Advice from my Spiritual Guide

[ellenkushner]

When we were both Editorial Assistants in adjacent cubicles at Pocket Books, she told me to read Georgette Heyer. When I was trying to figure out how to write my first novel, she told me to open with a crowd scene before the hero enters. When we had tea this January, she urged me, Listen to the Voices. Tell the Story .

And now she is reminding us (females) all to Channel Your Inner Guy when speaking in public.

I'm listening.

Comments

[xmurphyjacobsx.livejournal.com]

Georgette Heyer? My already high respect for you popped up two more points.

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

Anyone with a proper regard for Georgette Heyer is clearly a wise and perceptive woman. (Unless they're a man, of course, but that happens, alas, more seldom.)

[montykins.livejournal.com]

When I was trying to figure out how to write my first novel, she told me to open with a crowd scene before the hero enters.

Oh! Like the opening scene of The Odd Couple, with the poker game going on before Oscar or Felix enters!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And, more importantly, thank isabelswift.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I remember her saying, "It's like an opera - everyone milling around & singing, with the musical tension rising . . . "

But Neil Simon is nice, too.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Heyer was definitely good at plot in her heyday.

I dunno about channeling your inner guy. How many arrogant alpha males have we sighed over, hammering at us to get into mental alignment? I find femme conditionals restful, for they don't attempt to herd me. I get resentful so fast when i sense myself being herded.

but then audiences vary as much as speakers do.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I think her point is simply not to present oneself publicly as insecure, as it is not restful to one's audience.

Men are socialized hard that showing weakness is dangerous, while women are taught in oh so many ways that showing weakness is both safe and appropriate. There are situations for both where each is true, and where the opposite is true as well.

But speaking in public from a place of confidence (even if utterly faked) is far more effective than not. And I've seen you do it brilliantly, so I know you know this in your gut! The ways of demonstrating confidence are many, of course. As we both know, subtleties abound.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

*nodding*

That makes sense.

When I have to speak publicly, or read, I go into a combination of teacher and theater mode, which has little to do with me. It's all about the masks.

[cleverthylacine]

I have always talked like a man, and it makes people hate me sometimes, but I refuse to be tentative unless I actually am.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Yes!!!

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

It's not only the wisdom of your guide, which is patent, but your own wisdom in choosing to take her advice, and your courage in following through on it.

[cija.livejournal.com]

while women are taught in oh so many ways that showing weakness is both safe and appropriate.

I would say rather that women are taught that showing weakness is unsafe but nevertheless required. But either way, I agree that the results are disastrous if the lesson takes too well.

(Unrelatedly: I first read Georgette Heyer because of you, because one of the Swordspoint blurbs said that it read like a cross between Heyer and M. John Harrison, and when I was young I got all my book recommendations from other books. So thanks!)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Sweetness.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

(Yay!

(So how did you like M. John Harrison?;)

Love your icon!!

No more Georgette...but we have Ellen

[isabelswift.livejournal.com]

if only she wrote faster!

You are a performer as well as a writer, so you probably knew all Inner Guy stuff long before I did and understood the effectiveness of "faking" it--really just creating a public persona and voice one feels comfortable standing behind that delivers to the audience (a little like OZ in the movie version).

GH question: am finishing the Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series & found them riveting. Did I skip the battle scenes in THE SPANISH BRIDE because they were actually boring, or because I just wasn't into battle scenes then? Should I go back & re-reread it?

Re: No more Georgette...but we have Ellen

[mevincula.livejournal.com]

I also found the battles rather flat, but I've since realized it's because they are written like straight history, and don't have the sparkling dialogue that is Heyer's greatest strength. Which isn't to say that the battle portions aren't good; they ARE history. When I was finishing my British History minor the professor actually used a handout from An Infamous Army to teach the battle of Waterloo. And Heyer claimed that every word that Wellington says in that book was actually written or spoken by him. (her research however doesn't hold up to modern standards since she didn't gloss her sources)

Re: No more Georgette...but we have Ellen

[isabelswift.livejournal.com]

An Infamous Army slipped my mind, thank you! Will have to back to both just to check them out, thank you for your insights. Am on the last Sharpe & think I will shortly be going into withdrawal...