Friday Filler! Therapy Session on the Virtual Couch!

This morning I was waiting for a bus in the University Street Metro station when I saw Jon Evison, best-selling author of West of Here and All About Lulu, walking along on the opposite side of the station, pulling a suitcase and garment bag behind him. Jon’s on his way to the Virginia Book Festival. He spends a lot of time on the road, giving readings and meeting readers and encouraging up-and-coming writers from coast-to-coast. I could’ve yelled Hey, Evison! across the big gap between us and even though he and I have only met twice in the last three years, Jon would’ve remembered not only where and when he’d seen me last, but also what my name was and that I was a writer. Jon Evison has that sort of memory, and he’s that sort of people-loving guy. So while I’m sure he misses his family when he’s on the road, he’s also made friends all over America and he really loves meeting new people and he loves doing readings. Still, I had the disturbing thought later this morning that Jon Evison, best-selling author, is now sort of a traveling salesman, and I think of him standing alone with his suitcase and garment bag on the Metro platform, off to SeaTac and nine or ten hours of traveling to get him to his hotel in Virginia. It did not strike me as a good thing. But it’s the artist life, isn’t it? Mozart toured Europe, conducting his symphonies and giving recitals and dedicating new works to various crowned heads, hoping that someone would give him a decent regular gig. A self-employed artist must constantly hustle his wares, it seems. Not much new there.

Yesterday, in the comments of a blog dedicated more-or-less to reading 19th-century literature, someone mentioned that her husband only reads “classics,” working through a list provided by Clifton Fadiman (I assume it's Fadiman's "Lifetime Reading Plan"). She went on to ask, partly in jest, why we should read anything being written now? Most of it’s probably crap; let time sort out which will become classics, and let readers of the future enjoy them. We have more “classics” available right now than anyone will have time to read in a lifetime.

This gave me pause. I’m one of those people writing novels now, and I have no way of knowing if my novels aren’t part of the “most of it’s crap” pile. I think it would be nice if tens of thousands of people bought my books, but I can’t honestly say that my books are worth the time to read. None of us can honestly say that about our own books. No, we can’t, no matter what you might think. No, we really can’t say. So I have no real idea of the “worth” of my books. I agree with you that terms such as “worth” and “classic” are poorly understood and indefinable, but let’s pretend they do mean something and move on.

So, I can’t claim that my books are worth reading. I also can’t claim that most of the books I read are books written by living authors. I’m one of those people who read capital-L “Literature” (another very slippery term) and most of my bookshelves are full of books by people who are long dead, some having gone to their graves thousands of years ago. It’s a constant struggle for me to find living authors whose books I want to read, so I’ve got Bulfinch and Walter Scott and Nabokov and Chekhov and O’Connor and Faulkner on my “to be read” list right now. I can depend on those people not to waste my time. All of this might make me think that I have no justification behind asking living readers to give my books a try. And yet I will. This line of thought confuses me. Why am I writing when, maybe, all the good books have already been written? When’s the last time a really great book came out? No, I can’t tell you what I mean by “great,” either.

This is all pretty grim stuff for a Friday morning, and I apologize. Very likely it’s just that I’m in the vasty emptiness of the middle of a new novel and being there always makes me question the value of my own writing. Why this book? I ask myself. What’s the point? Who’s going to want to read this, for gosh sakes? It’s just a phase. I’m in a chapter that’s hard to write, introducing a new character and a significant plot point and I worry that I’m going to screw it up so I put off working on the book and pretend I’m doing research or that I’m too busy to finish the chapter. So I should just finish the damned chapter and move on with my life. So, yay me. Problem solved. So glad we had this chat. Happy Friday.

Friday Filler! The Sookie Stackhouse Edition!

I ride the bus to and from work most days, and one of my amusements is to try and see what my fellow passengers are reading during the commute. Usually there are at least half a dozen readers visible (not counting people nodding over their iPhones and iPads and knookles). This morning, though, I saw nobody reading except for one woman, a few seats away from me, who was finishing up a Sookie Stackhouse book. She was reading it in hard cover. Possibly it was a library edition; I'm not sure.

Like I say, nobody else on the bus seemed to be reading anything. Not even me (I have a copy of Great Expectations with me), though I kept telling myself that I was going to pull out my book and read. The thing is, it's a cold day in the Pacific Northwest. The guy on the radio said it was 33° when I was leaving the house, and the whole city was covered in frost. The buses are barely warmer than the outside world (thanks, Metro!) and so it was just too darned cold to read this morning.

Except for that one woman with her Sookie Stackhouse novel. So apparently (and yes, I know it's poor science to draw a conclusion from a single case), if you're cold, you should read a book by Charlaine Harris.

Or stay off the Seattle public transit system.

Also, this will be a glorious three-day weekend for many Americans as we celebrate the Feast of Saint Martin Luther King on Monday. I work at a major university and every year a few days are given over to recognize the transformative power St Martin had on civil rights. There is a marble plinth about four feet high (that's a good bit over a metre, you metric folks) with a bronze bust of MLK atop it. You can look right into his eye if you're my height. This bust on a plinth is brought out every year into the lobby for the Feast of Saint Martin Luther King and for a few days the bronze head watches the comings and goings of all who pass. And then, after the official holiday ends, he's carted back to wherever he spends the majority of the year. So I must ask: where does bronze MLK live all year? In a coat closet in the Dean's office? In a specially built crate like an Egyptian sarcophagus? I have no idea and I never wondered until this morning when I crossed through the lobby on my way to the espresso cart downstairs. But I'll find out, I will.

If you have a three-day weekend, I hope you do something fun and cool with it. If you don't have a three-day weekend, I hope you still have fun and are cool, though not so cold that you can't read whatever it is you'd prefer to read. Unless, of course, what you prefer to read is Sookie.

Friday Filler! Margaret Atwood and Endings!

This article by Margaret Atwood is amazing and useful and true. It makes me laugh because someone recently told me she objected to one of my books because the ending seemed tragic for its own sake. Discuss.

Also, yesterday Michelle's latest novel, MONARCH was finally officially published! Have you bought a copy yet? Why the hell not?

Friday Filler! On Being Defensive

Last night Mighty Reader and I met for drinks and dinner before going off to see "How to Steal A Million," which is a 1966 William Wilder comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. It was the final night of an Audrey Hepburn film festival and the movie's quite fine and I don't know why it's not better known. But that's all just setting, isn't it?

Last night Mighty Reader and I were talking about writing, which is hardly a surprise because I have very few topics of conversation aside from What I'm Writing Now and Mighty Reader is very patient with me. A few days ago I finished the rough draft of my philosophical detective story and while I let it sit ignored for a while before I work on revisions, I am already toying with another book. As we discussed this new writing project, I became increasingly defensive. Being the overly twitchy sort that I am, I blamed my defensiveness on Mighty Reader, accusing her of actively disapproving my idea. Later I realized that what had actually happened was that this new novel makes me extremely uncomfortable and, really, embarrassed. Which is, I think, precisely why I need to write it.

That question (why I'm writing this particular novel at this particular time) is actually what put me on the defensive last night. The new novel has a singularly unappealing lead male character and the lead female character isn't particularly charming either and the book is not anything like a tale of redemption or growth, at least as far as I can tell. My description of it, Mighty Reader tells me, did not make her want to read the book so why do I want to write it?

One thing I have learned over the years is that the more uncomfortable a writing project makes me, the more I must be on to something. Also, there are some big technical and artistic challenges presented by this new project, and the other thing I've learned over the years is that each book I write must have a higher degree of difficulty than the last or I'm just not challenged enough by the project to approach it with enthusiasm. I have a growing list of projects I've abandoned because they no longer look like they'll be hard to write. Something about that seems backwards, but that's the way I roll, as the kids say.

So I have set myself what seems to be an impossible challenge (for me at least): writing about uncomfortable and embarrassing subjects that I shy away from through the stories of people I don't necessarily like and producing a beautiful narrative that people will love to read. Well, it will give me something to do, won't it?

In the mean time, tonight it's "Porgy and Bess" from the Seattle Opera. We've never been to an opera before. I'm wearing fancy cuff links and expensive shiny black shoes.

Friday Filler! Stuff and Things for Writers!

First, you should go read this post and then, you know, spend some money. It's for a good cause. I might also mention that my polite and housebroken (one assumes) co-host Domey "Don't Call Me Ishmael" Malasarn has a book of stories out that you might want to buy and read and be amazed by. There's a link to the right. No, just look. There it is. It's also worth saying that my other lovely and workaholic co-host Michelle "Davidson" Argyle has numerous books out. One of them's on sale right now, as I recall, and she'll have yet another book (the long-awaited Monarch) out on September 15th. Michelle is wracking her brain trying to figure out a cool place to have her book release party. Any ideas? Anyone volunteering to make 500 spun-sugar butterflies?

It's a 3-day weekend for a lot of us, me included. I plan to get a lot of time in the sun, as allegedly there will be sun in Seattle. It could happen. Stop laughing, you. I just bought "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1" on DVD, so likely there'll be some of that this weekend. And fireworks and alcohol, which sounds dangerous but the price of freedom is eternal vigilance and beer, so I've heard. So in this country, mister, we blow things up and drink. And to think Marx claimed democracy wouldn't last. There was a man who didn't have enough in the way of cocktails.

Also, I am reading Henry James' The Ambassadors and I'm about halfway through and poor Lambert, the protagonist, is facing the prospect that his fiancee might dump him if he doesn't drag her son Chad back home from Paris. Lambert doesn't really want to drag Chad back from Paris. What could possibly happen next? Also also, I am just about 2/3 of the way through the first draft of my work-in-progress, whose working title is The Transcendental Detective. I assume many if not most of you are working on something, too. So let's have it: status updates on writing projects! Who's doing what, and how's it going?