Rejected!

The Mayor's Skin came back on Friday, with an unsigned, half-sheet rejection letter.

This was what I call an "expected rejection" — I submitted it where I did not because I thought it would suit them particularly, but because they pay well and respond quickly, and my first choice is currently closed to submissions. Even so, it stung, in part because the editor said the story "couldn't hold [his] interest." It's a form letter, one that's been sent to thousands of writers this year alone, and it intends nothing personal; but that phrase clutches at the roots of a writer's self-worth. If I can't hold your interest, I have no back-up strategy. I'm a crank, a poser, a dabbler, a machine for killing time.

To defuse this line of thought, I list off the writers who inspire me — Gene Wolfe, M. John Harrison, China Miéville — and remind myself that there are millions of people in the world whose interest they can't hold, who set their books and stories down after two pages and move on without looking back. Not everybody has to catch what I'm pitching. To quote Joel Hodgson (another personal hero), "We never ask, 'Who’s gonna get this?' We always say, 'The right people will get this'."

Now I just gotta find the right people.

Mamet Memo

Over at SFNovelists.com, James Alan Gardner links to this brilliant (and highly capitalized) memo from David Mamet to the writers of The Unit. Read it. I've been hitting myself in the center of the forehead with a hammer trying to make my brain accept what Mamet says clearly, succinctly, and loudly. Here's an excerpt:

ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STANDALONE (THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN.

YES BUT YES BUT YES BUT, YOU SAY: WHAT ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF WRITING IN ALL THAT “INFORMATION?”

AND I RESPOND “FIGURE IT OUT” ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER”, AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HIM”.

WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN IS HAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE WILL BE OUT OF A JOB.

THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. NOT TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO*SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAME”

WE ARE NOT GETTING PAID TO REALIZE THAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS THIS INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT SCENE, BUT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WRITE THE SCENE BEFORE US SUCH THAT THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED IN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

YES BUT, YES BUT YES BUT YOU REITERATE.

AND I RESPOND FIGURE IT OUT.

I am constantly, constantly asking myself, "How will I get all this information into this scene?" and it constantly, constantly, turns my scenes into oatmeal.

And I respond, figure it out.

Epigraphy

During Sunday's scattershot research, I found an epigraph for the new book, from the Book of Enoch (one of the non-canonical, pseudepigraphical biblical books):

"For men were not born for this,
thus with pen and with ink
to confirm their faith."
—Enoch 68:13

An epigraph, as you may know, is that little quote or aphorism you find on a page by itself before the main text begins. I was chuckling about putting the cart before the horse by picking one before writing word one of the book, but as Kendra points out I really have no idea when or how other writers choose their epigraphs. They might do what I have done, or they might wait to select one until the publisher has sent them their page proofs, or one might leap upon them from the bushes anywhere in between. (Writers, please share!) I like to settle on one early, to keep my mind from wandering.

For The Slow Palace — which was a long, difficult slog, and at times began giving off the stink of abandonment — having an epigraph I really liked was one of the things that drew me back to the book. (The other was an early scene with a strigil, which kept coming insistently to mind when I was dashing the water from my body after showering.) Here's The Slow Palace's epigraph:

"And time will never end,


for it is always at a beginning."


Aristotle, Physics

That stayed constant through massive changes to the book's structure, characters, and plot; it served as a touchstone for what I wanted to say when everything else was changing. It doesn't bear a one-to-one relation to anything in the book, and indeed might prove baffling even to those who've read it, but it was a reminder of what made me excited about the work in the first place, a little chip of mood and tone from a particular moment at the beginning of things. For the new book, I'll be able to look up at the white wall above my iMac and see the quote from Enoch floating there, and maybe it'll keep me on course.

One minor problem: different versions of Enoch seem to use different numbering schemes. The verse above is 68:13 in Richard Laurence's 1883 translation, but 69:10 in R.H. Charles's 1917 translation. Anyone who knows how to properly cite Enoch, I'd be delighted to find out in the comments.

Welcome to the Palace; please enjoy the Slow

I am convinced, at this moment, that my future success as a writer depends on choosing exactly the right fonts for this blog. Mountains of Christmas and Kranky? Sure, why not. I haven't even begun to think about favicons. The writing life is complicated.

I recently wrote a book, called The Slow Palace. It's set in an empire in which time moves more and more slowly as you progress toward the center, meaning, among other things, that the Emperor has been ruling for twelve hundred years or so. A clockmaker named Scrutiny is propelled by love and promises and guilt toward the center of the Empire, which leads him to war, secrets, murder, monasteries, religious heterodoxy, barbarians, ghosts, saints, and chickens. I'm in the shopping-it-to-agents phase.

I'm just beginning another book, which doesn't have a title yet. I know a few things about it — the fundamental structure, the identities and issues of the protagonist and her foil, the underlying conceit about the way the world works, a couple of set pieces and settings. I know it's about taboos, and draws inspiration from things I heard China Miéville say at the Brattle Theater and a passage in Gene Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun. I know it will include caterpillar inflation. I know it's set in a world that's much like our own, and a city that's much like Boston, because I want to be able to mine my day-to-day experiences of life in the city. I did a bit of that for The Slow Palace, but its historical setting meant I mostly trawled for inspiration in books and museums and ancient Italian churches. Now, I get to be a magnet moving through the city, collecting whatever needles and pins jump up and stick to me. Soon I will be spined and glittering.

Between novels, I wrote a short story or novelette (~8200 words) called The Mayor's Skin. It's sort of a D&D nostalgia piece, sort of a dark fairy tale, sort of a trip to a museum of natural history — but not really any of those things. It's currently in the mail.

There's my introductory post. Thanks for visiting.