Subject: (urth) Query

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:10:49 +0000

Anyone else going to be at Comicpalooza?

J.

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From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:12:22 +0000

Doubtful, but is Gene ever coming out to the East Coast for one of these
things?

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 5:10 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:22:19 +0000

Well he was at Balticon last summer IIRC.

Incidentally, I just found Cory Doctorow's post on "Gene Wolfe's Rules
for Writers"
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/03/03/gene-wolfes-rules-fo.html

Cory praise them for their quality and sensibility. These aren't bad,
but I could tick off better one's --more practical to a refined
level-- that I've heard at various Wolfe panels. His suggestions
invariably make those of other writers sound obvious and fuzzy,

J.

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From: Andrew Bryant <ajustinbryant at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:31:53 +0000

I would be interested in reading other such rules - please tick them off!

Andrew

-- 

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Andrew Bryant
ajustinbryant at gmail.com
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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:00:42 +0000

Well, I posted some before recently but....

1. Plan to write no more than 10 minutes a day, at least at the
beginning. If you do that, you will always talk about "the novel I am
writing" rather than "the novel I once tried to write."

2. When I started writing, I would get up in the moring before
everyone else and write for an hour, sometimes two. When my wife would
bring me breakfast, I'd stop. I'd eat, get ready for the day and go to
work. I'd come home and play with the kids or whatever, and then I'd
go to bed early because I was going to do the whole thing again.

3. Start with the ending of your story and then slowly work backwards
to how you got there. That way your plot will tend to lead to a
satisfactory end. For example, a Cinderella is a poor girl who marries
a prince. How do they meet? Well, maybe he has this shoe and he is
going to marry the girl it fits? Well, why should it fit her? etc.

4. A good villain is someone who is *almost* a hero but falls just
short of it. (examples given were Bill Reis and Typhon -- I think Wat
is also a good example of what he's talking about)

5. If someone asks for advice about being a writer, I always tell them
"don't do it", because if they can be deterred by that, then they
shouldn't be a writer.

6. You should never read bad reviews if you can't help letting them
affect you. I read them, but I don't let them have an effect on me or
my emotions. But if you can't do that, you should just not read them.

J.

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:09:40 +0000

--- On Fri, 3/5/10, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
...

> going to marry the girl it fits? Well, why should it fit

That's interesting because it's exactly what some critics
and educators on literary fiction tell you not to do.

> is also a good example of what he's talking about)

I really can't see Bill Reis as a good villain at all.
For much of the novel he's not causing or threatening
any harm.  Unless I'm missing something.

> "don't do it", because if they can be deterred by that,
> then they shouldn't be a writer.
...

Very Borgesian, I believe.

Jerry Friedman

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From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:22:46 +0000

> Very Borgesian, I believe.

Dan Simmons, in the introduction to the first story in _Prayers to
Broken Stones_, tells a funny story about Harlan Ellison wherein he
gives much the same advice.

-- 
gwern

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:26:04 +0000

> any harm. ?Unless I'm missing something.

There's one thing, unsaid, that I picked up emphatically from Wolfe's
panels last September: He is extremely happy with AEG. Cassie is one
of his favorite protagonists EVER and Reis is a prime example of what
Wolfe thinks a villain should be. When I brought AEG to him to sign
and asked him some questions about it, he lit up like a candle.

I am quite certain we are missing a great deal about Reis, Cassie, and
AEG. I would not mind seeing more stories to flesh out that world.

J.

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From: brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:12:53 +0000

Hear, hear!

.

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:42:06 +0000

> AEG. I would not mind seeing more stories to flesh out that

Very interesting.

I guess Reis does cause Cassie harm by making her fall in
love with him, which indirectly leads to very unpleasant
consequences for her, including what may be a wasted trip
to Woldercam.  However, that doesn't seem like enough, and
I agree in hoping we find out or figure out more.

Jerry Friedman

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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:57:33 +0000

Which explains a lot of literary fiction ...

I've always followed this particular piece of advice. Some authors talk about letting their characters find their way (Le Guin for example), but that doesn't work for me. 

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Message: 6
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:09:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Query
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From: Andrew Bryant <ajustinbryant at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:49:31 +0000

Thanks for reposting - I missed them the first time. Regarding #2, as
someone who struggles with time management myself, I wonder where he managed
to fit what must have been a lot of reading in between his sleeping,
writing, working, parenting, and eating (among other things) schedule...

Andrew

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:53:51 +0000

> Regarding #2, as
> someone who struggles with time management myself, I wonder where
> he managed to fit what must have been a lot of reading in between his
> sleeping, writing, working, parenting, and eating (among other things)
> schedule...

That's something else I heard Wolfe say at a panel. He said that
people at cons often gift him with books, but the truth is that as
writer he really doesn't have time to read for pleasure. He shelves
are full of books he knows he will never read. This very much reminds
me of what the fraudlent book maker/novelist said in Peace.

I know he reads books sometimes when he's paid to, but that's not what
I'm talking about. Therefore, I posit that there are probably very few
intentional literary references in Wolfe stories from books written
before the mid-1970s. Actually, I don't recall a lot of literary
references in the Island of Doctor Death collection, Fifth Head, or
Peace. So he might have stopped reading much of fiction well before
then.

However, based on AEG, I think he must have found time to at least
read Cory Doctorow recently, unless they were riffing on the same
reference. And he seems to follow some of Gaiman's work as well.In
Castle of the Otter/Castle of Days I recall him saying that reading is
the most important training for a starting writer: (paraphrasing from
memory) "Before you can serve, you must learn how to please the
master".

Another quote from a panel:
"You can't imagine how difficult it is to write a well-received youth
novel. In order to get one into the hands of its audience, you must
first run a gauntlet through the parents *and* the school librarian.
Yet Neil Gaiman managed to have an award-winning youth novel where the
main character's parents and sister are murdered by a serial killer in
the first few pages. Neil Gaiman is a wizard!"

J.