D.T. Neal's Blog, page 25

Skinamarinky-dink

The analog cinematic horror flick of the moment is SKINAMARINK (2022), which is getting the predictably breathless buzz from all the usual social media chitter-chatterati.

I decided to watch it, although I largely knew what I was getting into (despite willfully avoiding reading about it, so I could go in appropriately blind).

Mad props to the writer-director, Kyle Edward Ball, for wrangling his no-budget flick into a successfully viral sensation.

Aesthetically, I've often said that low-budget is a key ingredient for horror movies, although the difference between low-budget and no-budget here is a chasm.

No-budget undercuts the horror because one can't do very much on no budget, and that's a problem with this one. Water under the bridge, because Ball pulled off a word-of-mouth win with this effort, either despite or because of this.

However, this movie's a drag, and I fell asleep three times while watching it -- this is a horror movie made for people who:

1) thought PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007) had way too much action;

2) thought BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) had far too much characterization & back story, and;

3) thought POLTERGEIST (1982) didn't have nearly enough television-lit scenes.

For all the talk of liminality and what-not, this one is just a lot of darkness, slivers of lighting, some "spooky" muffled demonic voices, a few cryptic subtitles, a bunch of Legos, and a lot of long takes. If I'd seen this on the big screen in a theater, I'd have been throwing Raisinets at the screen and otherwise blowing my stack.

Ball successfully bounced this one to some acknowledgments, ardent online enthusiasm, and profit, but I don't see this one enduring as any kind of classic of horror so much as a footnote, and/or a highly-effective cinematic sleep aid.

** <-- two no-budget stars

Satiriconic

My current WIP is, hmm, a satirical utopian SF thriller, if I were to categorize it. It's easily my most political work to date, and anybody who's read my body of work knows where I stand, politically, as I sneak in bits and bobs here and there. If the personal is political, as they say, there it is. I don't apologize for it.

That said, this one is radically political, even as it goes at it from a humorous (one might say smirking) and satirical angle. Voltaire influenced my younger self, and I feel like he would approve of this effort, or else he'd just smirk at me and shake his head. Who knows?

I'm proud of this book, even as it occupies a strange place for me among my other works. There is, after a fashion, a happy ending to this story. So, is it a techno-fantasy like I mentioned in my other posts? Maybe. Sure, maybe it is.

However, rooted in that is a hefty critique of the status quo, which any SF should do. I'm okay with that, even as I've kind of perplexed myself with this book (and it's one I've written and rewritten several times since at least 2018, as I've tried to get it right).

I suppose in some fashion I've written a literary manifesto of hope, or at least a declaration of progressive values and a scathing repudiation of reactionaries.

Will readers appreciate it? Probably not, but maybe they'll surprise me. The old line about a cynic being a wounded idealist rings true for me. I am a wounded idealist, and this novel is my Romantic repudiation of those injuries sustained from life in America.

Back & Forth

Not like anybody particularly cares, but I hate retellings -- could be fairytale retellings or reworkings of past literary giants.

Retellings annoy the hell out of me. They feel like lazy copouts -- a way of securing a degree of buy-in without having earned it on your own merits:

"It's ALICE IN WONDERLAND but from the POV of the Cheshire Cat!"

"It's MOBY-DICK but everyone aboard the Pequod is female -- I call it MOBY-DICKLESS!"

"It's BLUEBEARD, but instead, he's got a mustache! And he's a glam rocker living in New York City during the 1970s."

Now, obviously, writers will draw inspiration from previous works. But retellings are just so lame. Come up with something new, something original, instead of coattail-riding on past works written by better writers.

My scalding-hot take on that is that it affords less-imaginative souls an opportunity to market a work to less-daring readers who are frightened by new and unfamiliar things, and long for that literary reassurance which comes from the association from the superior work.

Seriously, when has a retelling exceeded the source material parasitizing it? It doesn't happen, so it's really a gimmick to try to gin up sales in an ever-more-uncertain literary marketplace.

Maybe it's my punk fogey self coming out yet again, but be bold, be original, be different, be daring. Do something different, for a change.

Sidenote: I know that people can write whatever they want, people can read what they like -- but I can also express my contempt for the retellers out there. Let's see what original work you can do. Push yourself and your readers, instead of playing literary dress-up with borrowed/stolen treasures.

The Review Revue

Whether food, movies, music, books, etc., I'm a natural reviewer. I like the challenge of writing a decent review (notice how I didn't say "good" there?) The language of reviewing comes easily to me.

However, I'm very slow to do book reviews, mostly because I don't read quickly, and never have. The pile of TBR books for me is around 60-strong at this point, and I put the stacks in my sightline, so I can't forget about them.

Obviously, the book review is almost a form of social currency in the indie realm, where people trade reviews (or at least credible skims of works -- sometimes I wonder how people can possibly be reviewing as much as they are if they're truly reading the works in question). All I know is that when I do read to review, I'm all about the deep read, where I take advantage of my tendency not to read quickly and make up for it with a solid analysis of the work in question.

The second demurral I offer on reviewing is that I'm super picky. I am definitely not a "loves everything" type of reviewer. In the rare cases where I do review something someone gives me, I always warn them of that. I might not actually like it. Now, I try not to be an asshole about it -- if I see a writer is credibly trying to do something and it doesn't quite work for me, I try to find the good in it and bookend it (pun intended) with some honest appraisals.

That's part of the problem I see with the Review Revue that goes on -- everybody raves about everyone else, and it's a sea of five stars. The review inflation then cheapens the review process. Honest reviewers can't possibly like everything, nor should they. Reviews are for readers (prospective or otherwise), which is exactly why they're so perilous.

What does it say if/when a junk writer has hundreds of five-star reviews because they've successfully leveraged their friends and allies to boost them up? Does it mean their work has artistic merit, or that they're just good at working their alliances? Ideally, a work finds its audience, and it's better if it's an honest audience, reflecting a spectrum of reviews.

There are few notable (?) writers out there who have been puffed up over the years, only to get sandbagged in the reviews. Some have an instinct to defensiveness around bad reviews, that somehow it's not fair that they're getting slagged.

But I've seen some really well-written and thoughtful low reviews that are clearly done by readers who were taken in by the hype and tinsel, only to be burned, and to offer a scathing counter to the rating inflation with some caustic reviews. It's good to see that, because it offsets some of the puffery we see with boosters masquerading as reviewers.

I almost never look at reviews. I try to just do better work with each book. It's nice to see a great review, and a bad review is always painful to a varying degree (unless simply the work of a troll gnashing their teeth and/or having some kind of animus against the author or the book).

Inasmuch as ratings and reviews turn eyes toward a book, they have some value, which incentivizes ratings-boosting. I've had a few honest three-star reviews from readers who clearly genuinely enjoyed a book of mine, but couldn't quite give it a higher rating. I'm okay with that. It offers a range of perspectives, I suppose.

Speaking only for myself, while I enjoy reviewing things, I'm woefully slow and terribly choosy, so I'm not the sort of reviewer who cranks out reams of reviews. All I can promise if/when I get to reviewing something is it'll be thoughtful and heartfelt, whether good or bad.

Steam of Consciousness

I know it might seem contradictory that I'm blogging on Goodreads while about to mention how I prefer to write more and talk about writing less, but let me explain:

Aside from vague references to WIPs and such, I keep the literary steam in my boiler-brain. I've learned from experience that the quickest way to defuse an exciting writing idea is to talk about it before you've written it.

It's an easy mistake for people to make -- they might get stoked about something they're planning to write, and they might be tempted to talk about it. But don't do it; keep the ideas in your head, where they'll nag at you and force you to write them down to give them life. That's the discipline of the work. The blank page is the confessional of the working writer -- it's where we spill our guts. Otherwise, we should keep mum.

The Twit is full of people who want to be seen as writers. There's always a ton of folks who do that. They love to talk about writing. And, yeah, there's a lot to talk about with writing, sure.

However, there's a clear line of demarcation between *talking about writing* and *writing* -- and there's probably a 10:1 ratio of people who like to talk about writing versus writers.

Writing isn't called "the loneliest profession" for nothing! I see a lot of people on the Twit who are affected by that and want to commiserate with other wannabe writers -- again, being seen as writers, versus, you know, actually writing.

Here's a secret, though: when you're really in it with writing, you're never lonely. You're immersed in the work, and it's the one true bliss any working writer can know.

I'm not advocating that people undertake a monastic literary existence -- but it helps, in many ways. Or, at the very least, in carving out a space for yourself and your words and making that space sacrosanct. It's the only way the work gets done.

People have asked how I'm so prolific, how I get so much writing done. And I've explained that I write around the margins of my day. Which usually means I'm up at 4 a.m. and I write until 6 a.m. In this way, regardless of what the day brings, I know I've banked the time and made progress on a work. I take advantage of the fact that I'm an early riser, and I make it work for me.

However you go about it, carve out your space and time and make that inviolate. That's your writing time and space, and it's the only way you'll get anything done.

This rule of thumb is the key to meaningful literary productivity: write more; talk about writing less. You'll get far more done that way.

And don't let the steam out of the boiler -- keep the ideas inside you, let them power your work, with the written words the only proper release for them. Loose lips and rejection slips are the twin banes of the writing world. Mum's the word, where the process is concerned. Resist the urge to blather on social media (especially the Twit), and concentrate on your work. That's the true discipline of the profession.

If you find the loneliness of writing is getting to you, maybe writing's not really for you. Swim in the worlds you build, live in the pages and dance with the characters you create. They'll keep you company while you work.

Spacing Out

I'm a fan of science fiction & fantasy, which I see as more closely related than not. I write both (under different pen names), and appreciate what each genre brings to the literary table, even though I'm increasingly conflicted about science fiction -- lucky you, I'm going to explain why below...

As an empiricist who greatly appreciates science, the scientific method, inductive (and deductive) reasoning, etc., I have a nagging fear that we're reaching the end of our tether as a species.

Not in terms of actual discovery, mind you; but rather, in how far we're willing to go as a species and a civilization. We're slowly migrating toward an increasingly dystopian existence (do I really need to laundry-list it? Odds are you know already).

In the globalization of Capital, we've seen the entire planet made captive (to varying degrees) to the requirements of capitalism, an 18th century economic system. Even saying that brings out the pain of it -- we're in the 21st century, but capitalism still calls the tune.

But there are clearly things capitalism excels at, and things it's not so good at. It's been very good at making billionaires, and that's precisely part of the problem -- the planet's not big enough for too many billionaires, and because of their outsized political power, they are making decisions that impact the rest of us.

Is the march of civilization anchored in making the world safe for billionaires? How much contortion does the rest of society have to endure to make the world safe for billionaires? How much autocracy are we supposed to swallow?

Don't worry, Gentle Reader -- I'm not going to bore you with some Marxist paean to the working class. However, inasmuch as the SF universe faces down economic reality, it puts us in a quandary.

Some SF worlds leapfrog past the economic question -- society moved beyond classic (or even postmodern) capitalism toward a more benevolent future. Or (cyberpunk, looking at you) society becomes mangled by capitalism into a neon-wrapped crass noir mockery of civilization -- a kind of techno-tyranny of the megacorporation.

There's a ton to unpack in all of this, and I may have to break it up into multiple posts to adequately capture it.

But from a SF writer POV, there's a point when one is really writing what I'd call "technofantasy" -- which is to say, wishful thinking SF (even within dystopian perspectives) -- the idea that somehow humans will survive, despite the literal and figurative meatgrinder that capitalism is. On one level, maybe so. But on another level, it relegates SF into an area requiring a massive narrative leap to imagine that humanity can even get past the massive firewall capitalism has created for us.

If you're not familiar with the Great Filter concept, take a look at it and reflect on our current world.

It feels like we're coming up against the Great Filter in some fashion, where human civilization must either reprioritize its values or face outright extinction (fast disaster or slow erosion, it hardly matters if the end result is our annihilation).

It's kind of like how I've said over the years that it frightens me that the MAD MAX/ROAD WARRIOR post-apocalyptic universe increasingly feels like the most credible SF future for us. Forget the flying cars on the moon, or shopping for shoes on Mars -- no, we may be careening toward Thunderdome as a species, largely because we're captive to capitalism.

Above and beyond questions of carrying capacity for the planet and environmental degradation and scarcity, and Malthusian notions of want and need, there's the cultural degradation of the human spirit embedded in capitalism -- it goes back to the thing I said earlier about making the world safe for billionaires. Or, eventually, trillionaires (chew on that a bit -- is a world with trillionaires in it a success or a monstrous failure? How many must suffer to attain that hurdle?)

Robotics and AI continues to race ahead, and, obviously, to assist the already-rich in getting richer. I think we'll be seeing a revisitation of eugenics in the form of elective improvement for the rich -- always, always for the rich -- the hapless multitudes are just that -- always left out of the innovations that are aimed and intended for the wealthy. The innovations go where Capital decides they go, social justice be damned!

Even old SF tropes such as interplanetary colonization and exploration become fraught when one ponders "space capitalists" -- now, SF has certainly tried to address this over the decades. Absolutely, there are all sorts of good criticisms of society rooted in some of the best SF. I'd never dream of shading any of that, because it's all legitimate.

However, cautionary SF tales aside, society keeps moving on without dwelling on that too much. In the interests of pursuing profit wherever it takes one, humanity is setting itself up for a societal throat-slitting. We need to take proper stock (pun intended more than I care to admit) and reassess what it means to be human, and where we want to go. And SF writers have been doing that for decades.

It's just that the optimism of previous generations, the assumptions that we might endure and/or prosper in those imagined futures (or even evocatively suffer) run up against the wall of that Great Filter.

These days, it feels to me like we're not going to make it as a species -- that, in making a world safe for billionaires, billions of people will suffer and die needlessly, and civilization will tear itself apart in the effort.

And even if it doesn't (somehow), how the hell can one even imagine humanity living on multiple planets? Not even factoring in the colossal expense of space travel, let alone colonization. From the most optimistic appraisals (assuming we could even attain it, which seems a big IF at this point), it would be politically unsustainable -- look at how fractious we are on Earth. Now, imagine a Moon colony, a Mars colony, a colony on Titan, or whatever.

Who calls the tune on those colonies? Who decides how they live and die? How do they relate to one another? It's why "space war" is such a consistent trope in SF -- which is really just another form of technofantasy -- A GAME OF THRONES in space.

Best-case scenario for us as a species: We realign our values toward mutual aid and self-actualization of the individual toward a broader social goal of peaceful prosperity for all. Again, that feels like technofantasy -- the most ardent of liberal wishful thinking.

Or we're doomed to create our own apocalypse and annihilate ourselves as we destroy civilization because it was enslaved to the idea of making the world safe for billionaires.

Any SF writer these days is taking a technofantasy leap of faith in hoping that somehow we get past that Great Filter, but, at least to my eyes, it's growing ever larger in our sight lines -- to the extent that SF writers are likely running out of things to say, in some way. Some have said that SF has a bad track record of predicting the future, and that it's more often a reflection of the limitations of the here-and-now. I get that, and maybe the above is tied to that.

Either we evolve as a species and a civilization toward something more compassionate, or we fail to do so and are doomed. That's the real story; anything else is a technofantasy.

Drowning in the Drought

Another thing that's gnawed at me is that I fear the idea of writing as a functional profession is slipping away from the lower classes, and will eventually settle as an amusement for the upper class, a situation that tracks with most of the fine arts.

As newspapers, magazines, and journals shrivel up, so do meaningful paying venues for writers, as well as areas where novelists might get exposure. Further, actual paying periodicals are fading. I've seen that in my years of navigating the publishing world -- now we see a preponderance of Kickstarters and Patreons by publishers desperate to attain financing, and with cost-of-living always outpacing pay (particularly, but not uniquely, in the States), the capacity of writers to make a living on their writing is evaporating.

On top of that, there's the specter of AI bots writing stories, which'll be the final nail in the coffin for fiction writers eventually.

Anyway, the combination of: 1) fewer good-paying writing venues; 2) fewer regular readers (and/or readers willing to actually *pay* for writing); 3) ongoing cost of living increases; 4) contraction and consolidation of the publishing industry as a whole; and 5) a proliferation of less-demanding forms of entertainment -- pretty soon, the only writers able to be able to afford writing and have any hope of visibility will be the ones who're already rich and/or famous.

Back in the early days of popular literature, it was the privileged who were the literary figures. They had access to the leisure time, the connections, and even the ability to travel and directly speak to a more exotic life than everyday folks could. The 20th century briefly saw a time when non-rich writers could actually get seen and read by wide audiences -- the rich and privileged still had a leg up (as always), but more were capable of participating from outside the elite circles.

These days, at least through self-publishing, hordes of people can get books out there, but getting books out there and getting them seen, read, and appreciated on any level? It's a huge lift that's far easier undertaken by the rich and already-famous, who have the name recognition and, again, the connections to get their work seen. For celebrities, the novelty (pun intended) of novel-writing is incidental to the ability of getting a book discovered and purchased -- it's something non-rich writers can't hope to match.

These millstones are going to grind up the non-rich writers out there vainly trying to compete with the already-successful (or, the fortunate writers who have a spouse/significant other who bankrolls their efforts).

And while we see that reading is moving into a narrower sort of lifestyle niche in people's lives, compared with previous decades, it'll increasingly be an area where only the already-rich and -successful go. They'll be the folks who are able to afford the education, the life experiences, the connections to ensure that their stories get told, discovered, and appreciated, with the majority of us reduced to the role of hapless spectators.

Part of me still presses on in the face of that economic reality, but truly few writers exist out there at a level that they're able to write full-time professionally, which is the dream, right? Who can afford that these days? Long gone are the days when a writer could actually support their family on short story sales (which seems incredible, but it was an attainable reality back in the 1960s). The cost of living, the existence of a hungry reading public, the breadth of publishing venue infrastructure, the existence of decent-paying venues -- it was all there, once, but it's fading away.

Writing professionally will be tied to those for whom it doesn't really need to matter, because the writers for whom it does matter won't be able to make a living doing it. Don't even get me started on things like Kindle Unlimited and piracy of copyrighted material -- that's another part of the withering literary landscape.

I'm not saying it's *impossible* for a writer to come from nowhere and succeed. But it's incredibly unlikely, and that writers who come from somewhere and/or who know the right people are far, far likelier to succeed professionally as writers. And, when you factor in just how hard it is to even get a bestseller in a convulsive and contracting publishing marketplace, those who're in yachts and ocean liners will find that rising, churning tide far more amenable than the ones in canoes and clutching floatation devices, trying to navigate those treacherous waters.

It's like what I often say of music -- It's hard to start a garage band if you don't have a garage, let alone any instruments.

A Ghost of a Chance

When THE THING IN YELLOW comes out at the end of this month (heh, 20 days from now!) that'll be my last indie horror book. As I mentioned the other week, I've contributed plenty of books to indie horror at this point, and I'm proud of them all.

But I'll be segueing toward other genres -- things that might be horror-adjacent (think paranormal thrillers, outright thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, etc.)

And I'm also willfully targeting trad, even though I understand that as a progressive, middle-aged white man, I may not be what trad publishers are looking for in "new" writers.

Further, I'm not a new writer -- maybe that'll adversely impact my chances as well, who knows? As a punk (even a punk fogey), I view trad with such a gimlet eye. I can't help myself.

All I know is that I love to write and live to write, and that I continue to create new work that needs a home, and indie is an ever-more overcrowded kiddie pool packed tight with hacks, wannabes, also-rans, tourists, amateurs, charlatans, hucksters, one-book wonders, bounders, narcissists, and even a few legitimately good writers.

Sorry if that's triggering for you, Gentle Reader; my response in the realm of writing is what it's always been: "Do better, try harder." There are plenty of shit writers out there (trad and indie) who have "made it" (whatever that even means these days is anybody's guess; I wouldn't know because I sure haven't made it), and there are tons of great writers who wallow in undeserved obscurity. The successful shit writers, however, have largely conned their way to a win, but, perhaps more importantly, they've somehow found their audience -- readers who seemingly like their shit writing.

Oh, and in case you think I'm putting myself in the camp of the great undiscovered writers out of sheer writerly arrogance, I'm not. I constantly ask myself "Am I a shit writer? Am I actually no good? Why can't I find my audience? Why haven't I found my audience?" and I always try to improve my work and do better as a writer. I've been doing that for decades, that cycle of self-assessment and hard critiquing of one's work that's necessary for any sort of artistic improvement.

Whether good or bad, all that truly matters for a writer is finding their audience. That's what makes or breaks a writer as a known entity. I mean, those of us who're really deep in it write no matter what -- it becomes an irreducible part of who and what we are. But if the desire is to make any kind of cultural impact as an artist, it means finding an audience.

The hard fact is that there are simply fewer readers out there than in the past, and they have a ton of choices. Finding audience is far harder than ever, and tracking down people who'll honestly read one's work (versus pretending to read it or skim it) is harder, still.

And the indie market in particular is choked with so much clutter, so even that niche of readers who might be interested in one's work has an embarrassment of riches (and/or a pile of junk) to choose from. It makes finding an audience a titanic lift.

My indie horror work is well-received when people manage to stumble onto it, but I've absolutely failed to build enough of an audience for it. Is it me? Is it the work? Is it the environment? Is it all of the above? Who knows?

I do know that the NetGalley reviews of my latest novel were very solid -- even people who didn't truly love the work managed to praise it, which is heartening. It was nice to see that out of the indie horror foxhole I've been occupying since 2011. Strangers liked my book, and that's something.

I believe/think that my work can reach a wider audience and my approach to storytelling can draw readers. I just need to find them. And that's why I'm wrapping up with indie horror and moving on to other arenas, in hopes of eventually finding my audience.

I'll admit that being 52 years old influences my decision in that. I know full well the difference between surveying the literary landscape and taking stock at 22, 32, and 42 -- because I did that. There's a difference in those decades, and at 52, I recognize that the fuse is well-lit on my mortality, and the years I have left to me are far fewer than if I were a younger writer.

I'm happy with my indie horror work -- I think all of those books were as strong as I could make them as the writer that I was at the time I wrote them. But I want far more than just the satisfaction of having accomplished those writerly objectives.

And it makes me sad that those books never found their audience -- they're like ghosts to me, now, gazing forlornly at me from the luminous shadows of their own near-oblivion, with an ample measure of reproach for me, their creator, for having brought them into existence at all in such a desolate place as the feckless barrows of indie horror. All I can tell those works is that I tried, and they tell me, in turn, in a Greek chorus of banshee-like wailing:

"Do better! Try harder!"

That keening drives me to chase down the audience I need, and to write the work that readers actually want to read.

Suffragette Shitty

I love David Bowie's work. I still miss him, hate that we live in a world where he's gone. In a world jam-packed with people, and tons of people imitating one another, there'll never, ever be another David Bowie. He was a true original and an originator, which is an amazing accomplishment.

When he died, I actually cried, which shocked my sons, who'd only very rarely ever seen me cry, and sweetly tried to comfort me. Not like I'm a Stoic or anything (remember, I'm an Epicurean!) I've often said to my sons "It's always fine to cry; just make sure what you're crying about is worth the tears you shed!"

For me, Bowie's death was well worth every tear, and the shock of it, and (of course) his careful choreography of his end was quintessentially Bowie, which I admired, even as it gutted me.

That said, I have a weird quirk regarding Bowie -- I absolutely love "Suffragette City" -- easily one of my all-time favorite Bowie songs (although I love so many of his songs, so, there's that). I can listen to it (and have) a zillion times and still feel the propulsive thrill of it every time.

However, I *only* like the original studio recording of it (ironically, 4 February, 1972, so, 51 years a few days ago!) The pitch-perfect power of it, Mick Ronson's stellar guitarwork, everything -- it was perfectly captured in-studio. Mick Ronson is, for me, an unsung rock & roll guitar god -- he did such glorious work with Bowie that's a perennial revelation.

And, for me, that's part of my thing with it. I love live tracks of so many bands (I'm a huge Who fan, so I know the decibel dance of live performances outdoing studio recordings), but for "Suffragette City" I always feel like nothing's ever as good as the original studio track, and never will be.

This rendering is about as close as it gets to a live version that does the original justice.

Either they tend to play it too quickly, or, when Bowie would play it with non-Spiders from Mars backing bands, they didn't get it entirely right -- the hard-rocking glam-swagger of it that Bowie & the Spiders had with it. For me, they nailed it in that studio when they recorded it, captured pure magic in a track, and the original outshines every other attempt to reproduce it (even by Bowie himself!)

This quirk only applies to this specific song -- there are plenty of live performances of Bowie tunes that I savor, and which are enhanced by the live performances. Just not "Suffragette City". Like I said, it's a weird thing for me, as a lifelong, diehard music lover. But I know it when I hear it -- what passes muster and what falls flat.

And another part of my aesthetic is that the song has to be played loudly, with a raw, powerful feel that's not too clean. I've heard various remasters of the song over the decades and they're too sanitized and scrubbed for my tastes. The original had glittery dirt under the fingernails that is part of the sonic spell it casts.

Further, the umpteen covers of it I've heard, nobody ever matches the original. It's not even possible. Amusingly, only "Weird Al" Yankovic ever came close, and that's really only because he did a very faithful rendering of the original.

Anyway, long live "Suffragette City" -- one of the many rock & roll jewels in Bowie's opulently festooned crown, and a musical treasure that has no equal.

Give it a listen, and crank it up until your speakers melt!

Building up the Buildup

One thing that frustrates me sometimes is if/when someone says a book "starts slowly" -- in my view, a book *should* start slowly and then accelerate. That's the crescendo in the story, the buildup.

I try to cover that in my stories, in that I usually throw in some action in the beginning to tide the reader over as the necessary exposition begins. The journey starts quieter than it ends.

For things to matter, you need a buildup. You need time to learn about the character(s), the setting(s), and the stakes of the story. Then, having established that, you raise the stakes.

Maybe people's attention spans are withering in our 24/7 digital-social media landscape, people want the dopamine hit right out of the gates and aren't patient enough to wait for a story to build. Or maybe there's a presumption that the payoff won't be worth it. Perhaps fewer readers are reading novels, so they are less familiar with the requirements of novel-reading (parallels critiques about "too many characters" in a book).

I don't know; I always try to make sure that my stories accelerate and have a solid payoff for the reader's troubles.