(no subject)

naye and I have cracked 40,000 words on our Big Bang story!

... too bad we're nowhere near done. *g* In fact, we haven't even made it to the plot point that was supposed to be the start of the story.

I've been reading "Science Fiction in the Real World", a collection of columns by Norman Spinrad, which I bought after reading his fantastic, thought-provoking essay "The Emperor of Everything" in an old issue of Asimov's that we found at the dump; this is the book in which that piece is collected. As much as I enjoy literary and fannish meta, I also think most literary criticism is elitist and very often completely full of shit, which Spinrad certainly exemplifies a lot of the time; but then he'll point out something about contemporary science fiction and cultural mythology that goes "Click! Oh, wow!" in my brain. Incredibly smart guy with whom I disagree on a whole lot of stuff, but then there are moments of genius. The "Emperor of Everything" essay ought to be required reading for every aspiring science fiction and fantasy writer; it draws fascinating parallels between Star Wars, Orson Scott Card, The Hero With a Thousand Faces and Hitler's Third Reich, as bizarre as all of THAT sounds, and it deconstructs the local-boy-saves-the-world trope in a way that may have seriously impaired my ability to read fantasy quest novels ... but in a very beneficial-to-me-as-a-writer sort of fashion.

(no subject)

naye and I have cracked 40,000 words on our Big Bang story!

... too bad we're nowhere near done. *g* In fact, we haven't even made it to the plot point that was supposed to be the start of the story.

I've been reading "Science Fiction in the Real World", a collection of columns by Norman Spinrad, which I bought after reading his fantastic, thought-provoking essay "The Emperor of Everything" in an old issue of Asimov's that we found at the dump; this is the book in which that piece is collected. As much as I enjoy literary and fannish meta, I also think most literary criticism is elitist and very often completely full of shit, which Spinrad certainly exemplifies a lot of the time; but then he'll point out something about contemporary science fiction and cultural mythology that goes "Click! Oh, wow!" in my brain. Incredibly smart guy with whom I disagree on a whole lot of stuff, but then there are moments of genius. The "Emperor of Everything" essay ought to be required reading for every aspiring science fiction and fantasy writer; it draws fascinating parallels between Star Wars, Orson Scott Card, The Hero With a Thousand Faces and Hitler's Third Reich, as bizarre as all of THAT sounds, and it deconstructs the local-boy-saves-the-world trope in a way that may have seriously impaired my ability to read fantasy quest novels ... but in a very beneficial-to-me-as-a-writer sort of fashion.