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ellenkushner"Who reads this shit?"
OK, in the actual joke it's "Who wrote it?" - but that's not my punchline for this post. See, it's like this:
On Saturday we went to a new play at Vital about the loving relationship of two adult sisters, one of whom gets cancer, and the other has to decide whether or not to pursue her mid-life dream of being a Writer, which involves taking a grueling grad school degree from a Bigshot Writer. She works hard, even beating out the hipster guy who wins prizes for stories that essentially come down to "Will my protagonist get laid?" (which, having now read a ton of submissions to various places, I am here to tell you is what a shocking percentage are about. Yawn. But that's another post....) . . . and her reward, her big marker of success, is that her mentor recommends her stuff to a prestigious literary Little Magazine. Which, after many edits & revisions, publishes her story. I suspect only the dying sister reads it. Though possibly she dies first.
The next day, Guy Kay (an old pal from our mutual Struggling Writer days) sends me this from Harper's (read it and laugh so hard you'll snork. I particularly like "This sentence is short, not because it is brief—which it is—but because it has few words.") Very cheering. But.
So here's the thing: What made me - and most people I know - want to be writers is that we loved to read. We read a lot. We wanted to write the kinds of books we loved to read.
Schools are full of grad students whose highest goal seems to be getting published in small literary magazines with minute circulations. But have they actually read those magazines themselves first? Did they love reading them?
I'm probably being an idiot here, but I've already written the post, and it seems a waste of time to delete it now. Also, it gives me a chance to offer you the link to the Colson Whitehead piece.
OK, in the actual joke it's "Who wrote it?" - but that's not my punchline for this post. See, it's like this:
On Saturday we went to a new play at Vital about the loving relationship of two adult sisters, one of whom gets cancer, and the other has to decide whether or not to pursue her mid-life dream of being a Writer, which involves taking a grueling grad school degree from a Bigshot Writer. She works hard, even beating out the hipster guy who wins prizes for stories that essentially come down to "Will my protagonist get laid?" (which, having now read a ton of submissions to various places, I am here to tell you is what a shocking percentage are about. Yawn. But that's another post....) . . . and her reward, her big marker of success, is that her mentor recommends her stuff to a prestigious literary Little Magazine. Which, after many edits & revisions, publishes her story. I suspect only the dying sister reads it. Though possibly she dies first.
The next day, Guy Kay (an old pal from our mutual Struggling Writer days) sends me this from Harper's (read it and laugh so hard you'll snork. I particularly like "This sentence is short, not because it is brief—which it is—but because it has few words.") Very cheering. But.
So here's the thing: What made me - and most people I know - want to be writers is that we loved to read. We read a lot. We wanted to write the kinds of books we loved to read.
Schools are full of grad students whose highest goal seems to be getting published in small literary magazines with minute circulations. But have they actually read those magazines themselves first? Did they love reading them?
I'm probably being an idiot here, but I've already written the post, and it seems a waste of time to delete it now. Also, it gives me a chance to offer you the link to the Colson Whitehead piece.
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Date: 2009-01-27 07:50 am (UTC)It would be cheering to know in advance that people also want to read the books you are writing. Desperately.
I actually love wordsmiths who write luscious prose, but I've been told I am so unfashionable I should be in a museum. Ah, well. d;-)
May I ask - is this Guy Kay who wrote the Fionavar Tapestry and Tigana? I love his work, I have been trying to find people on my f-list who have read him. He's one of those writers whose books end up looking extremely ravished. Swordspoint is also on that ( rather small )shelf along with Tolkien and a couple of others.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 11:24 pm (UTC)Have you read Dorothy Dunnett? Both Guy & I were very much influenced by her "Lymond" series.
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Date: 2009-01-28 07:56 am (UTC)I have heard the name, but not read her. I will be following that up. Thank-you :)
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Date: 2009-02-01 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 05:20 pm (UTC)I must do a kind of book review thinggy on my f-list - no that sounds pretentious, I'll just gush, I'm good at gushing. :D
I'm sure most of them would love his work.
I have very few books that I read and re-read for year upon year, his are among them. I call it the top shelf, and most of the books look like recycling material. XD
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Date: 2009-02-01 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 05:43 pm (UTC)That was the first book of Kay's I read. My sister brought it and discovered it missing the next day. If a book is missing it is always me.
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Date: 2009-02-01 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 07:45 pm (UTC)