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Joined: 6/7/2011
Posts: 467
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I've been thinking a lot about the books I haven't written yet. It's amazing how real, how palpable they seem. And perfect. Not yet encumbered by all this painful business of words and paragraphs and so forth. I admit, there's a part of me that says just leave them unwritten. And another that knows they'll never rest until they have been rendered into imperfect words.
Then just today, I stumbled upon this quote from Samuel Delany in his memoir The Motion of Light and Water. I share it with you below, sans editorial comment, just because.
"Myself, I've always felt that the stories we tell ourselves about the books which we only know slightly and fleetingly, by rumor or inflationary report, end up being even more 'influential' than the works we encounter full on, absorb, judge, and come to occupy some balanced relation with. From well-read books we absorb the unquestioned laws of genre, the readerly familiarity with rhetorical figures, narrational tropes, conventional attitudes and expectations. From others, however, we manufacture the dreams of possibility, of variation, of what might be done outside and beyond the genre that the others have already made a part of our readerly language."
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Joined: 6/18/2012
Posts: 228
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I love this.
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Joined: 6/7/2011
Posts: 467
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Yes. Delany is a rare jewel.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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That's a really good quote, Atthys.
I find that I'm eager to write the books in my head. To me they don't feel finished, and I can't wait to discover what will unfold as I tap them out with a click-click-click. Writing holds a certain rhythm for me, and while daydreaming is fun, I find that I enjoy working on those ideas so that they become fully realized.
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Joined: 6/7/2011
Posts: 467
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I agree, LeeAnna. The real fascination is seeing what those dream books turn into as they solidify on the page. They go their own way, despite our best efforts. Sometimes that's amazing. Sometimes (let's admit it), it's not what we had hoped for, but heck, it's like with children. You love 'em anyway.
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they'll never rest until they have been rendered into imperfect words.
As we say here in Kentucky, "Ain't that the truth?"
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Not only do I love Delany's quote, your introduction is beautifully written. I admit my addiction. I've suffered from many daydreaming overdoses. I need to join a group, like DA, not Dumbledore's Army, Daydreamers Anonymous. Even when I'm working, my mind flutters away, and it usually takes me forever to finish something (...is that called ADHD?).
When my mind stumbles upon a good story, I take note of it, write a little dribble and put it in storage for later. If I get to it before I die, yay! If not, so what, I'll be dead, I don't think I'll care.
I don't intend to make a story out of every idea. Most of it's shit anyway. I can only picture Christian Bale taking his shirt off and calling me baby so many times until I'm bored...okay, I lied that never gets old.
***I might establish a DA group. We could meet in someone's head once a month. Warning: Meetings in my head might scare you. Christian Bale will be there and he will be naked.
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adhd is a lot more complex than that.  but i could totally get behind a DA group.
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Joined: 6/7/2011
Posts: 467
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Well as David Byrne indicated, there's always a party in my mind, which is horrifying in a way. I don't mind folks dropping by as long as they clean up their empties on their way out.
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Joined: 11/17/2011
Posts: 1016
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Jay's lectures to the contrary, if I write well (and I believe I do) it is due to reading fine prose and extracting lessons from it. And by reading lesser prose and finding things to admire there.
I am going to track down this Delany guy and see what else he has to say.
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Joined: 6/7/2011
Posts: 467
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Mimi. I'd be glad to make some recommendations.
His stuff ranges from sci fi to fantasy to, yes, porn. None of these will be quite what you expect in his hands. The pornographic stuff is pretty disturbing, to the point of not having an erotic component (at least for me). The fantasy is gritty and complicated and sometimes pretty violent. The sci fi (which is by far the bulk of his output) runs the gamut from out-and-out space opera to mind-twisting speculative fiction that strains the genre boundaries to bursting. All of it is surprising, challenging, and impeccably written.
His criticism is also fascinating (and challenging). A lot of it is about language in general and the language of science fiction in particular. He's an erudite guy, with a deep interest in semiotics and so forth. Frankly, he's a bit out of my league as far as that stuff goes but it's still interesting.
Well worth anyone's time.
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Joined: 11/17/2011
Posts: 1016
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Great! Give me a few titles and I'll add them to my list, for the next time I hit Amazon. Give me everything you admire on theory and criticism also.
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Joined: 6/7/2011
Posts: 467
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Finally a fun assignment!
I don't know your feelings on sci fi. I don't read that much of it, but certain writers (Delany, Russ, LeGuin, Tiptree) I read by the shovelful. A good place to start with Delany is the short story collection called Driftglass. Read the stories The Star Pit, Aye and Gomorrah, We...Move on a Rigourous Line, and Time Considered... That should give you a good idea whether he is your kind of writer.
Beyond that, his novels are varied and remarkable. The most famous, Dhalgren, deals with a nameless drifter who enters a city after some never explained cataclysm has occurred, where lawlessness (of a sort) reigns and time runs backwards and slops sideways. (I think our own Carl Reed described it as a 'mobius strip of a novel'.) It's a great book, though not for everyone.
Nova is a more traditional space opera, but it is also a fantastic example of how the man weaves disparate elements (tarot cards, technology, economy, novel writing) into a tapestry that is, simply, a rollicking good story. (One theme that haunts Delany's work is his fascination with weapons as musical instruments of other objects of an artistic nature. Lo Lobey carries a machete that is also a long flute. The Mouse plays the SensoSyrinx, which creates a sort of music for all the senses and can be turned to deadly purpose.) Often compared to Moby Dick, it isn't hard to see the connecting threads (entirely conscious on Delany's part, of course) between the two novels.
Probably that is more than enough to be getting on with, but another really delightful early novel of his is The Einstein Intersection which is, frankly, difficult to describe. A future earth has become inhabited by a new sort of creatures who have adopted not only our form but our mythologies (not just Orpheus, but Billy the Kid, Jean Harlow). It is an awkward fit certainly, but there's a beautiful inevitability about it all. Against all odds, its a remarkably hopeful book.
I'm not really qualified to comment on his critical works. The Jewel Hinged Jaw is his best known work and certainly full of a lot of chewy stuff. The quote that kicks off this thread is from The Motion of Light in Water, which is a memoir of his early days. There's a lot about writing from both a theoretical and practical standpoint in there, plus a lot of fascinating observation of a world I was certainly never a part of. Yes, there are vivid accounts of his numerous sexual encounters. He was, by all reports, a smart, attractive, young homosexual in pre-AIDS New York, open to practically anything. The fact that these accounts are many, and yet do not swamp the book or turn it into what could've been merely lurid, is a testament to the writer and his vision.
Alright, nuff said. Back to work. (Me, not you.)
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@MariAdkins: Sounds like we can meet in Atthys head. Lol 
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Joined: 11/17/2011
Posts: 1016
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Well, I've got a lot of names to add to my list. I'll pick out a few and check them out. The sci-fi that I have enjoyed, I read in spite of it being sci-fi, because it was so well written.
Thanks!
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Joined: 6/7/2013
Posts: 1356
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Atthys Gage wrote:I've been thinking a lot about the books I haven't written yet. It's amazing how real, how palpable they seem. And perfect. Not yet encumbered by all this painful business of words and paragraphs and so forth. I admit, there's a part of me that says just leave them unwritten. And another that knows they'll never rest until they have been rendered into imperfect words.
How gorgeously articulated is this!
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Do books not yet written have kinship with roads less traveled? Those with a passion to write feel a constant stream of stories ascending from the pith of their beings. These stories are as real as the ones parading on the written page. All of humanity is connected by the air it breathes, the water it drinks and the stories it must ultimately tell.
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Do books not yet written have kinship with roads less traveled? Those with a passion to write feel a constant stream of stories ascending from the pith of their beings. These stories are as real as the ones parading on the written page. All of humanity is connected by the air it breathes, the water it drinks and the stories it must ultimately tell.
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