The Myth Of Writers.

'A writer is someone who writes.'

I've seen this written many times, as a definition, as some kind of motivational mantra, as a badge of honour. I'm not convinced by it at all. I find it a bit like someone who removes a splinter from someone's finger calling themselves a Doctor.

Yes, I know. It's not the best analogy. Writing is quite different. There's a lot of training required to be a doctor but no qualification is necessary to be a 'writer'. Of course you can study writing and improve and receive a qualification, but when I submit a story to a magazine the editor never asks to see a copy of my university transcription. And this is true for much of the creative arts field.

Here's a better analogy.

If I met someone who told me they were a football player, my first question would be about which team they play for. If they told me they just kicked the ball around their backyard or occasionally played with a couple of friends in the park, and had never actually been selected in a team, I doubt I'd consider them a football player. They're just someone who kicks a ball around with friends.

And I think this shows the difference between a writer and someone who writes. To be a writer there needs to be some kind of validation. My writer friend defines it as someone who is paid for words. This is a more accurate description.

Last night I went to see a 'musician'. One of the descriptors used in the advertising was 'amazing', and 'as good as they get', and so on. It was a very respectable venue, and I thought I might be on to someone hot very early in their career. I must admit I was taken for a ride - a bit of false advertising. I should have realised when the tickets were as cheap as they were.

Eight people were in the audience. The 'musician' was terribly unprofessional, no stage presence whatsoever, awful karaoke style backing tracks, and couldn't play their instrument very well at all.

My friend and I suffered all the way through a dreadful support act, only to leave during the second song.

My guess is this 'musician' and 'support' (who turned out to be good friends) booked the venue for themselves, advertised it in a few places, made a giant loss on the whole thing, but can now claim to have played there on their websites.

A musician? Absolutely not.

What about someone who has knocked together a couple of thousand words and stuck them up on smashwords? A writer?

Possibly, possibly not. As I said, there has to be some validation, sales or similar that can be seen as some level of recognition.

Thoughts?

If You Love It, Let It Go.

My friend and fellow traveller in writing, Gitte Christensen, wrote a blogpost this week about what it can be like to be a writer of speculative fiction.

Maybe it's because I came to writing quite a bit later than most, but my experience has been a little different. I don't think I've ever made excuses for writing SF, or tried to fudge the genre too much.

There are a couple of reasons for this - the first being that I write across a couple of genres. My first published story, in a horror anthology, is not considered horror by many people. Most see it as a paranormal romance. I guess it doesn't matter how much the walls of pigeonholes are blurred (or completely bent) these days, speculative fiction is still considered speculative fiction. And I guess that's what I mostly write.

Yes, I've been caught in those conversations with people who declare they loved The Road, or Avatar, or The Matrix, and then tell you in the next breath they don't like watching SF. And yes, I spend time pointing out that SF is more than just robots and spaceships.

I'm almost certain I don't consider writing SF as an elite pastime. Within the SF community I've found both writers and fans to mostly be extremely inclusive and encouraging. Outside the community I've found most readers to find my work accessible. Whether they read it or not is another matter.

As a teacher at High School, teaching mainstream English and a writing course, I've generally found it to be evidence of credibility among my students. Of course teenagers don't have the same issues with genre that adults have.

It's about time we stepped off the back foot, stop being apologetic for what we love, and allow our genre to spread beyond the confines we often place around it.

New Experiments In SciFi.

I recently had a long discussion with a poet who always carries a notebook and writes down what he sees.

We were talking about where ideas come from, and we found we had different approaches to our creative minds. I talked about how I asked 'what if' to situations and events, and he mentioned his ever present notebook. I spent a week or more thinking about it before I started keeping one handy and writing down snatches of conversations, descriptions of people, places, and events. Of course you can't be an obvious voyeur, or an eavesdropper, but it's surprising how much stuff I've started noticing.

OK, so my notes are a little self-conscious at the moment, and maybe I'm trying a bit hard and they appear pretentious. But I've already had a whole bunch of ideas from them. And I find that I'm remembering things I'd have otherwise forgotten.

I worked on a story yesterday, and even dragged out my notebook to use some dialogue I could rip off.

So far, so good.  Maybe one day I'll even be confident enough to post bits of my notebook here.

Vale: Pete Seeger.

Pete Seeger has passed away. He was 94.

I first heard of Pete when a friend gave me a cassette with an Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger concert on it. I was already an Arlo fan, and pretty soon I fell in love with Pete and his banjo. I also realised I was already familiar with a lot of his songs.

Pete's contribution to music, the union movement, the environmental movement and the civil rights movement cannot be underestimated. His actions in the 50s and 60s, in defying the Unamerican Activities Committee, his subsequent blacklist and jail sentence, and the years he was unable to perform due to this would have destroyed a lesser man.

If I Had A Hammer, Turn Turn Turn, and Where Have All The Flowers Gone? are all Pete's. And don't forget all the stuff he did with The Weavers. Then we must remember all the traditional songs that would have been forgotten had it not been for him.

Keep on sailing up, sailing down, Pete.

Ten Times As Big As A Man.

I went to see the musical production of King Kong last week. Now I shoould point out that I'm not a fan of musicals - at least modern musicals. I quite like Jesus Christ Superstar, Rocky Horror, Jungle Book and musicals from the 50s. But modern musicals leave me cold.

Many years ago I sat through The Lion King and The Phantom of the Opera in the name of romance, and while it wasn't exactly suffering, I certainly didn't enjoy them. Being a drama major means I've studied theatre quite a bit, and I've even produced high school musicals. As such I was at least able to appreciate these two shows and I could see why others loved them. They just weren't my cups of tea.

King Kong was awful.

The narrative was confused, as was the musical direction. Pointless and forgettable songs were inserted simply to get into the show with little connection to the narrative. Audience members had to guess what had happened, how events had unfolded, why scenes had jumped so much. People around me were scratching their heads, and by the second half even the polite applause after each song had disappeared.

Oh, except for the gorilla. That was unbelieveable. It was fabulous to see, brilliant puppetry and control. Technically, a brilliant show.

But I think the entire experience is best summed up by a voice I heard from nearby during the first half. "Come on. Skip this crap and bring out the monkey."

This Post Will Blow Your Mind And Make You Cry.

Like most people on Facebook, I share the occasional article, meme, funny picture or video. And I am generally informed, entertained or amused by those shared by my friends.

But I'm usually less than impressed if it comes with a hyperbolic tagline.

"This video/photo/story will restore your faith in humanity." Um, no actually. I'm not that cynical about life and my fellow beings. I'm generally more cynical about the truth of the cutesy little article.

"This will blow your mind." Again, no. Never have I had my mind blown by one of these shared links.

"You don't have a heart if this doesn't make you cry." Again, no. Not yet. And generally I question the authenticity of the picture/article etc.

"...but nothing can prepare you for the last picture."  Again, after looking at a series of pictures, I generally have some idea of what's coming.  Hmmm...  Maybe I am cold and just don't have a heart.

Oh, and I'm not impressed by cats. I never click on anything with cats. I hate them.

You Don't Owe Me Nothing.

I received a form rejection this week. I had been hoping for a sale, or at least a personal rejection. Unfortunately that wasn't to be.

Form rejections, for those that don't know, usually follow a standard wording, something along the lines of:

"Thank you for sending us your story. Unfortunately it does not fit our needs at the moment, and we wish you luck in placing it elsewhere."

Which basically means it's not good enough, or it just didn't grab the editor's interest.

There are sometimes 'better' form rejections, which might include a line about sending more stories to them in the future. And then there are the personal rejections.

A couple of markets try to give personal feedback for every submission, and I've often found that to be valuable. But with thousands and thousands of submissions per year, some markets simply cannot spend the time giving individual responses.  (Bear in mind that some writing is so poor the editor rejects the story in the first sentence.)

I can't find it now, but some time back I saw a post from a writer who'd received a form rejection, and had then emailed the editor asking for further feedback. Now this is generally considered to be bad form, as the editors will already have given feedback had they chosen to. The editor in question firmly but politely responded thus, but the writer went public, bitter and nasty, and declared that she deserved feedback. She compared the submission to a job interview, and felt that she should be told why her story was rejected.

I wonder if she still has that attitude, or if she's still writing and submitting.

Firstly, submitting a story is not like a job interview. Out of hundreds of job applications only a few get an interview. That would be more like those whose stories are placed on hold and either accepted or rejected in the final cull. Even then potential employers don't have to give feedback on your interview.

Anyway, this analogy doesn't work.

When selling a story the editor is less an employer and more a customer. The writer should display their best wares and hope it fits the market's needs. And we should expect no more.

When salesmen visit me at home, I don't feel inclined to explain why I don't wish to purchase their products. And I certainly don't take it well if they choose to hassle or complain.

Any feedback is a bonus. And editors will certainly remember those who act unprofessionally.