Emily’s Comments (group member since Aug 09, 2011)

Emily’s comments from the Q&A with Emily C. A. Snyder group.

In addition to writing novels - and actually quite more and more frequently, and more frequently completed - I write plays. Short plays, long plays, operas, ballets, musicals, masques, pageants, short little performance pieces, stuff with room for improv, stuff in iambic pentameter, all sorts of plays.

I like theatre.

A lot.

The published plays are from Playscripts.com - four published out of over forty written. The best thing about writing a play, though, is that the deadline isn't anything approaching theoretical. An audition date is coming. The actors must read SOMETHING. And not long after that, they begin rehearsing. The script had better be in a working condition by then. Also, even the longest play is short by the standard of a novel, which makes them that much easier to write. Hence, more plays!

Hence...more playing!

And is there anything much lovelier than that?

Tell us about yourself! What are your passions? What do you write? Who do you read? What's your favorite colored shirt? I'd love to know!

Charming the Moon has the distinction of being not only a published novella (rare) but comprised of the two stories which Began It All - that is, which began the world of the Twelve Kingdoms. The story of Brigglekin getting the Moon into the sky is what I used to tell my youngest brother, Peter, when I was putting him down for a nap (which was often) and I didn't want to read him a book (which was oftener). Ostrung the Giant, who got the Sun back in the sky, was a later invention by a little, and remains my sister's favourite of the two.

For me, it's a delight to write little fairy tales and I wish more people WOULD write new fairy tales. There's something very satisfying about them: you can leave so much unsaid, and yet still say so much.

This was my first published novel, and it shows. However, I often think of Ursula K. LeGuin's forward to a second printing of Left Hand of Darkness, that in this edition they had corrected old mistakes, and probably would correct new typos in the next edition. It's a nice thing to know!

I do love Niamh and the whole world of the Twelve Kingdoms, though, and would gladly discuss fairy tales - and especially fairy tales for grown ups - with anyone who'd care to join me!

My favorite author is actually Paula Volsky, who wrote the mind-blowing "Illusion" which I heartily recommend to anyone who likes tour-de-force worldbuilding with their reimagined Russianesque revolutions. Unfortunately, Paula Volsky does not seem to be on Goodreads. (Alas.) And Jane Austen, to whom we are all indebted, has had the indecency to die at her appointed time.

Since I am both on Goodreads and in good health, I therefore submit myself to questions for the answering! What is Edric? Is Catherine really that dumb? Just how many capes does Henry wear on his greatcoat? Fire away!

I've been thinking for a while that the sort of writing that works best for me (aka Gets Me To Finish Writing the Bloody Thing) is what I'll call "Performative Writing."

The idea behind it is not dissimilar to how people used to write novels: one chapter a time for a daily or weekly newspaper. Dickens wrote that way; Hugo wrote that way. It seems that Louisa May Alcott and Lucy Maude Montgomery both wrote that way if not for newspapers, then for their families. None of these authors would agree at all with Adams' blithe: "I love deadlines. I love the sound they make as they whoosh over my head." (A line later cribbed by the screenwriters of Pirates of the Caribbean 2.)

Performative writing today takes place most often in fanfiction and paraliterature, on message boards and blogs, but the result is the same: because there is an audience immediately reading, commenting, reflecting, guessing, criticizing, and otherwise egging the author on to Finish the Bloody Thing (FBT) just through the audience sitting there expectantly...the Bloody Thing is Finished.

I like Performative Writing. However, I've only ever been able to do so with Jane Austen paraliterature. I do wonder, though, whether it would be interesting...or profitable (a girl's gotta eat!) to return to Performative Writing with original work, too.

I'm of half a mind to see if something can be done - through apps or .pdf or something with one of my more sprawling novels, "The Sable Valentine," which is an epistolary fantasy, set in something between Regency-Victorian Europe. You can read the first bit of the first volume here: http://sablevalentine.blogspot.com/

Naturally, the second best thing to Performative Writing to FBT is an actual deadline. But considering that I just passed and then had to postpone indefinitely a deadline, I think that for someone with a theatrical bent like myself, Performative Writing trumps deadline.

Beginning thoughts which will now FBT now!