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Due, no doubt, to some bizarre oversight, nobody has asked me this question, but thank goodness ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
maryrobinette has answered it: how do you make realistic looking entrails?
Q: ( spoilerish for A Companion to Wolves )
Q: How do you pronounce Eusebian? More like use-bee-an or yoose-ee-bee-an?
A: you-SEE-bee-an
(Which isn't really the correct pronunciation, since the Greek /eu/ is not pronounced like the English long /u/, but it's how all my native Marathine speakers would say it, unless Felix is being a pedant.)
Q: Did it bug you that the artist didn't give Felix two different colored eyes on the cover of the first novel?
A: No. I grew up as a fantasy fan; I know just how utterly abysmally wretched fantasy covers can be. I was, and still am, deeply grateful for that cover. The composition is good, the anatomy is correct, Felix is recognizable as himself. And I love the fact that not only did they ask me what the tattoos should look like, they listened to my answer.
Q: Why no maps? I found the map of Melusine on your webpage, but I would have loved a map of the entire world...it would have helped me keep some things straight as I was reading.
A: Because Ace didn't want them. It wasn't a decision I had any part of. Most things about the books that aren't the words of the story were things I had no control over.
Q: What else can you tell us about Edith Pelpheria? I know that you didn't fully make up all of the folk tales and such, but I was wondering if you had any more of the plot, or the history of the play itself.
A: The playwright, Asline Wren, is Meduse's equivalent of Shakespeare. Edith Pelpheria is sort of a cross between Shakespeare's major tragedies and The Tragedy of Mariam, Fair Queen of Jewry by Elizabeth Cary, which is the only play written by a woman in the early modern period that has survived. Edith Pelpheria has long been a test of female tragic actors--like every Shakespearean in our world wants to do Hamlet. Mehitabel's comments in The Mirador actually give you as much of the plot as I know.
If I could write blank verse, I would have written the vigil chapel scene, but I can't fake it for more than a couple of lines.
Q: A piece of wisdom floating around suggests that a person needs to write a million words before they can produce something people will find worth reading. Similar advice says you need to spend a lot of time on writing before you get to a place, with a lot of luck, you can make a living off it.
How do you think academic writing fits into that? Can aspiring writers count academic oriented literature (particularly uppper-year and graduate work) as part of their portfolio of written works, or does only fiction count?
A: Um. Okay.
The million words of shit idea--which I've heard attributed to Ray Bradbury, although I don't know if that's true--is the idea that (a.) writing, like most things, is learn by doing, and (b.) learning takes time and practice. So, in order to become a good writer, you have to write, and you have to accept that the first million words or so are your apprenticeship, in the same way that when you sit down at a piano for the first time, you aren't going to be able to play a Mozart fantasia. You can't skip learning scales and finger exercises and the little Bach minuets and "Für Elise," and you need that million words in order both to learn how to write and to exorcise all of your influences and clichés. (There's a lot of my juvenilia that's bad Stephen King pastiche, for instance, and then there's every stupid plot-coupon fantasy clicé you've ever heard of.) The only way out is through, which is a mantra I chant to myself in the really bad patches.
Writing, as I said, is learn by doing. You can't learn how to write by reading, either how-to books or other fiction. (You can learn how to write better, but not the fundamental thing that is writing.) So, following that logically, the only way to learn to write stories is to write stories. Essays aren't the same thing. The million-words-of-shit koan isn't really about the quantity of words; it's about the amount of practice it takes to learn how to do anything well. (Ten years of working at it, the studies say.) And once you've learned to do something well, there's the lifelong grail quest of learning to do it better.
I do think you can certainly learn things writing academic papers that will apply to writing fiction. I learned to recognize my own tendency to talk in circles from academic writing, and it sure shows up in my fiction. You can learn things about putting a sentence together, and structuring a paragraph, things about exposition and how to be convincing. But writing essays will not teach you to write stories--and that's what the million-words-of-shit koan is really about: what teaches you how to write stories is writing stories--and then learning from your mistakes and writing more stories.
As for making a living at writing--that has nothing to do with whether you're a good writer or not. It has to do with whether you are a prolific writer. (Some prolific writers are excellent writers; see for example,matociquala. Some prolific writers are not excellent writers. It's a completely different continuum.) And even prolific writers have a hell of a time making a living with nothing but their fiction writing. Most writers have day jobs, or partners who are willing to shoulder the extra burden. (I, for example, do not make enough money from writing to live on--or, at least, I really wouldn't want to have to try it. My earnings supplement mirrorthaw's income nicely, but I have no illusions about who the breadwinner in our house is.) This is not a profession to get into because you want a steady or bountiful paycheck.
Q: ( spoilers for Corambis )
[Ask your question(s) here.]
maryrobinette has answered it: how do you make realistic looking entrails?Q: ( spoilerish for A Companion to Wolves )
Q: How do you pronounce Eusebian? More like use-bee-an or yoose-ee-bee-an?
A: you-SEE-bee-an
(Which isn't really the correct pronunciation, since the Greek /eu/ is not pronounced like the English long /u/, but it's how all my native Marathine speakers would say it, unless Felix is being a pedant.)
Q: Did it bug you that the artist didn't give Felix two different colored eyes on the cover of the first novel?
A: No. I grew up as a fantasy fan; I know just how utterly abysmally wretched fantasy covers can be. I was, and still am, deeply grateful for that cover. The composition is good, the anatomy is correct, Felix is recognizable as himself. And I love the fact that not only did they ask me what the tattoos should look like, they listened to my answer.
Q: Why no maps? I found the map of Melusine on your webpage, but I would have loved a map of the entire world...it would have helped me keep some things straight as I was reading.
A: Because Ace didn't want them. It wasn't a decision I had any part of. Most things about the books that aren't the words of the story were things I had no control over.
Q: What else can you tell us about Edith Pelpheria? I know that you didn't fully make up all of the folk tales and such, but I was wondering if you had any more of the plot, or the history of the play itself.
A: The playwright, Asline Wren, is Meduse's equivalent of Shakespeare. Edith Pelpheria is sort of a cross between Shakespeare's major tragedies and The Tragedy of Mariam, Fair Queen of Jewry by Elizabeth Cary, which is the only play written by a woman in the early modern period that has survived. Edith Pelpheria has long been a test of female tragic actors--like every Shakespearean in our world wants to do Hamlet. Mehitabel's comments in The Mirador actually give you as much of the plot as I know.
If I could write blank verse, I would have written the vigil chapel scene, but I can't fake it for more than a couple of lines.
Q: A piece of wisdom floating around suggests that a person needs to write a million words before they can produce something people will find worth reading. Similar advice says you need to spend a lot of time on writing before you get to a place, with a lot of luck, you can make a living off it.
How do you think academic writing fits into that? Can aspiring writers count academic oriented literature (particularly uppper-year and graduate work) as part of their portfolio of written works, or does only fiction count?
A: Um. Okay.
The million words of shit idea--which I've heard attributed to Ray Bradbury, although I don't know if that's true--is the idea that (a.) writing, like most things, is learn by doing, and (b.) learning takes time and practice. So, in order to become a good writer, you have to write, and you have to accept that the first million words or so are your apprenticeship, in the same way that when you sit down at a piano for the first time, you aren't going to be able to play a Mozart fantasia. You can't skip learning scales and finger exercises and the little Bach minuets and "Für Elise," and you need that million words in order both to learn how to write and to exorcise all of your influences and clichés. (There's a lot of my juvenilia that's bad Stephen King pastiche, for instance, and then there's every stupid plot-coupon fantasy clicé you've ever heard of.) The only way out is through, which is a mantra I chant to myself in the really bad patches.
Writing, as I said, is learn by doing. You can't learn how to write by reading, either how-to books or other fiction. (You can learn how to write better, but not the fundamental thing that is writing.) So, following that logically, the only way to learn to write stories is to write stories. Essays aren't the same thing. The million-words-of-shit koan isn't really about the quantity of words; it's about the amount of practice it takes to learn how to do anything well. (Ten years of working at it, the studies say.) And once you've learned to do something well, there's the lifelong grail quest of learning to do it better.
I do think you can certainly learn things writing academic papers that will apply to writing fiction. I learned to recognize my own tendency to talk in circles from academic writing, and it sure shows up in my fiction. You can learn things about putting a sentence together, and structuring a paragraph, things about exposition and how to be convincing. But writing essays will not teach you to write stories--and that's what the million-words-of-shit koan is really about: what teaches you how to write stories is writing stories--and then learning from your mistakes and writing more stories.
As for making a living at writing--that has nothing to do with whether you're a good writer or not. It has to do with whether you are a prolific writer. (Some prolific writers are excellent writers; see for example,
matociquala. Some prolific writers are not excellent writers. It's a completely different continuum.) And even prolific writers have a hell of a time making a living with nothing but their fiction writing. Most writers have day jobs, or partners who are willing to shoulder the extra burden. (I, for example, do not make enough money from writing to live on--or, at least, I really wouldn't want to have to try it. My earnings supplement mirrorthaw's income nicely, but I have no illusions about who the breadwinner in our house is.) This is not a profession to get into because you want a steady or bountiful paycheck.Q: ( spoilers for Corambis )
[Ask your question(s) here.]
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