Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 297
June 4, 2013
June 3, 2013
Eyes on a Plate: A Rant About Expectation
I’ve been thinking for awhile about the expectations we hold for creative people. We’ve been talking in the comments about author biographies that paint the authors as less than perfect and therefore disappointing, as in, “How could somebody so rude/cruel/thoughtless/choose-your-own-sin write such good stories?” I have a history of being yelled at for my views outside of my writing (“Jenny Crusie loves plagiarism!”), not to mention what’s in my writing that some readers find betrays their concept of me by promoting the gay agenda, animal abuse, and birth defects, among other things. What I don’t understand is why these people think “creativity” equals “person I’d want to have lunch with.” Okay, I did go off Dilbert when I read Scott Adams’ comments on women, but that’s because whenever I see Dilbert, I think he said those things. But Robert Frost was a complete bastard, and he still wrote the best thing about work I’ve ever read (“Two Tramps at Mudtime”). P. G. Wodehouse made funny radio broadcasts about being interned by the Nazis and people labeled him a collaborator and I didn’t care, his writing still makes me laugh. It made me crazy when Steve Jobs died and so many people said, “But he gave nothing to charity;” his vision revolutionized computing, that’s not enough? When Bill Gates dies, people are going to say, “But Microsoft was awful;” yes, and his charitable foundation is doing incredible good internationally, he’s saving lives. I’m pretty sure if somebody comes along who transforms the world AND does good works, somebody will say, “You know, his house was always a mess.” If he’s that famous, he should be perfect. (Perfect in the way that I define “perfect,” of course.)
I do get that connection you feel with a favorite writer/musician/whatever, that “if we met we’d be best friends” thing, but I do not understand the assumption that creative people should be kind, loving, thoughtful, and attentive, plus clean, brave, and reverent. It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just difficult. If creative people were normal, they wouldn’t hear voices and see visions and be obsessive enough about their ideas to change dreams into reality. It used to drive my daughter crazy that I’d stop in the middle of a sentence and stare off into space as if she weren’t there. It’s not the “squirrel” thing because you point that out to others (“Look, a squirrel!”). Instead you go into the flow of the thought and it swamps you and your forget other people are there to the point of rudeness and neglect. Because there’s this THING you need to think about, you need to think about it a lot, and then you need to do it or make it, and then you need to do it again to make it better, and then you need to start over again because of what you learned doing it the first time, and then you need to stare at it awhile and then you need to go back to it . . . I’m sorry, was there somebody else in the room? Who are you? Go away, I’m MAKING SOMETHING IN MY HEAD.
If people want saints, they shouldn’t go to writers, painters, musicians, actors, and visionaries (ironically). And actually, the little I know of saints makes me think they must have been real PITAs to have around. “Don’t wash my hair shirt!” “These arrows? I suffer for you, you ingrate.” Or my fave, “Here, look at this plate. It has my eyes on it.” That’s Saint Lucy. From what I’ve read of Lucy, I think the whole eye-gouging thing was added later because she hadn’t suffered enough enough without it. “They just stabbed her because God wouldn’t let them take her to a brothel? Not good enough. Put in that they gouged her eyes out before they ran her through. Also, her house was always a mess.” Every time I see a picture of Lucy with that plate, I think she’s thinking, “I cured my mother of a blood disease and gave all my riches to the poor and was so strong they couldn’t drag me off to a brothel even when they tied a team of horses to me so they had to kill me where I stood, but that’s not enough? FINE. Here’s my eyes on a plate, you morons.” Because you know, she always still has her eyes in those pictures. I kind of love Saint Lucy because I think she knows the game.
And I think that the biographers and journalists and commentators who get all bent out of shape because writers and musicians and visionaries and the rest of the Weird Who Make Things aren’t the Nice People they want them to be just want Eyes on a Plate. And now I kind of want a business card with eyes on a plate on it so I can hand it to the people who yell at me because I’m promoting homosexuality, birth defects, animal abuse, and plagiarism. “I’m really sorry I’m not what you needed me to be. Here’s my eyes on a plate.”
Yeah, definitely getting that card made. In fact, I think everybody should have one of these cards to hand to anybody who said, “You’ve disappointed me by being who you are instead of what I needed you to be.”
Edited to Add:
Then I found this painting. I love Lucy’s expression here. That’s her eyes on the plant stem. It’s like a visual typo: eyes on a plant. Allposters has this poster, but it’s fifty bucks. Tempting, but no.
June 2, 2013
Who Sunday: The Christmas Invasion: Russell T. Davies
Welcome to June and Season Two. The new Doctor (Ten) is comatose and aliens are invading London again. It’s up to Rose, Mickey, and Jackie to save the world. And Harriet Jones, of course. This one’s a great intro to a quirkier Doctor with a lot swash to his buckle and to a newer, tougher Rose, a little farther along in her transition from chav to warrior. Endings in stories are important, but beginnings are the second most important, so let’s look at this one. If beginnings are the invitations to the party that is the story, the promise the writer makes to the reader, what does this invitation promise? Remember, Davies knew he had to sell a new Doctor, so the stakes were even higher than usual.
June 1, 2013
Cherry Saturday: 6-1-2013
June is Gay Pride Month. Twelve states have now recognized the equality of love. Fifty-three percent of Americans support gay marriage. And Minnesota has a bridge to show you.
What are you proud of this week?
May 29, 2013
May 28, 2013
The Power of the Psycho Bastard
I’ve been reading Dick Francis. I’ve going full speed ahead for so long that I hadn’t had time to read at all, I doubt I’ve read a novel in the past three years, but two nights ago, I looked at the list on my iPad and there was a Francis and I read it. Then I bought another and read it. In the past three nights, I’ve read six, four I’d read before and two new ones. I read them entirely for pleasure, but while I was reading, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, Why? I don’t care at all about racing, jockeys, all the stuff he’s expert in. I appreciate his expertise, his authority-in-the-text is absolute, but I’m sure as hell not reading for the horses. His heroes are impossibly strong men who can and do withstand tortuous pain to defeat evil, and they’re completely interchangeable, the Francis Guy. (Yes, I know I write the Crusie Girl. What’s your point?) I’ve been thinking about it for three days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not the men or the pain–I like the one and abhor the other–it’s the evil. Dick Francis writes a great Psycho Bastard.
I’ve written before about the importance of the antagonist–the character who defines and shapes the conflict–but I think it’s in Francis’s books that you see that power unashamedly exploited. Francis’s bad guys aren’t misguided, they’re not conflicted, they’re not at all complicated, they are selfish, sadistic, sociopathic monsters, evil incarnate, doing incalcuable damage to good people, inflicting explicit torture on the hero, hissing and spitting with bile and hatred. His heroes are equally simple: good men doing the best they can, standing against evil without fanfare, taciturn and understated, the very best of British stiff-upper-lipped-ness without being jerks about it. It’s good vs evil, unadorned.
There’s something extremely cathartic about that. I don’t need to understand the Big Bad, I don’t need to see the Good Guy in internal conflict, I just watch as Right defeats Wrong after a terrific battle. It’s not sophisticated characterization (although it’s very well done), there are no shades of gray, which means that that when Right wins, there’s a tremendous sense of justice served, no second thoughts. I realize if I were a more sophisticated reader, a more literary reader, I would miss those shades of gray, that I would long for more complexity underneath the surface, but all I can say to that is thank GOD I’m not a literary reader. When I think of the writers I love best–Pratchett, Heyer, Allingham, Francis, Gilbert, Stout, so many others–the one thing they have in common is that their antagonists are completely irredeemable, bastards to the bone. Add in Joss Whedon (the Master, Glory, and most of all the Mayor) and I have come to the conclusion that I might be a much happier writer if I wrote what makes me happy as a reader: those selfish, venal, rotten-to-the-core villains.
I must cogitate on this. And read some more Francis. My fave of his is not in e-form yet (what were they thinking?) and my copy is buried somewhere in the garage (I hope), but it really doesn’t matter. Any one of his books that I pick up will feature a monster with a cattle prod and a good man who knows how to bring him down. And that’s exactly what I need right now.
May 27, 2013
Next Who Sunday: The Christmas Invasion: Russell T. Davies
A new Doctor, a new threat, and Harriet Jones, Prime Minister. Here’s a great way to change your protagonist: same guy, different body (not ginger). I was very resistant to any change from the Eccleston doctor, but Tennant is equally fantastic, and this is a great introduction to his interpretation of the character which is wildly different and yet still that touch of delighted mania that Eccleston had.
May 26, 2013
May 25, 2013
Wear the Lilac and Remember Your Towel
The 25th of May is a glorious day, a two-fer for lovers of great literature and even better writers.
If you’re a Discworld reader (and you should be), you know the Watch wear the lilac on May 25th in memory of those who fell in the Glorious Revolution of Treacle Mine Road. If you’re a Pratchett fan (and you should be), you know that those of us who love Sir Terry wear the lilac on May 25th in celebration of his great gifts to the world and his continuing fight against Alzheimer’s Disease.
In honor of the day, I refer you to Buzzfeed’s twenty-six Pratchett quote posters and all of Sir Terry’s huge and delightful body of work (click on the posters to enlarge).
But wait, there’s more. May 25th is also Towel Day, in honor of Douglas Adams of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame, the most important piece of advice therein being “Don’t forget your towel.”
My lilacs aren’t in bloom yet, so I’m planning on finding a lilac towel and some cookies and tea and spending the afternoon reading some Pratchett and Adams. That’s pretty much a perfect day.
And thank you, gentlemen, for some of the best hours of my life
Cherry Saturday 5-25-2013
It’s Tap Dance Day. What’s new, Twinkletoes?
(Also the day to wear the lilac and remember your towel, but that’s the next post.)
