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Rosswarren (Rosswarren)
Username: Rosswarren

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 135.196.120.43
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:20 pm:   

available online:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/05/herman-wouk-is-still-alive/845 1/
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:25 pm:   

New Weber short available by emailing me at efilsgod at hotmail dot co dot uk
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.131.172
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:35 pm:   

'JP: Are the ideas, or the suggestions, still coming at the same pace?


SK: No. I don't think so. And in a way that's a relief.'

:-(

'And I think that that's an honorable thing to want to do and I also think it's an honorable thing to say: I've got something that will only appeal to a small slice of the audience. And there are little magazines that publish in that sense - but a lot of the people who read those magazines are only reading them to see what they publish so that they can publish their own stories.'

:-( :-(
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.131.172
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:45 pm:   

'It isn't a general thing. You don't see people on airplanes with their magazines folded open to Part 7 of the new Norman Mailer. He's dead of course, but you know what I mean. And all of these e-books and this computer stuff, it kind of muddies the water and obscures the fact that people just don't read short fiction. And when you fall out of the habit of doing it, you lose the knack, you lose the ability to sit down for 45 minutes like you can with this story and get a little bit of entertainment.'
I won't put up any more frownies. There's only so much time.
Here's the link to the article;
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/04/stephen-king-on-the-cre ative-process-the-state-of-fiction-and-more/237023/
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:47 pm:   

So Stephen King is finally admitting that he's running out of ideas?!

I'm glad to hear him admit it because for me it has always been a matter of quality over quantity and he really hasn't been enthusing me for quite some time now. His great works remain unimpeachable, however, and shall remain so!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.131.172
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:47 pm:   

As an aside, and on a different part of that magazine -
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/05/t-c-boyle/8437/
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.131.172
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:52 pm:   

One more frownie;
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/05/the-work-of-art/8452/
:-(
Do we agree with King? Do we write self-conscious crap now? Do I think about my readers? This has got me worried.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:53 pm:   

There's a great interview with the man on a link there, too. Excellent. I'd love to sit and chat with SK.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:59 pm:   

>>>So Stephen King is finally admitting that he's running out of ideas?!

But he doesn't say that.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.153.150.118
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 05:00 pm:   

Sad thing; I thing I prefer his interview voice to his reading voice. I'm reading 'Trouble After Sunset' (Oh, dammit - I mean 'Just After Sunset - still thinking about Oscar Goldman. I mean William Golding! Oh, fucky fuck...) and finding it a bit groanworthy. He mentions entertaining stories but they don't entertain me or anything, sadly. I like the odd line but find the whole tales a bit 'clunky'.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 10:29 pm:   

Well, I cried my eyes out reading the Ollie Dinsmore scenes in Under The Dome; for a moment there I thought he wasn't going to make it (:

And personally, I think Lisey's Story is one of the best books SK has ever written. It's a beautifully melancholic book that breaks my heart.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 11:38 pm:   

'Just After Sunset' is a great collection. 'Stationary Bike' is as good a short story as King has ever written.

I think Lisey's Story is one of the best books SK has ever written

Ditto.}
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.236.228
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 11:46 pm:   

My favourites of his more recent stuff are DUMA KEY and FULL DARK, NO Stars. But I'm now realising in recent weeks that his true masterpiece is THE DARK TOWER series.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 11:47 pm:   

Full Dark, No Stars is hands-down brilliant. One of his best ever books.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.136.217
Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 02:24 am:   

I have to say, the one story I've read from JAS so far seemed very pedestrian - can't remember the title but it was about a girl at a party dreaming of the future and then they see a nuclear bomb go off and that's it... I didn't do anything for me.

Duma Key meanwhile I thought was excellent. I also really enjoyed Cell. My next King will be Lisey's story (or maybe dreamcatcher...)
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 07:56 am:   

>>>I didn't do anything for me.

Welcome to the club! Our membership is immense!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.136.217
Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 09:27 am:   

Looks like I missed the letter T from a word in that sentence
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 61.216.200.93
Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 07:42 pm:   

Zed, what did you think of 'N'? I thought it dealt with the Machenesque/Lovecraftian themes quite well, and I liked the psychiatric aspect. I haven't read many of the other stories in Just After Sunset yet, but I enjoyed 'Stationary Bike'. I haven't read Full Dark, No Stars yet - one for the Kindle, perhaps.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 10:49 pm:   

I thought N one of the best shorts in many many a year. Or at least one of his finest horror shorts. That story was so evil, its malevolence seeped out between my fingers and had me touching everyday objects repeatedly, and in mathematically concise patterns, too. It's also a graphic novel I believe.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 12:56 am:   

Huw, I thought "N" was okay, I think, but to be honest I forgot it immediately after reading the thing. "Stationary Bike", however, stuck with me.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.19.58
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:09 am:   

Is the nuclear explosion story 'Graduation Afternoon'? If so, I read it in Postscripts 10 and really liked it. Though not quite as much as Joe Hill's 'Thumbprint' in the same issue. Both writers looking at the implications of Bush's military policy.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:47 am:   

'Graduation Afternoon'- yes, I remember that one. I'm not sure, but I seem to remember that last sentence or two sounded very Ramsey-like, funnily enough.

I actually really liked 'Just After Sunset' as a collection. 'Everything's Eventual', on the other hand, I found quite a disappointment- a lot of weak, pedestrian stories bulking out a fairly slender bunch of good 'uns.

'Lisey's Story' I found a bit overrated, tbh. It felt awkward, somehow, the female narrator's voice didn't ring true to me. 'Duma Key', on the other hand, I loved; it was a rich, slow-burning novel with atmosphere and emotional depth.

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

And the new story, I think, is pretty damn good as well.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.68
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 12:42 pm:   

Do we agree with King?

No.

Do we write self-conscious crap now?

No.

Do I think about my readers?

No.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 01:42 pm:   

I don't think it's actually possible to write without thinking of the reader – but too often, the assumption of the reader's essential stupidity is used as a justification for shallow writing. All writing involves assumptions about what the reader knows and can make sense of. Even 'The Waste Land' had explanatory footnotes. But many publishers have a working model of 'the reader' that assumes poor literacy and infantile emotional reactions. That model is used to define 'the market'. Even more sadly, embodiments of said 'market' post reviews on Amazon to police their service providers.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 01:57 pm:   

I only think about readers during the editing stage - when I'm trying to whip my intensely personal witterings into some kind of coherent narrative. I think if you write something with a reader in mind, you're hobbling yourself from the start.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:13 pm:   

What I mean is that your personal notes are written in a private shorthand that nobody else could follow, and assume incidental knowledge that nobody else has. Once you write for publication you go into a mode of expression that is 'external'. But what exactly that requires is for you, not 'the market', to decide.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.54
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:22 pm:   

I jus think that if something I'm writing amuses/scares me, it'll amuse/scare any readers. I know I'm a tough audience and I'm my own harshest critic - finding most of what I've written quite predictable - which is understandable seeing as I wrote it...

Having said that, I've managed to creep myself out a couple of times and even surprised myself before now, when I found layers of meaning I hadn't intended.

If I'm happy with summat wot i've writed, I'm normally confident enough to send it out there...

BTW Anyone want to read a zombie apocyli..apoka... wotsit story?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:35 pm:   

Thing is, I was quite convinced by a lot of what King said because he's 'King'. Fact is, I DO write for myself but I am so afraid of being a navel-gazer as well, that anything I've written will alienate people, or worse, bore them. Today I'm writing a story very like another I've written, just exploring a theme (there might yet be a third), and am writing one book that is essentially two, but told from different perspectives that actually spoil one another if both were put 'out there'. I just don't know how to do it without scrapping one, which is difficult because I really like the idea of them both.
I have to say I get down when I think about who might want to read my stuff nowadays. My work feels like some new photograph photoshopped to look like something from the seventies. I think I'm trying to write things that might have been published then but never were. Is that a valid thing to do?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:40 pm:   

Weber - Just After Sunset; the word pedestrian popped into my mind, too. They feel at times like written up doodles, ideas I would have scrapped myself if I was him. The best so far is The Things They Leave Behind, not because it was especially great but because it moved me a bit and felt sort of cohesive, no lurches into straight horror or whatever. I hated the running woman one; way too much lurching. It just felt contrived.
I have to say though that I still love King and will always, always give him the benefit of the doubt.
Lisey's Story was another 'lurcher' - he can't concoct fantasy worlds very easily (Dark Tower the exception) and the sitting of LOTR type monsters beside quite moving relationship drams sits awkwardly for me, at least in this instance.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.215
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:41 pm:   

Just write whatever you were meant to write. Like King says, why do folk assume we have choice. You can try cutting against the grain, but then the work, in my experience, lacks richness. So just do what you can. Thinking about the market just clogs the whole process up, which is not to say one shouldn't be mindful of an audience.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:42 pm:   

I think of the reader in that I do want to connect with people somehow. Writing is my easiest means. It's nothing to do with money, not really (though that is a fine motive).
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.215
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:43 pm:   

I loved the opening half of Gingerbread Girl, and then it just become formulaic. I can see where you're coming from, Tony.

I much prefer King's novs. But as Zed says, Stationary Bike was excellent.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:45 pm:   

My other big fear is that if no-one reads me enough then I might be making mistakes. I'd hate, for instance, to step outside the horror publishing field (which I find very friendly on the whole) only to find anything 'straight' I try to do completely dismissed.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:48 pm:   

Yes! Gingerbread Girl was crushingly two-halved, almost - actually it was - damaged by the horror stuff. I think King is actually hobbled by his love of horror sometimes. I wish he'd split himself into two, because both aspects of his writing would benefit. GG would have been much better if it had started less delicatley; it 'became' pulp, and should have started that way.
If he were a chef he'd be an awful mixer of ingredients.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.215
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:48 pm:   

You do worry a lot, Tony. Just bracket all the fears about writing and write. You're like a man walking downstairs and thinking about the process - decidedly apt to trip. The only way to do it is do it. King wrote that in The Dark Half. And he should know.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.215
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:50 pm:   

I agree that sometimes King is hobbled by his love of horror, that he sometimes gives in too easily to the temptation to reach for the ketchup.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:51 pm:   

Ha! I know. At least it's a common kind of worry, and one that I hope leads to a kind of quality control (it crippled Capote in the end. You might even say killed...:-()
This comes in waves, too; I could be smashing again in an hour or two.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.215
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 02:57 pm:   

I know how you feel. Just don't believe the lies your mind tells you when you're feeling down about your work. It'll pass.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.38
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 03:00 pm:   

Did anyone else play a game of spot the King chapters when they read The Black House?

It was blatant in places where Straub stopped and King started and quite distracting. Which is a shame because The Talisman didn't suffer from that fault.

Incidentally, the King bits seemed poorly written at times in comparison to the Straub.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 03:05 pm:   

Poor King; is he a YA author, after all?
:-(
He just writes so much we get to see his underpants.
(that made sense in my head)
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 71.228.39.43
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 03:18 pm:   

It seems to me that society has gotten a lot more self-conscious in the past thirty years and that any writer who ignores that self-consciousness isn't writing about contemporary society or people in any meaningful way. Too often writers stop trying to get reality down and settle for imitating other (often dead) writers' styles and worldviews. I think this attitude has contributed to the decline of popularity of short fiction and of fiction in general.


>> You do worry a lot, Tony. Just bracket all the fears about writing and write. You're like a man walking downstairs and thinking about the process - decidedly apt to trip. The only way to do it is do it.

My own experience is that those fears are trying to tell you something. If you're feeling hesitant about your work, it's your subconscious letting you know you're headed in the wrong direction. My two cents.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 03:27 pm:   

Shit!
That's a frightening post. It means 'quit'.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 03:28 pm:   

Even though my hit-rate is pretty good.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.130.94
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 03:29 pm:   

As many have said there is no choice...you write for yourself. If you try to write for the 'reader' and each one of them expects/wants/sees something different in the work anyway it would be like writing in a prison cell. And there would be no experimentation and development. You need a free hand. You have to have confidence and know what you are doing can work.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 03:35 pm:   

Does anyone think that the net and over-publishing is allowing us to see too much work-in-progress? Is the filter set too low nowadays? People can pretend to do anything now - pretend they are a publisher, publish someone who is still trying to be a writer.
I have an horrific feeling this is right.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.88.56
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 03:42 pm:   

Chris - was this you? I just found it while trying to look you up (in a good way!). It touches on a lot of the things we've been discussing (I hope you don't mind me quoting it here...please say if you do and i'll get Gary to wipe it up.));

'CHRISTOPHER MORRIS:

You are a writer who has from time to time used another writer’s work as a source of inspiration for your own stories. I wonder if this is a result of any artistic self-consciousness on your part? (I suffer from this a great deal and I’m always seeking ways to conquer it.) If so, do you have any techniques for defeating self-consciousness in writing? Are you from time to time affected by writer’s block or feelings of doubt? When beginning a new work, do you struggle for inspiration? How do you overcome these afflictions?

PETER STRAUB:

I used John Fowles’ THE MAGUS and the great Melville story “Bartleby the Scrivener” as inspirations or subtexts for two things I’ve written, SHADOWLAND and “Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff.” I’m not sure self-consciousness was really an issue here — it was more a question of being tremendously excited and moved by something I had read, then deciding to see if I might be able to do something with it. However, I do understand the question — self-consciousness can be as inhibiting in writing as it is in social situations. It amounts to a sort of hyper-awareness of the weight of the words being used and far too much awareness of where this stuff came from in the first place. Your influences threaten to overwhelm you. The worst thing you can do is lose yourself in the maze of how you happen to be echoing another writer’s situations or stances or prose. People find themselves rewriting the same fifty pages over and over, forever. The cure, to the extent that a cure exists, is to move forward, to keep writing and trust that in time what you are writing will feel like fresh experience, your own reality, not a meditation on another writer. I guess I don’t really believe in writer’s block. Sometimes you must wait for things to fall into place within yourself, but that is another matter. At those times, you are still working, although no one believes it. At the beginning of a book, I am very much feeling my way forward, paying attention to the feeling tone of the words as they appear on the page while still in a state of creative uncertainty as to pretty much everything that is to follow.'
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 04:12 pm:   

>> That's a frightening post. It means 'quit'.

No, no. I absolutely don't mean that. I never recommend quitting. I just mean you should "try another story/writing style/etc."

>>Chris - was this you?

Yep. That was me eight (or so) years ago. And I don't mind the quote (although I can't speak for Straub).

Three things about this, though:

1. I defeated my literary self-consciousness, to the extent that I did, by ceasing to write "writerly" stories -- that is, stories that have conventional plot structures and that reflect a certain unself-conscious reality common to works of fiction. My trouble with writing turned out to be a trouble with that sort of story: I simply can't write that sort of story. (More on this in a minute.) That's why my advice to you was to listen to your subconscious on these matters, that it may be instructing you to write another way or another type of story.

2.) I asked Straub about using another writer's work as an inspiration knowing full well Straub had done this a number of times. I've read tons of interviews with him, and over the years he's admitted using other writers' novels/stories as inspirations (or stepping-off points) for nearly all of his works: Julia (Henry James); If You Could See Me Now (John Hawkes); Ghost Story (King's SALEM'S LOT; Machen; MR James); Shadowland (Fowles's THE MAGUS); "The Juniper Tree" (Dumas's THE LOVER); "Mrs. God" (Henry James; Aickman); Mr. X (Henry James; Lovecraft); etc.

I can't say why Straub ssays he used only THE MAGUS and "Bartleby" as inspirations when clearly he didn't. Maybe he didn't want people to think he stole all his ideas? At any rate, I see nothing wrong with using another writer's idea as a jumping off point, so long as you actually jump off.

3.) Straub says here that he doesn't "really believe in writer's block." Apparently he no longer feels this way. In a recent interview, he admitted that he'd made this confession -- about not believing in writer's block -- on a panel discussion at a writer's convention. Other writers were sharing their writer's-block experiences, and Straub just laughed and said he didn't believe in it. The following day, he says, the "writing gods" struck him down with writer's block, which he endured for a full year afterwards.

When I said earlier that I can't write that kind of story, what I meant was this: I don't believe in plots. That is, I've never had a plot happen to me in real life. (Have you?) Me, I may have experienced partial plots, or setups without follow-throughs, or even weird resolutions without much setup. But I can't say I've ever endured a real plot. What I've found, then, is that I do much better writing about reality as I see it, and not as it's presented in your average work of fiction. (What's weird is that I'm okay with writing about ghosts and supernatural goings-on -- even though I don't believe in these things at all -- and that I don't usually have trouble reading other writers' works of fiction, the kind with the Freytag's-Pyramid kind of plot arc, even though this doesn't represent reality as I see it.)

I also am much more capable of defeating self-consciousness in my work when I'm focusing on certain types of details. I'd like to expound on this, but I'm afraid I'm boring everyone and this post is too long as it is. If anyone's curious, let me know.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 04:15 pm:   

I should point out that I defeated my self-consciousness by ceasing to write traditional plot-arc stories, but that I haven't sold very many of the resulting works. I'm still working in genre fiction, or a form of it, and I've found that genre editors are the least flexible about that traditional plot arc. C'est la vie.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.215
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 05:29 pm:   

To be honest, I just don't get all this agonising over what one writes, or how.

Do what you can. If it's good, it's good. If it isn't, have fun all the same.

Maybe that's just me.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 06:04 pm:   

I need to wear my special underpants whenever I write. They're beige Y-fronts, with a nice cream-coloured trim.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 06:12 pm:   

>>>claws out eyes and runs away screaming<<<
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 07:02 pm:   

>> To be honest, I just don't get all this agonising over what one writes, or how.

For me, writing was easy when I was a teenager. After a few lit classes in college self-consciousness set in. You could argue, maybe, that such lit classes are detrimental to writers, but really the classes forced me to read widely outside my areas of interest, and I began to see my own work with newly critical eyes. Such self-criticism, of course, is the first step toward self-consciousness. If you don't get the agonizing, Gary F, that's great -- good for you. But it's sort of interesting to me that any adult can write without a degree of self-consciousness. If you don't have certain quality considerations in mind while you write, aren't you just, well, typing?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 08:19 pm:   

I'm not saying I don't suffer self-consciousness, really. I do. I just don't let it bother me very much. I'm regularly embarrassed by how shit some piece of prose was, while reviewing it months after first draft, but I take it with a smile and just plod on. Writing doesn't have to be such a massive issue. Try and have fun with it.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 08:36 pm:   

Writing doesn't have to be such a massive issue. Try and have fun with it.

Wise words, mate...and ones very close to my own heart. Forget the angst; just do it. All those hours spent agonising, all those wasted words typed on message boards, could have been used up writing a story or a chapter instead.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 08:49 pm:   

Gary, perhaps you feel this way because being a writer is somewhat of a sideline for you? Professionally and academically, your real interests perhaps lie somewhere else, right? I mean, if you have a bad writing day, you're still a PhD, you've still got your more substantive work away from the word processor.

I don't have much else. I take writing seriously -- more seriously, I suspect, than I take any other non-familial aspect of my life -- and when it's not going well, then I'm not going well. If you take writing seriously and you have a bad day, well, no biggie. Keep on truckin'. If you take it seriously and you have three hundred bad days in a row, then a certain amount of self-destruction begins to set in.

I had thirteen bad years. (No joke.) I still produced work in that period, but as I had no rudder to steer by, it was weak, derivative work, affectless work, and I wasn't proud of it even as I was doing it. (Still, some of it was published, tho.) I was going through the motions. I had no acceptable fictional ideas, so I stole ideas, styles, approaches. I knew the resulting work wasn't really "mine" in any truly artistic sense, but as I was completely out of touch with who "I" was, it was the best I could do. To say that this was a 'massive issue' is something of an understatement. It defeated all my attempts at resolution. For a long while it defined my life.

Friends -- writer friends -- would give me the advice you just gave: sit down, just write. But, I would say: *what* do I write? What do you put on paper when nothing seems authentic? When I wrote I was a foreigner in my own skin. I had no idea how to sort it out.

The answer turned out to be to stop asking myself to write the wrong thing. I was trying to write something I didn't believe in. How could I be myself when I was doing that? Once I opened myself up to the possibility of writing works of fiction that didn't seem much like anyone else's, things started to open up for me.

I don't mean to make a bigger deal of this than it is (was), though. This was my problem to sort out. I'm sure few other people care. I'm only talking about it at length on the off-chance that my solution to this rather personal problem helps someone else.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:03 pm:   

>>>>Gary, perhaps you feel this way because being a writer is somewhat of a sideline for you? Professionally and academically, your real interests perhaps lie somewhere else, right? I mean, if you have a bad writing day, you're still a PhD, you've still got your more substantive work away from the word processor.

Not really, mate. I'd love to give up the day job and write full time, but I can't.

To be honest, I'd put this attitude down to my Northern English mindset: we're very practical in focus. Creative output for me is like making a good bacon sandwich. :-)

Also, I never let myself believe I'm writing great work. I just write what I write: solid horror tales. I'm no Shakespeare and never will be. So I don't sweat when I get nowhere near what those guys can do.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:06 pm:   

>> Creative output for me is like making a good bacon sandwich.

I'd agree with that. Only I'm the bacon.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:08 pm:   

>> Also, I never let myself believe I'm writing great work. I just write what I write: solid horror tales. I'm no Shakespeare and never will be. So I don't sweat when I get nowhere near what those guys can do.

Hm. I don't think I'm making myself very clear. It's hard to write about one's own neuroses. Ah, well. At any rate, Tony, if you're having difficulty with literary self-consciousness, ask me about it sometime and I'll be happy to muddy the waters with a reply.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:08 pm:   

Chris, have you ever heard Michael Caine talking about developing an individual style of acting? He starts off by saying, "Steal from everyone." And why not? The process you describe above sounds like the process all writers go through when they're developing a style. Authenticity comes from selecting tropes from writers you admire and then developing and combining them in your own way. It's the same with personal identity, only we're less reflexive about that process because we're children when it happens.

Check out Ramsey's essay in one of his intros, where he talks about how great composers' early work sounds like that of earlier masters - eg, Beethoven sounds like Haydn, Wagner like Beethoven, R Strauss like Wagner, etc.

It's the same in all artistic realms. Authenticity is build on imitation. How else could it be?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:11 pm:   

Chris, my comment re Shakespeare above wasn't in response to any comments you made. I was just speculating why I don't suffer the angst others do. (And believe me, nobody is more neurotic than me! ;)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.236.228
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:13 pm:   

Authenticity is build on imitation.
============

Not for me. :-)
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:26 pm:   

>> Authenticity comes from selecting tropes from writers you admire and then developing and combining them in your own way.

In some sense I'm sure that's true. (I know that many writers speak of this.) However, that's not exactly what I was doing. I was stealing and then not developing what I stole in my own way. I was trying to jump start an authentic artistic identity by assuming the identity of someone else's, but I never brought anything personal to the process. I'm a decent mimic. But mimicry is quite different from artistic invention.

Okay, let's put it this way: the novel as a drawing of an elephant. Let's say bookstores are filled not with novels but with drawings of elephants. You decide one day to draw an elephant yourself. No matter what your personal elephant-drawing skills were, you would no doubt draw an elephant that looked something like your personal idea of what an elephant looked like. Now what if you went to the bookstore and you saw hundreds of thousands of different drawings of elephants, and most of them looked like this:

http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art2/max-ernst-celebes-or-elephant-cel ebes.jpg

Would this affect the way you view your own drawing of an elephant? Wow, you might say, people sure see elephants differently than I do. Now, if you wanted to submit your own drawing of an elephant to a publisher so that your own work might end up in a bookstore, you probably wouldn't send the one you'd already drawn, right? Probably you'd suspect your chances of success were better if your elephant drawing looked a bit like everyone else's. So you study a lot of those images and you try to make your drawing of an elephant as much as possible like theirs.

You can work on mechanics. You can work on brushstrokes, color-blending, perspective. You can trace outlines and doctor photocopies. But unless you actually see an elephant in your head like the one in the picture, you'll only be imitating, never creating.

That's something like the problem I had. You could say it was above all a problem of confidence. I wanted my perspective to be inline with others'. I lacked the confidence to just create elephants the way I saw them.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:39 pm:   

I recognise a lot of this. As a teenager I had a pathological dislike of being-like-others. I think this was part of some ontological insecurity which associated being-like-others with no-longer-being-an-individual. So what others did, I did differently. It became my eccentricity. But, although there's still a streak of this in me, I eventually worked through it. And all that happened before I started writing. So I guess the authenticity issue had already being dealt with to some degree. And when I started writing my psychologically informed tales which drew on techniques I'd learned from Ramsey, it felt fine, even though I was essentially combining Merleau-Ponty with Mr Campbell, and wrapping them together with a fair nous for storytelling. But that's how it works, in my view. I think I'm much more authentic now, in my fiction. Paradoxically, my personal identity is perhaps more mainstream, but that's because I don't have the fight any more to swim against the tide. I'm getting old. I care less about me, and more about the world. But this is all just me.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:50 pm:   

Your Merleau-Ponty/Campbell blend is ingenious, Gary. An intuitive combination. I'm glad you found it.

I think my problem wasn't so much "being like others is no longer being an individual" -- it was more like "surely no one will understand my individuality so I'll try to be like others." How did you work your way through your "eccentricity", though? (Perhaps this is too personal a question. If so, just tell me to buzz off.)
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 09:53 pm:   

Thanks.

As for your question, I had to realise that my reluctance to be like others was just social phobia masquerading as superiority. As the great Robin Skynner says, simply going out into the world usually heals you. Financial necessity forced me to do that.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 10:28 pm:   

This has turned into one the most interesting threads this board has had to offer. It makes appetizing reading.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.236.228
Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 10:38 pm:   

Yes, I agree. Sorry I interrupted it.
I recognise the concept of "just social phobia masquerading as superiority", although I've always broken rules and then reconstructed them constructively, I hope...with a dash of Jungian autonymity.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 07:51 am:   

I think our personalities* dictate the kind of fiction we're drawn to and that we take from these authors what we admire at a subconscious level. Then, out of a desperate need to understand how to write, we combine such techniques, building up some Frankensteinian patchwork style to which we then add our own idiosyncratic issues (those born of personal experience - of life). The good ones among us adapt the structural framework we've cobbled together from others to what we have to say. If we have a lot to say, the style becomes unique, because it has an extra dimension we haven't learned from others: that of us, our perceptions, our lived events and their interpretation. Ramsey, a great master of style, still has elements of M R James and Leiber and Lovecraft and Greene in his stuff, but it has a lot more of Campbell's being-in-the-world about it and this renders it unique - or if you prefer, authentic.

*That in itself needs considerable unpacking.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 08:21 am:   

Just going back to the social phobia issue: from a psychological point of view, I think this is about a fear of being subsumed by others, but only because one believes, possibly as a result of early experience (ie, being the exclusive focus of a smother-mother), one is "bigger" than others. Imagine that people have a map in their heads and that in order to become well-adapted to everyday life, it's important to get oneself the right size on that map - neither too large nor too small. Now, while the well-adjusted person in other company feels the right size (just as big/small as others), the social phobic wants to feel large. However, being among others makes her/him feel too small, and this constant shift between grandiosity and insignficance is bewildering and disturbing. So the social phobic either a) avoids others and morally justifies this withdrawal in a way which s/he can accept (ie, other people are not worth bothering with); b) struggles to engage, usually with the help of 'prosthetics' (ie, alcohol); c) accepts these engrained limitations and does the best s/he can.

Interestingly, my brother has just been diagnosed as bipolar, and I think in this condition we see these wild swings from being too large and being too small. I think I have a bit of that in me, though unlike him, I've managed to control it, using the highs to my advantage (ie, creativity) and avoiding hard drugs during the lows. And yes, I do think that this has a biological basis, but that there's also a profound social dimension to it.

There you go: Fry exposes himself in public part 234324583.

I'm just riffing on the emergent themes from this thread. Sorry if it's now OT. But . . . I just wonder whether the need for artistic authenticity is connected in any way to what I've just described. I'm not saying it can be reduced to that; I'm just saying it may involve aspects of it. Ultimately, we're all trying to communicate with others, aren't we? And perhaps what we can't get across in person, we attempt to say in our work.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 08:32 am:   

Oh, and while I have my psychology head on: Bakhtin suggests that all form of discursive activity - ie, writing - presupposes someone we're addressing, that it's impossible to write in an interpersonal vacuum. He asserts this on the basis of an assumption that consciousness itself is dialogically configured, just as George Herbert Mead does. To be a person is to be saturated by community, to be created by engagement with others (much as I described two posts up in a literary context). Bahktin also adds the following comment: fuck you, Descartes . . . which I admit to paraphrasing somewhat.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 08:56 am:   

In other words, you might claim that self-consciousness in fiction writing is not about the opinion of others, that it's about being authentic to oneself. But if oneself is a dialogical being, co-created with others, then private self-consciousness is just public self-consciousness enacted 'in-house'.

In short, I conclude in an ad hoc manner, Tony's problem is a social phenomenon, which goes down deep into his manner of engagement with everyday life.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 09:05 am:   

And if I'm being cruel to myself, and mercilessly honest, I think this is the case: my own lack of self-consciousness about my fiction, whether it's good or bad, arises from the fact that I find its mode of communication with the world eminently preferable to having to engage with it face-to-face. It's a comparative thing. It feels easy because the alternative is, for me at least, hard.

(These are all just my reflections on experience, to be taken or dismissed. I claim no royal road.)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.236.228
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 09:44 am:   

I think it may be impossible to delve into oneself so as to gauge one's creativity and social hubs. I possibly have all sorts of complexes but I can't compare them to anyone else's as I only have my own mind with which to compare the same mind! However, there are potentially many speculations one can make - as I do in my fiction - and much constructive deliberate ground-breaking to reveal more and more of thoss speculations. Meanwhile, one can easily be misunderstand. There is currently someone on the DARK TOWER ORG public forum who is accusing me of being high on drugs becuase of my RTR of 'The Dark Tower'!
Anyway thanks for some really meaty stuff to consider. Meaty, and brainy.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 71.228.39.43
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 03:16 pm:   

>> In other words, you might claim that self-consciousness in fiction writing is not about the opinion of others, that it's about being authentic to oneself. But if oneself is a dialogical being, co-created with others, then private self-consciousness is just public self-consciousness enacted 'in-house'.

Food for thought. I can say with a degree of confidence that my own self-consciousness arises (at least in part) from the war in my head over the way I see myself and the way (I understand) others perceive me. If these two concepts were in-line, then perhaps a lot of my self-consciousness would go away.

Is there a pill for that, doctor?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 04:23 pm:   

I'm not sure now whether we're talking about literary or personal identity, but in either case, the solution Skynner suggests is that, in most cases, simply going out into the world will heal you. For reluctant artist and shrinking violet alike, being in the world allows him/her to a) accurate perceive how others view him/her; b) proactively affect how others perceive him/her; c) synthesise a new Gestalt - a new sense of literary/personal self - as a consequence of these actions. My own Sartrean view is that we are what we persuade other people we are, and only other people can persuade us that this is what we are!

There's risk here, and it depends on the community to which you seek recourse, but on the whole this is a positive path out of intra-personal confusion. A lot of what people experience as anxiety is simply holding back, keeping the brakes on in life. It's like the body is perpetually primed for fight or flight, and one remains indecisive between two options - something which generates corrosive tension.

All of which kind of goes back to earlier comments about not thinking too much about the process of writing/living, and just writing/living. A fine trick - a habit, really - and one which requires only a little bottle and some dogged effort.

(On the other hand, you might discover that you really are a cunt. I know I did. :-))
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 06:04 pm:   

I think there's truth to what you're saying, although I'm not exactly a social recluse. Am I a social phobic? Never thought of myself that way. I have some very close friends, after all. Still, I confess to a number of misgivings about hanging out with large groups of people, who, it seems to me, tend to enjoy enthusiasms and interests well outside my own. Conversations there tend to be superficial and uninteresting. I mean, I can make small talk and can navigate social situations with ease, but I don't think that's what you're talking about here.

Your "we are what we persuade other people we are, and only other people can persuade us that this is what we are" makes me think of the old adage about bullies being powerless without your permission. In the case of bullies, though, whose opinions can be vicious, this persuasion would be to our detriment. Either way, though, you often end up with two opinions that do not coincide. At least one, then, must be wrong, but as all opinion is subjective (particularly regarding art), it's impossible to tell where the truth lies. Am I genius or (as you put it) a cunt?. Surely somewhere in between. Another old adage: "You'd worry less about what people thought of you if you only realized how little they did so." This adage is no doubt true but useless when trying to improve one's art.

"Synthesizing a new Gestalt," as you put it -- does this just mean "assessing consensus opinion about yourself"? Tricky stuff for an artist: As popular art is so often bad -- and good art often ignored -- consensus opinion quickly ceases to be a reliable metric, wouldn't you say?

If, as you say, this new Gestalt depends on "the community to which you seek recourse," it seems to me that you're saying "your opinion of yourself changes depending on the company you keep." There is some truth to this, I think, but I'm not sure how it applies to writing. Are you saying I'd judge my own stories less harshly if I found a group of readers who loved my work? This seems (a) implausible (no such group to my knowledge exists) and (b) unhealthy anyway.

No doubt I'm "thinking too much about the process of writing/living" but I think that's just in my DNA. I apologize for dragging you (everyone?) through all this. Still, thanks for your opinion, Doc. I'll (over)think about it and see what I can do with it.

Do I owe you money or something?
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.236.228
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 06:17 pm:   

When certain people come round, I'm worried abot my D-i-Y skills and housework etc. When others come round, I'm worried about my successes in the creative world.
The only thing about the creative world is concerned: you can NEVER be satisfied with how well you've done. Not even Stephen King can be satisfied. You are ever chasing success and you will never reach it. learn that, and you will be happy.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 06:30 pm:   

>>>>Synthesizing a new Gestalt," as you put it -- does this just mean "assessing consensus opinion about yourself"?

Not at all! It can just as easily mean cultivating the appreciation of others. You forgot stage b) in my three-stage process above. This isn't just about humbly seeking feedback; it's about proactively engaging in the world and even changing that world (in however modest a fashion) via the effort.

>>>If, as you say, this new Gestalt depends on "the community to which you seek recourse," it seems to me that you're saying "your opinion of yourself changes depending on the company you keep." There is some truth to this, I think, but I'm not sure how it applies to writing. Are you saying I'd judge my own stories less harshly if I found a group of readers who loved my work? This seems (a) implausible (no such group to my knowledge exists) and (b) unhealthy anyway.

As above, no. You try changing the world so that it changes you. You're thinking of this as a one-way process in which one solicts opinion and others either endorse or reject. Nor is it a mechanical process. It's mysterious, and involves subtle and immense paradigm shifts. The moment you realise things have changed, you can no longer perceive the moment at which it did. In fact, you're no longer the same person, and perhaps cannot even understand the problem any more!

Not sure I'm making sense now. Just finished work, so am a bit tired.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 06:50 pm:   

Thanks, Gary. I won't pursue this any longer. As I said earlier, my artistic self-consciousness has largely been defeated. But what you say here makes a certain degree of sense. I'll mull it over, see what conclusions I come to.

Thanks again.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 07:06 pm:   

>>>I should point out that I defeated my self-consciousness by ceasing to write traditional plot-arc stories, but that I haven't sold very many of the resulting works. I'm still working in genre fiction, or a form of it, and I've found that genre editors are the least flexible about that traditional plot arc. C'est la vie.

I see your tension. You're trying to write cat fiction for dog people. So I guess you just keep on demonstrating the virtues of cats until the dog folk become less species specific.

Told you I was tired. :-)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.236.228
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 07:07 pm:   

You're both making sense. Thanks. Not that you need a 3rd party to tell you that. (One of the best forum threads ever).
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 07:22 pm:   

>> I see your tension. You're trying to write cat fiction for dog people. So I guess you just keep on demonstrating the virtues of cats until the dog folk become less species specific.

Yep. I think that's what I'm doing (or resigned to do). Maybe I'll convert a few dogfolk my way.

Des: thanks. If my gut-spilling is of any use to anyone I'll be very pleased.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 07:45 pm:   

So that split inside you which you mentioned earlier: it ain't ever gonna go 'way until you reinvent the genre, dude.

No pressure.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.29.29
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 08:08 pm:   

Rather sad to realise the cat fiction reference was just a metaphor. It would be great to see a complex discussion on literary theory and practice lead to the conclusion that we need more cat stories. A Kantian synthesis of thinking and feline.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 08:16 pm:   

The only thing about the creative world is concerned: you can NEVER be satisfied with how well you've done. Not even Stephen King can be satisfied. You are ever chasing success and you will never reach it. learn that, and you will be happy.

Hear-hear, Des. Learning that fact certainly helped me sort out my own psychological ticks regarding my work.

Now I just write what I write, trying to beat myself each time, and really don't even worry about the other stuff r the other people. Oddly, that's when the tiny modicum of success I'm enjoying arrived. Is there a lesson in that? Fucked if I know.

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