Sunday, January 18, 2004
A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Cave Troll
Oh, good. My comments have disappeared again. Time to investigate a non-retarded comment solution.
I finish my move on Wednesday night, and will resume hard-core crazy writing on Thursday. Odd as it might sound, I've come to enjoy working myself to the point of physical exhaustion. I live for days where I can just roll out of bed, write for fifteen hours and go back to bed, with interruptions for just the usual exercise, shower, and inhuman grunts to passers-by. I eat and drink while writing, so as to save valuable hermit time. Jesus, what I've just written makes me sound like some sort of freakish photophobic troglodyte. I, um, wish I had a swift and witty refutation of that assertion, but I don't.
I can only barely explain it-- as an insomniac, one of my few defenses against lying awake for three hours every night, staring at the ceiling with my neurons whirling like a Beastie Boys music video, is to pound every last reserve of physical and mental energy out of myself before collapsing into bed. I will have to cease indulging this lifestyle when Jenny and I live together, and settle for eight to twelve-hour workdays, but for the brief span of time I spend at my parents', I'm going to revel in it.
Long live insomnia, long live cave trolls.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
In Which the Author Won't Stop Reflecting, Dammit
Novel writin' has resumed with a vengeance; the week-long pause helped settle a lot of concerns and cook up a pile of new ideas and approaches. I don't have what I would classify as "structural problems;" the plot is unfolding swimmingly. It's the minute details of stylistic construction and language use that drive me to distraction. I've just finished Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer, and the sheer economy of phrasing with which he achieves his emotional amplitude (his huge ratio of bang to buck, wordcount-wise) is humbling. I am, however, nothing less than infinitely glad that I read it.
Deducting a few sections to be rewritten and counting new stuff done in the past two days, I'm setting my word count back to 75,000.
*****
Gazing back at my list of books (nonfiction not counting) read in 2003, the number that I consider to have been less than excellent is surpassingly small; I wouldn't need all the fingers of one hand to count them. Most importantly, the vast majority of them have had, in some large or small way, a positive impact on my conception and execution of The Lies of Locke Lamora.
Heinlein's Double Star cemented the need for me to present Locke's art as more posture and presumption than make-up and mummery, and reminded me what the elements of a good deception caper are. Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series has been an inspiration on every level, with its queer and gritty little universe, its ferocious swordplay, and its ever-present wit. Ian Fleming's James Bond series has helped to solidify my theories on the strengths, shortcomings, and literary legitimacy of the sin-drenched thriller.
Stover's Blade of Tyshalle resoundingly ended my speculation as to whether deep ethical and philosophical elements could co-exist with an unfolding bloodbath. Leiber's Conjure Wife reminded me of the need to make the magic of Locke's world colorful, eerie, and pulpy. The list goes on and on, but only the barest handful of what I read had no real lesson, positive or negative, for your unhumble newbie. All in all, I'd say it was probably the most rewarding year of reading I've had since I first dug into "adult" speculative fiction when I was 14, in those far-off halcyon days of 1992, when dinosaurs walked the earth.
*****
I've already set up my "acquisition list" for 2004; this is an anal-retentive little document I use to circumvent the fact that my brain clams up the moment I set foot in any bookstore, effectively blocking out the names of the 9,886 authors I'm looking for at any given time. I'm leaving room in my reading schedule for thirty or forty titles currently on my shelf, and plotting the acquisition of about sixty more. Having started Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, I will now do nothing less than offer my services as a mugger to get the three subsequent volumes of the tetralogy. Let's hope that won't become necessary.
Foremost among my goals for 2004 is the intention to pump a few hundred bucks into new editions of work by writers I like and want to support; 2003 was definitely a year of looking backward, but I have begun to fill in most of the gaps in my Nebula/Hugo lists, and can begin contemplating more contemporary and recent works.
I have my sights set on novels by our own Deadcityfolk Kage Baker and Neal Asher, and I'm going to hit Jack Vance's Dead Earth saga. Ariel has sold me on picking up Steph Swainston's The Year of Our War as soon as possible, so come hither, new hardback. Ariel is also responsible for me bumping Tim Powers to the forefront of my to-read list; I'm going to start with Dinner at Deviant's Palace and pick up five or six more. Lois McMaster Bujold is my other major new target in 2004; I'm going to read the first half of the extended "Vorkosigan Saga," at least, and try to hit all of the ones that won hugo or Nebula awards. Returning favorites include more Leiber, Zelazny, LeGuin, Heinlein, and Kim Stanley Robinson. Further newcomers include John Crowley, John Marco, and Michael Shea. Last but not least, I'm finally going to read Tad Williams' To Green Angel Tower, Book 2 and finish a series I was enjoying immensely.
Time permitting, I may bite at works by Lucius Shepard, Steve Erickson, and Jeff Vandermeer, and perhaps a bit more Moorcock. I don't know if this will be the year I start Ian Banks' Culture novels, or if they'll wait until 2005.
