Loosely Connected
July 11
I had a busy and somewhat stressful day at work. Not much fun, but it went by quickly, at least.
I found out that, as an active member of HWA (and therefore a "pro," heh), I get discounts on my web hosting with sff.net! The savings are just about equivalent to my membership dues. Very cool.
I was supposed to go to writing group tonight. This is the new group, the one I auditioned for some months back. They invited me to join, and this would've been my first meeting as a real member. I felt pretty crappy this afternoon, though, not exactly sick, just a headache and low-grade unpleasantness. The thought of driving 45 minutes to the meeting place did not appeal in the slightest. So I bowed out. I feel bad about it, but I think I made the right decision.
After making myself some dinner, I took a nap, planning to hide from my icky-feeling in slumberland. Naps pretty much never work for me. They always seem like a good idea, but I often wake up afterward with my heart beating too fast, my mouth dry, and my breath coming rapidly. I can't explain it; I never remember having nightmares, but I wake up feeling like I popped some uppers. This doesn't happen in the course of normal sleep, only when I take naps outside my normal sleep cycle. That happened this evening. Very unpleasant. So I took deep breaths, got my heart calmed down, and got off the couch.
I went to Pergolesi and drank hot chocolate and read Weird Tales. Eh. The stories aren't bad-- I kinda liked Ligotti's piece-- but they aren't stellar. Too bad.
Today I contacted Ann Schrader, who has a poem in the issue that I liked very much. I complimented her and asked her to send some work to Speculon. She wrote back; I think she's going to send me something. I love the internet, y'all. It makes contact like this so much easier!
After Pergolesi, I came home and did some more edits on Genius. They're going well. The major work is all done, now. At this point it's just tweaking the prose, polishing, expanding or trimming scenes a little. Not difficult, just time-consuming. I finished Chapter 4 tonight. Tomorrow I'll look it over, make sure I'm happy with it, and then move on to Chapter 5. Whee!
Sweet Heather called, and I had a nice chat with her. I was feeling a little bummed about my day-- so much of it was spent stressing at work, and sleeping-- but hearing her voice made me happy. I didn't even have time to write her e-mail today. I did manage to compose and send her a couple of dirty limericks, though, and they amused her greatly.
Now I can't decide whether to go to sleep or to stay up for a couple of more hours. I doubt I have a lot of productivity ahead of me...
I've given up on reading In the Drift. It pissed me off. If it had been marketed as a short-story collection, I wouldn't object-- I'd enjoy it as short stories. But it's very, very clearly described as Swanwick's "First Novel"; the introduction goes on and on about that, about what a stunning debut from a major new talent it is, blah blah blah (this is from 1985, remember). Swanwick did what too many science fiction writers do (or did; I don't know that I've seen this so much lately).
Let me theorize regarding Swanwick's case in particular: He published a few short stories. He developed some name recognition. Editors were interested in seeing a novel. He didn't have a novel, didn't know how to write a novel, had no idea for a novel. So he hit on a bright idea. He took his most popular story (in this case "Mummer's Kiss") and expanded it a little. Bang, there's his first chapter. He took another story set in the same universe and stuck it near the end of the book. Then he wrote some more stories, with virtually nothing in common among them but the same post-apocalyptic setting. He called the whole concoction a "novel." It is not a novel, anymore than de Lint's "Dreams Underfoot" is a novel; it's just a series of loosely connected stories (but de Lint clearly acknowledges that book as a collection); there's no narrative through-line. In Swanwick's case, I wouldn't even say there's a thematic through line. This is the same thing Jim Kelly did with Wildlife (and as much as I genuinely adore Jim Kelly, that annoyed the shit out of me), what Poul Anderson did with Operation Chaos (though I don't think either of those were first "novels")... gah, it goes on and on. Expanding a short story to novel length is one thing; Scott Card did it quite well with "Ender's Game," Greg Bear did it rather less successfully with "Blood Music," and I could come up with other examples if I wanted. But cramming several totally stand-alone stories together and calling it a "novel," when the only connection is setting and maybe some recurring characters, is a cheap trick. Maybe the publisher is to blame; I don't know. I know Faulkner did the same thing (most notably with Go Down Moses) because he could make money off of novels, while he couldn't with short story collections. Maybe that's the motivation. Whatever. Swanwick's book also has some totally pointless scenes that serve absolutely no purpose, as far as I can tell, and which don't stand alone as stories. My guess would be that he looked at his book, saw it was coming in under 200 pages, and realized he needed to beef it up...
Anyway. The book's 16 years old. I shouldn't get so annoyed. But it's that whole way of doing things that irritates me. Someday I might collect my Mr. Li stories (there's gonna be more of them), but I won't pretend it's a freaking novel, nor will I slap a little connective tissue in between the stories and call the result a novel.
Heh. I am, clearly, grouchy. I should go read Octavia Butler. She depresses me, but at least she doesn't usually piss me off.
