I’m humbled by the stylistic variety and talent on display in these stories, by the generosity of these skilled, award-winning writers from across the world in imagining a future where our self-destructiveness as a species cannot ever entirely win out, because we have the memory of the beauty we made.
Vajra Chandrasekera’s dazzling metatext “The Limner Wrings His Hands” brings the politics of art (and of his home country, Sri Lanka) to the forefront with an intricate hybrid of fiction and essay, testing as he often does the limits of our definitions of genre. Samit Basu brings levity to the proceedings with a nimble, humane satire of, “The Art Crowd,”, exploring the dynamics of artistic power in an authoritarian future India (and a protagonist) shared with his brilliant novel The City Inside (Tordotcom). In “Immortal Beauty,” genre legend and co-progenitor of cyberpunk Bruce Sterling strays from his roots to imagine a post-capitalist future shorn of most tech, in which a Court Gentleman wanders a Europe of city-states and warring aesthetocrats under the eye of distant celestial computers.
In a number of moving stories, there is a recurring theme of art as a framework medium for processing grief—unsurprising in an era of mass trauma from both the unraveling of our tenuous social and ecological stability and one of the most devastating pandemics in history. Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s “Halfway to Hope” takes us into the personal struggle of a VR engineer who helps patients in a near-future Bangalore recover from their pain by visiting virtual worlds, but must contend with a horrific tragedy that forces her to the limits of what her craft can do. Cassandra Khaw’s “Immortal Is the Heart” follows a poetic keeper of memories wandering the American Midwest in a world ravaged by global warming, finding a tenuous hope for, and in, the outcasts of our present society in its ashes. Aliette de Bodard’s beautiful “Autumn’s Red Bird” shows us how a sentient “mindship” might grieve in the wake of unimaginable loss, and share this experience with one of her human passengers, whose art may yet bring them succor. Renowned Egyptian artist Ganzeer gives us a vision of a U.S.A. where the production of art is forbidden in “Unauthorized (Or, The the Liberated Collector’s Commune),”, bringing his vibrantly playful counter-cultural sensibilities to the beloved science-fictional story of robots given to identity crises by the existence of their human creators. Visionary writer and artist Sloane Leong’s “No Future But but Infinity Itself” delivers a mysterious dream of art reflecting humanity’s monstrosity and empathy in a post-apocalyptic future, diving deep into both the intimacy and vastness of its creation and import. The incredibly prolific and creative Lavie Tidhar takes us further into the future with “The Quietude,”, a tale of high high-pulp poetry that imagines art forms never before seen in a human-settled solar system brimming with cultures old and new. And recent Hugo nominee Wole Talabi takes us further still, to distant extrasolar spacetime, in “Encore,” following a sentient AI ship wandering the gulfs between stars while trying to fulfill its purpose as artist to the various life forms in the galaxy.
In these ten stories, our writers both embody and visualize the future of art.
Moorcock's advice on how to write a novel in 3 days is well known at this point, but it is very specific to the kind of adventure/fantasy yarns I have zero interest in. So what follows is my attempt to take the bits of advice that could ostensibly apply to writing a more “serious novel”, adjusting it some and collating it with other writing tips I gathered over the years.
1) Everything must be mapped out and prepared before you begin: the entire outline, all the research, writing space and tools, meal prep (yes, stock fridge and freezer), daily routine, everything.
2) Model basic plot on another basic plot you admire (not the story, just the plot—see Alan Moore's take on story idea vs. plot).
3) Turn off phone, internet, lock everyone out of the house, and speak to no one. You are writing.
4) Divide total of 60,000 words into 3 acts: 20,000 words each. Divide each act into 8 chapters: each 2,500 words max. Write one chapter a day.
5) Establish all main characters & themes in first act (between chapters 1-8).
6) Give each character a “funny hat” (iconic look, name, characteristic).
7) Include major event/reveal every 1000 words or so.
8) Each chapter must: (a) Be written with the same enthusiasm as the first, and (b) Propel story forward.
9) Include actual not-so-common knowledge in the book and make it central to the story.
10) Ending must be surprising yet inevitable (i.e. set it up bit by itsy bitsy bit in each chapter)
Given that I have yet to write a novel myself, it goes without saying this particular 10-step guide hasn't been put to the test and as such is unproven. Hopefully, that will change in the next couple years.
Realized I've only mentioned this in my newsletter, but not yet here or the main dot com (another thing I ought to tend to this weekend), so here it is:
Forthcoming from MIT press and currently available for preorder, DEEP DREAM presents new science fiction stories about the future of art. Contributors include Samit Basu, Vajra Chandrasekera, Neil Clarke, Aliette de Bodard, Cassandra Khaw, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Archita Mittra, Sloane Leong, Bruce Sterling, Wole Talabi, Lavie Tidhar and myself.
From the intro by Indrapramit Das:
“Renowned Egyptian artist Ganzeer gives us a vision of a USA where the production of art is forbidden in 'Unauthorized (Or, the Liberated Collectors Commune),' bringing his vibrantly playful countercultural sensibilities to the beloved science-fictional story of robots given to identity crises by the existence of their human creators.”
Pretty much sums it up. I recall writing it between Texas and Mexico shortly after separating from my now ex-wife, all of which seeps into the story somewhat. I've also come to notice that artists seem to make an appearance in most everything I write. Granted, this particular anthology's theme is the future of art. But still, I've got an artist in CRISPR THAN YOU (the story that appeared in THE BIG BOOK OF CYBERPUNK) and another in CHARLIE AND THE ALIENS which appears in WHO WILL SPEAK FOR AMERICA?. I've also got more than one in THE SOLAR GRID.
Oops.
“When I taught creative writing, I would have my students do an exercise where they had to pick one of their close friends and write about the first time they met them. What were the writer’s first impressions of the friend? What was their initial dynamic with the friend? Then I would have them write a couple of scenes set in subsequent years showing how their impressions changed as they got to know the person better. Were their initial impressions correct? What did they learn that deepened their understanding of their friend? Showing that kind of evolution in perception and in the dynamic between two people is one of my favorite things about characterization.”
That's Sarah Stewart Taylor on Crimereads where she and several other writers weigh in on “the writing life”.
“Write the good bit. Seriously. Just write it. That bit that you want to write, that you’re saving up? Write it. It’s the most important moment in the book, isn’t it? So write it, and bend the rest of the book towards it, rather than retrofitting it to what you come up with along the way that’s less important.” — Nick Harkaway
