Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 121
November 13, 2015
This Rich Life
.
I put in a long day finishing up various small projects and then went into town to see my tailor this afternoon. Traffic was with us, so Marianne had time to drop into Blick's, the only art supply store in the world located on the site of Thomas Eakins's studio, to pick up some book binding supplies. Later, on the way to the Pen & Pencil Club, to confab with Gardner Dozois and other cronies, we saw the First City Troop, in full regalia waiting outside the Union League for some event, while a very elegant man, who was surely a high functionary of the League stood on the steps regarding their horses with dismay. Up and down Broad Street colored lights were playing on the building facades.
It's a rich life we lead and a strange world we live it in. Let's keep it that way.
I put in a long day finishing up various small projects and then went into town to see my tailor this afternoon. Traffic was with us, so Marianne had time to drop into Blick's, the only art supply store in the world located on the site of Thomas Eakins's studio, to pick up some book binding supplies. Later, on the way to the Pen & Pencil Club, to confab with Gardner Dozois and other cronies, we saw the First City Troop, in full regalia waiting outside the Union League for some event, while a very elegant man, who was surely a high functionary of the League stood on the steps regarding their horses with dismay. Up and down Broad Street colored lights were playing on the building facades.
It's a rich life we lead and a strange world we live it in. Let's keep it that way.
November 11, 2015
Writer's Melancholy
.
Last night, leaving through a collection of Cavafy's poetry, I came upon these lines:
There is no artist who does not recognize the sensation being documented. It comes periodically, sometimes without any identifiable source. But if you're going to make a living creating things, it's something you've got to get used to.
Monday, I could not think of a thing worth blogging about. Nor did I feel any need. Tuesday was more of the same. Today, however...
Today, for the third day in a row, I felt not the least desire to do anything at all with words. So I put together an interview I had promised to turn in by Sunday. Then I finished and polished three flash fictions for Dragonstairs Press and did a great deal of revision and rephrasing on the fourth. Then I cobbled together this post.
Writers are moody cattle, God wot. But when you make a living at this stuff, periodically you've juste got to pull yourself out of the muck of despond and get on with things.
This was, for those who are paying attention, a lesson aimed at gonnabe writers. If you missed the point, then maybe you don't want to get into the business.
*
Last night, leaving through a collection of Cavafy's poetry, I came upon these lines:
I attend to my work and I love it.
But today the languor of composition disheartens me.
The day has affected me. Its face
is deepening dark. It continues to blow and rain.
I would sooner see than speak...
There is no artist who does not recognize the sensation being documented. It comes periodically, sometimes without any identifiable source. But if you're going to make a living creating things, it's something you've got to get used to.
Monday, I could not think of a thing worth blogging about. Nor did I feel any need. Tuesday was more of the same. Today, however...
Today, for the third day in a row, I felt not the least desire to do anything at all with words. So I put together an interview I had promised to turn in by Sunday. Then I finished and polished three flash fictions for Dragonstairs Press and did a great deal of revision and rephrasing on the fourth. Then I cobbled together this post.
Writers are moody cattle, God wot. But when you make a living at this stuff, periodically you've juste got to pull yourself out of the muck of despond and get on with things.
This was, for those who are paying attention, a lesson aimed at gonnabe writers. If you missed the point, then maybe you don't want to get into the business.
*
November 6, 2015
Ask Unca Mike
.
Science fiction and fantasy writers are a group are extraordinarily generous with advice to new writers. A moment's thought, however, reveals that this is just encouraging talented young people to occupy the publishing niches and win the awards that would otherwise go to to us Old Hands. Ask Unca Mike is an attempt to rectify this deplorable situation.
Eye-Baiting
Dear Unca Mike,
How can one make one's manuscript more attention-getting to an editor? In the old days,. Asimov and Heinlein could buy typewriter ribbons that were half-red and half-black so they could add a bit of punch to their manuscripts with whole sentences typed in red. What can an unpublished writer do these days to get noticed?
Sincerely,
Black Ink, White Paper
Given how many options there are on pretty much any word processing program for FoNt and COLOR, to say nothing of SIZE, it would seem at first blush hat you're not even trying. When one considers how many magazines today are accepting virtual submissions., it seems a given that writers are perking up their submissions with clip art, kitten gifs, and dancing paper clips. So you're probably expecting me to advise ladling your submission with lots and lots of porn.
But, keeping in mind the purpose of this column, I'll simply observe that the very best way to catch an editor's attention is by writing a crisp, involving story with good science and a fresh idea that nobody's ever seen before.
Because if that doesn't paralyze you with fear, nothing will.
If you have a question for Unca Mike you can post it below. Or write to AskUncaMike ("at" sign) gmail.com. I'll respond to those I have the best answers for.
Ask Unca Mike appears here on Fridays.
November 3, 2015
Mr. Hot Sex & Ms Voluptuous
.Meanwhile, over in the
Times Literary Supplement
, critical superstar Mary Beard has found a naughty Roman tombstone... or has she?
Her account begins:
You can read the whole thing here.
*
Her account begins:
Another of my favourite Roman inscriptions, which I have mentioned before and talked about at Bard, is what may be the tombstone of a couple, known for business purposes (one presumes) as Calidius Eroticus and Fannia Voluptas. All those names are individually well attested at Rome, but together they roughly equal Mr Hot Sex and Mrs Gorgeous (though Fannia in Latin does not mean what you might imagine). So it seems highly unlikely that they were the names the couple were born with, but the one’s they took to brand their bar or cheap lodging house.
You can read the whole thing here.
*
November 2, 2015
Watching the Aged Magician (on Science Fiction "Classics")
.
I don't cite John Scalzi's blog much because... well, his blog readership is phenomenal, so I presume that any of my own blog's readers who are interested in anything he has to say have already checked it out.
But he had an eminently reasonable essay yesterday on the classics of science fiction and why he doesn't expect the young to be reading them. Essentially, he said that it shouldn't surprise anyone that young people would prefer books written specifically for them, rather than for their grandparents. That kids want their own books, their own futures, their own amusements. That bookstore shelves are only so long. And that a lot of today's science fiction is as good as any of the classics, so they're not necessarily missing anything.
All true, of course, and sweetly sensible. But I wanted to add two thoughts.
The first is that we habitually talk about the "classics" of science fiction, but of course they're no such thing. Classics are works that have stood the test of centuries. Science fiction was, as Barry Malzberg has observed, a single-generation invention, the creation of men and women who not so long ago were alive and getting plowed at science fiction conventions. When they originally used the term, it was with a mixture of defiance and irony -- chin forward and tongue in cheek.
The disregard of the young is just an early phase of the testing of science fiction's best books o see which will really turn out to be classics.
The second thought is that, while young readers can ignore the classics, young writers do so at their own risk. Decades ago, a friend who was an amateur magician took me to see Baltimore's oldest stage magician, a classic ham whose hands had begun to tremble, whose vision was weak, and whose reflexes were much slower than they used to be.He couldn't hide the mechanics of his tricks like he used to. By watching him at show after show, my friend was learning, one trick at a time, how they were done.
Yeah, a lot of the "classic" SF is showing its age. But that only means that the tricks are easier to see, to imitate, and to learn from. I don't think that A. E. Van Vogt is going to have much of a readership a thousand years from now. But that doesn't mean he isn't worth learning from. I once wrote a story playing off of his classic "Recruiting Station" and won a Hugo for it when all I was trying to do was learn how he got his effects. Writers who are reading nobody older than, say, me are missing a great deal of what's going on under the surface.
You can read Scalzi's post (if you haven't already) here.
*
I don't cite John Scalzi's blog much because... well, his blog readership is phenomenal, so I presume that any of my own blog's readers who are interested in anything he has to say have already checked it out.
But he had an eminently reasonable essay yesterday on the classics of science fiction and why he doesn't expect the young to be reading them. Essentially, he said that it shouldn't surprise anyone that young people would prefer books written specifically for them, rather than for their grandparents. That kids want their own books, their own futures, their own amusements. That bookstore shelves are only so long. And that a lot of today's science fiction is as good as any of the classics, so they're not necessarily missing anything.
All true, of course, and sweetly sensible. But I wanted to add two thoughts.
The first is that we habitually talk about the "classics" of science fiction, but of course they're no such thing. Classics are works that have stood the test of centuries. Science fiction was, as Barry Malzberg has observed, a single-generation invention, the creation of men and women who not so long ago were alive and getting plowed at science fiction conventions. When they originally used the term, it was with a mixture of defiance and irony -- chin forward and tongue in cheek.
The disregard of the young is just an early phase of the testing of science fiction's best books o see which will really turn out to be classics.
The second thought is that, while young readers can ignore the classics, young writers do so at their own risk. Decades ago, a friend who was an amateur magician took me to see Baltimore's oldest stage magician, a classic ham whose hands had begun to tremble, whose vision was weak, and whose reflexes were much slower than they used to be.He couldn't hide the mechanics of his tricks like he used to. By watching him at show after show, my friend was learning, one trick at a time, how they were done.
Yeah, a lot of the "classic" SF is showing its age. But that only means that the tricks are easier to see, to imitate, and to learn from. I don't think that A. E. Van Vogt is going to have much of a readership a thousand years from now. But that doesn't mean he isn't worth learning from. I once wrote a story playing off of his classic "Recruiting Station" and won a Hugo for it when all I was trying to do was learn how he got his effects. Writers who are reading nobody older than, say, me are missing a great deal of what's going on under the surface.
You can read Scalzi's post (if you haven't already) here.
*
November 1, 2015
The Last Fallen Leaf
.
All things come to an end and so...
*
All things come to an end and so...
*
October 30, 2015
Fallen Leaves (October 29)
.
"Once It's Over Life Is No Big Deal"
"Once It's Over Life Is No Big Deal"
Lud-en-Brume -- Illustrated!
.
Look what came in the mail! It's Lud-en-Brume , a new French edition of Hope Mirrlees' fantasy classic, Lud-in-the-Mist . Better yet, it's fully illustrated with some eighteen ink-wash (I'm guessing) drawings by artist Hugo de Faucompret. The illustrations are, by my interpretation, not of the sedate surface of Dorimare and environs but of the wildness that lies underneath all existence in Mirlees' universe.
This book, from Editions Callidor, is the first illustrated version of Lud-in-the-Mist ever and a real treat for Francophone fantasy lovers. It part of the L'Age d'or de la fantasy , a series that (so far) also includes Le Loupe des steppes, Vol. 1 by Harold Lamb and Les Habitants de mirage by A. Merritt.
Kudos to editor Thierry Fraysse for making all this happen.
Cover above and representative illustration below.
And where, you ask, is Ask Unca Mike...?
Ask Unca Mike is on hiatus until such time as new questions are received.
*
Look what came in the mail! It's Lud-en-Brume , a new French edition of Hope Mirrlees' fantasy classic, Lud-in-the-Mist . Better yet, it's fully illustrated with some eighteen ink-wash (I'm guessing) drawings by artist Hugo de Faucompret. The illustrations are, by my interpretation, not of the sedate surface of Dorimare and environs but of the wildness that lies underneath all existence in Mirlees' universe.
This book, from Editions Callidor, is the first illustrated version of Lud-in-the-Mist ever and a real treat for Francophone fantasy lovers. It part of the L'Age d'or de la fantasy , a series that (so far) also includes Le Loupe des steppes, Vol. 1 by Harold Lamb and Les Habitants de mirage by A. Merritt.
Kudos to editor Thierry Fraysse for making all this happen.
Cover above and representative illustration below.
And where, you ask, is Ask Unca Mike...?
Ask Unca Mike is on hiatus until such time as new questions are received.
*
October 29, 2015
Fallen Leaves (October 28)
.
"I Lived My Life For Lust"
"I Lived My Life For Lust"
October 28, 2015
The Second Thing To Do After You Make Your First Sale
.
This post is addressed at as-yet-unpublished writers.
Sometime in your future your first professional sale is going to appear in print. The absolute first thing you're going to do is whoop loudly, jump up and down, fling things about, grab the nearest person of appropriate gender and attractiveness and plant a big kiss on his or her lips, brag to all your friends, call your mother, explain to her why it's a big deal, accept her congratulations, get drunk (unless you're a teetotaler, in which case you'll go wild by pouring yourself an extra cup of Lhasa Apso), dance, sing, make a nuisance of yourself, and roll into bed either alone or not depending entirely on personal preferences.
Etcetera.
Yes, the whole sticky mess of reaction may be considered one thing because, let's be honest, it's all of a piece.
The second thing you should do is to start a bibliography.
I know this sounds silly, but trust me. Look up the formatting, write your name at the top of a blank sheet of paper, and below it type the information. As for example:
“The Last Smurf”, G. Gordon Trump, ed., Dangerous Smurfs, NY: Tor, 2016.
Only not in italics, of course.
For a terrible bleak instant, your first publication is going to look pretty pathetic. One bare line on a vast expanse of white. Suppress that feeling. Print out a copy, file it where you can find it, and save the electronic file. Not long after (because you are a particularly fine writer), the story is picked up for a resale anthology. Now your entry looks like this:
“The Last Smurf”, Lazarus Long, ed., Dangerous Smurfs, NY: Tor, 2016. Reprinted in: Hillary Chaffee, ed., Smurfs of Wonder,
San Francisco: Toad Press, 2017.
A year passes, during which you've sold another story, and your maiden effort has been reprinted in a best of the year anthology and translated into Elbonian. Meanwhile you've sold another two stories. Now your bibliography looks like this:
“The Animus of Inwit”, Bisson's Science Fiction, Vol. 25: Nos. 10 & 11,
October/November, 2017.
“The Last Smurf”, Lazarus Long, ed., Dangerous Smurfs, NY: Tor, 2016. Reprinted in: Ender Wiggins, ed., Smurfs of Wonder,
San Francisco: Toad Press, 2017. Genly Ai and Harry Seldon, eds., Year's Best Smurfs, NY:
Albuterol, 2017. Translated as: "Zygnadj Szmrf", Wznstn Szmth. ed., Smrgf
Oof, Gyznyd, Elbonia: Yngvy Press, 2018
"Son of the Last Smurf", G. Gordon Trump, ed., Again Dangerous
Smurfs, NY: Tor, 2016.
Now you're getting somewhere! More importantly, since you've only got one entry to make at a time, the task of assembling a comprehensive and reliable bibliography is an snap.
Provided only that you made it the second thing you did after after receiving your first publication in the mail.
Above: A flower. For you. In honor of your first professional sale.*
This post is addressed at as-yet-unpublished writers.
Sometime in your future your first professional sale is going to appear in print. The absolute first thing you're going to do is whoop loudly, jump up and down, fling things about, grab the nearest person of appropriate gender and attractiveness and plant a big kiss on his or her lips, brag to all your friends, call your mother, explain to her why it's a big deal, accept her congratulations, get drunk (unless you're a teetotaler, in which case you'll go wild by pouring yourself an extra cup of Lhasa Apso), dance, sing, make a nuisance of yourself, and roll into bed either alone or not depending entirely on personal preferences.
Etcetera.
Yes, the whole sticky mess of reaction may be considered one thing because, let's be honest, it's all of a piece.
The second thing you should do is to start a bibliography.
I know this sounds silly, but trust me. Look up the formatting, write your name at the top of a blank sheet of paper, and below it type the information. As for example:
“The Last Smurf”, G. Gordon Trump, ed., Dangerous Smurfs, NY: Tor, 2016.
Only not in italics, of course.
For a terrible bleak instant, your first publication is going to look pretty pathetic. One bare line on a vast expanse of white. Suppress that feeling. Print out a copy, file it where you can find it, and save the electronic file. Not long after (because you are a particularly fine writer), the story is picked up for a resale anthology. Now your entry looks like this:
“The Last Smurf”, Lazarus Long, ed., Dangerous Smurfs, NY: Tor, 2016. Reprinted in: Hillary Chaffee, ed., Smurfs of Wonder,
San Francisco: Toad Press, 2017.
A year passes, during which you've sold another story, and your maiden effort has been reprinted in a best of the year anthology and translated into Elbonian. Meanwhile you've sold another two stories. Now your bibliography looks like this:
“The Animus of Inwit”, Bisson's Science Fiction, Vol. 25: Nos. 10 & 11,
October/November, 2017.
“The Last Smurf”, Lazarus Long, ed., Dangerous Smurfs, NY: Tor, 2016. Reprinted in: Ender Wiggins, ed., Smurfs of Wonder,
San Francisco: Toad Press, 2017. Genly Ai and Harry Seldon, eds., Year's Best Smurfs, NY:
Albuterol, 2017. Translated as: "Zygnadj Szmrf", Wznstn Szmth. ed., Smrgf
Oof, Gyznyd, Elbonia: Yngvy Press, 2018
"Son of the Last Smurf", G. Gordon Trump, ed., Again Dangerous
Smurfs, NY: Tor, 2016.
Now you're getting somewhere! More importantly, since you've only got one entry to make at a time, the task of assembling a comprehensive and reliable bibliography is an snap.
Provided only that you made it the second thing you did after after receiving your first publication in the mail.
Above: A flower. For you. In honor of your first professional sale.*
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