Monday, February 14, 2005

Valentine's Day, Ursula K. Le Guin and Fred (Sorry, these topics have nothing in common whatsoever.)

Happy Valentine's Day, Boys and Girls,

Well, it's that time of year again - no, not Valentine's Day, but Navy Band tour, which Cindy is on for three weeks. That translates into: I've got to cook for myself, clean for myself, etc. But I get to read and write more, so I'm looking forward to three super-productive writing weeks. As long as I don't fall asleep watching American Movie Classics or something like that.

Reading some really good stuff. Read two Ursula K. Le Guin stories this weekend, "Nine Lives" (which is very good) and "The Day Before the Revolution" (which is so good it's scary). Anybody who doesn't read Le Guin should be taken out and whipped right now, this very minute! Man, the woman can write. I'm in awe.

I'm also working my way through Damon Knight's excellent book Creating Short Fiction. Knight says that the act of putting a story together involves a collaboration between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, which he calls Fred. A lot of times when you're working on a story, you've simply got to turn it over to Fred; he's the only guy who can get it done. The only problem is Fred doesn't keep a regular schedule.

I've been working on a couple of short stories that I hope to send out in the next few weeks. One of them just won't get over a certain hump. I've told Fred to work it out; I've done all I can do with it. The answer I get? "I've got a couple of my best guys on it now." Yeah. I can just picture a couple of overweight derelicts taking a nap on top of several pages of my manuscript.

Fred will eventually come through. He's got stacks and stacks of my manuscripts in his IN box and a few paragraphs in his OUT box, but he'll get the job done. Sure, I'd like him to work faster. What can I do, fire him? Who else would work this cheap?

Happy Writing

Now Playing = The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album (Hey, it's Valentine's Day, alright?)

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