Tag: writing for the joy of it

It’s Not Made by Great Men

Yet that’s how I wrote it.

Yesterday, I went to the Greenfield First Sunday Word open mike. I read my blog post A 500-Word History of a Lost Civilization That Stood for Over a Thousand Years. As I was going through the piece, I realized that what I was reading was a high school history report. Which is fine, I suppose. Paul and others joked that there would be an exam. Hah. The original post was a writing assignment I set myself to see if I could do it. The challenge was the title. All in all, I give myself a B for that post (to continue the joke.)

Readers of this blog will note that last week I posted about seeing Gang of Four up in Maine the previous weekend. Before I got up and read, I thought about referencing the band before I read the piece, but ultimately decided not to. I’m not one to avoid a mixed message generally, but in this case, it didn’t seem like the right thing to do to put what would ultimately be seen as a disclaimer in front of my own work. I try not to do that.

But here’s the disclaimer I didn’t perform at the open mike. I agree with the sentiment in that song. And the piece I read (as you will see if you go back and look) is all about a few of the Great Men of the Eastern Roman Empire. I’m currently working on a novel that is a fantasy set in some factually erroneous version of the world of the Romans. One of my rules for the book was that it would not be about the nobility or rulers of the Empire. I wanted it to be about individuals walking around on the ground, not the folk in Blachernae Palace. There’ve been so many “court intrigue” novels. I have no desire to write another.

Perhaps, at some point, I’ll write another history post and try to give the flavor of the life of an ordinary Roman, and maybe something about how that changed over time. What would it be like, I wonder, to live in a stable, long-established place in the Empire? Probably not so different from any other place in the main, but very different in certain details.

One detail I can share is about how a middle-class house in the Empire was set up. There was always a great central room where day-to-day living, entertaining, and even worship would typically happen. It wouldn’t include the kitchen, although dining would likely take place there. Kitchens were always off to one side and out of sight.

Stay tuned. This interests me. I’ll see what I can do.

Rama Lama Whippity Ding #1

I met with an agent

AI slop

Recently, I had a speed date-style Zoom meeting with a generalist/genre book agent. It was an interesting and informative experience. I’d even say that on the whole it was a good experience. But it was also awkward and distant, and a little bit depressing. I’m clearly not the author this agent wants to represent, that’s the first thing to say. And I’m OK with that. As with any speed dating sort of situation, you’re looking for something to click.

When it became clear that this wasn’t going to be a thing, I asked a couple of biz questons and they were open and honest with their answers. Helpful. Cheerfully so.

more AI slop

I asked about how it is out there for trans authors these days. I was told that trans adult fantasy authors can pretty much do what they want, it doesn’t seem to matter. But kidlit is getting hit pretty hard, lots of bannings, lots of pushback.

I guess we’ve found the actual canaries in the coalmine. If you’re a trans-inclusive YA or middle grade author, you’re having a rough go right now. I don’t think that points to a winner in the contest, but it does make it clear that it IS a contest. There’s a war being fought out there. And if the trans kid’s authors lose, I’m next.

further AI slop

What the agent kept repeating when asking me to talk about my project is “What are the stakes? What’s the thing I can’t walk away from?” This caused me some cognitive dissonance because the whole idea of my novel is the protagonist walking away, over and over. And it’s not that my main character is an anti-hero. Sometimes Rose walks away from things by choice, sometimes she walks away because she’s forced to. Sometimes she’s kidnapped. Sometimes a disaster happens, either on a large or a small scale. Sometimes it’s her fault. Sometimes she’s a victim. Sometimes it’s a sacrifice she makes. And that’s a story too. It’s a story I feel personally, because it’s how my life has been.

My perception of the general run of fantasy novels these days — and I’d have to say that most everything I’ve read in the genre for the last ten or so years fits into this formula — is that you start with an action sequence, it sets up a conflict and some tension, the bulk of the book is the main character on the run and under the gun based on the conflict/tension, but also there’s some guy or girl who is very very annoying until they’re not, then there’s an aha moment when the protagonist figures out what’s really going on and consequently how to win, and then there’s a huge high-stakes battle, like a multiple orgasm of crash! bang! pow! as big as whatever the author can imagine, then a few pages of happy every after.

Such AI, much slop

Whose life is like that? Having read a hundred iterations of that, who needs it again? I think this is a problem, and it’s not something I want to “create” the next iteration of, although I will say the story I’m working on actually does follow that formula to some extent, though it doesn’t have that ratchet-up, ratchet-up, and ratchet-up-again thing going on.

At some point during the interview, I began to imagine the novel I would write to meet the standards of this era of fantasy fiction. The title would be “Rama Lama Whippity Ding #1” and the first sentence would be “How do you like your steaks?” I bet I could get a few thousand words out of riffing on that.

Clearly, I wasn’t made for these times.

last bit of AI slop… for now.

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