... or why I only hate my life when it gets in the way of writing.
My Easter break is finally over (I'm a student and both my jobs are working with students, so I get full 3-week university holidays), and I'm heading into the final term of the 2010-11 year. This is the short one, but there's still a lot to be done; for the next month, before the exam period starts, I'm still working both my jobs. I'm also having to do serious work for my PhD thesis again, plus a certain amount of bureaucratic hoop-through-jumping to make sure I get to stay on the course.
The PhD thesis stuff is the biggest potential drain on my time. In the next ten weeks, I'm aiming to write three chapters totalling about 25,000 words. May not sound like much, given that in the last week I've written over 12,000 of 'Heaven Can Wait', but academic writing takes a lot longer than writing prose fiction, because there's all sorts of pesky details like fact-checking and referencing which become important, and you can't let the writing wander to see where it goes.
For novel-writing, I reckon a good week is in the region of 20,000 words (this is first-draft only, mind, and needing a lot of revision). By contrast, the effort that produced my 15,000-word Master's dissertation in 6 weeks a couple of years back was prodigious. An average output of 2,500 words a week is pretty good going for academic writing. Keeping that rate up for ten weeks is not something I've tried before.
My point is, I'm really busy for the next two months. What I really want to be doing, of course, is finishing the first draft of 'Heaven Can Wait' and getting it into betas, then starting to outline 'The Earth Trembles'. I'm particularly hooked on writing 'Heaven Can Wait'; even 'Bad Romance', which I wrote in a week, wasn't as easy to write when I was in-stride. Heck, right now, I'd rather be writing 'Heaven Can Wait' than playing Guitar Hero (and it takes a lot to dislodge me from Guitar Hero).
I really enjoy both my jobs. I find my PhD immensely rewarding when it goes well; I feel a good deal of pride whenever I get a chapter completed or think of some good new argument. I love my friends and cherish their company. But all that stuff right now is standing between me and my writing, and I just want to start screaming at things to get out of the way...
So, given that I'm aspiring to write professionally (i.e. as a job), what do I do? Being a professional novelist may not have quite the entry barriers it once had, in the form of publishers and agents whose whims have to be catered for, but there's still a big entry fee in terms of time, a resource which any sane person recognises as far more valuable than money. How much should I - or any of us - compromise our normal lives for the sake of our 'real' lives as writers (don't make the mistake of thinking your life as a writer isn't already something real - it's just not profitable yet)?
My particular problem is that my biggest obligation - my PhD thesis - is written on the same terms as my novels; that is, I have to manage my own time for it. I usually work on it at home, too, so I'm usually wanting to go play Guitar Hero - or, as it is at the moment, write 'Heaven Can Wait'. The compromise I've decided to strike for now is that I've got to do a professional's work-day on the thesis before I'm allowed to write novels. That means I'm not writing fiction before 5PM (and, because there are other things in my life to distract me from my thesis during the week, this applies to Saturdays as well). I'm going to try to write 2,000 words most evenings and see how long it takes me to finish the novel.
I'd dearly love to write this book in a NaNo-esque blast, but I wasn't supposed to be writing a novel at all at this point, and I do have to be a good boy.
I guess what I'm saying is that you can't just switch off everything else to concentrate on writing (unless you hate your friends and your job. And eating). Treating writing as a professional activity - one that comes with deadlines and targets and duties - is an important part of being a professional, regardless of how lucky or marketable you are.
I need to do something about my twitter addiction, too...
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Heaven Can Wait, and the fate of John Collins (includes Sample Sunday)
The spanner, she is in the works. Quite apart from the fact that my elbow is still recovering (I've got full mobility back, but it's still a bit swollen and it still tires easily), I've had a couple of writerly developments which are going to disrupt my plans a bit.
The first is that I finally got it through my thick skull that there are serious problems with 'The Death of John Collins'. Rather, there's one serious underlying problem with a wide range of negative effects. The whole thing is bloated, because I've stretched what should only ever have been a novella into a full-blown (if short) novel. The current draft is just over 60,000 words long, and looking at the outline, I think it probably wants to be more like 40,000. There are at least two whole chapters which are totally redundant, and there's far too much dialogue dragging the pace down. I'll be taking the hatchet to it sometime in the next month, then soliciting a new round of beta reads - anyone currently betaing for me, please feel free to stop (though guidance on what to cut is welcome).
The other major development is that I was assaulted on Tuesday morning by a new story idea. It knocked me out, tied me up, and is currently keeping me in a cabin in the woods while it uses my neurons to assemble itself. I've never had such an easy time putting together an outline. I'm sort of hoping to write it in the course of the next week, while the iron's still hot. This is madness, but it's no more work than was NaNoWriMo, and I loved that.
A new novel by itself isn't so much a spanner in the works as an unexpected bonus. The problem comes because the new idea is quite a different kind of novel to the 'thinky' stuff I've been writing thus far. It's much more naturally a Young Adult-oriented work (though everyone seems to think I've been writing YA all along, based on beta feedback I've received), and I'm not sure that anyone who found me through this book would like my main oeuvre.
The thing is, the changes that need to be made to 'The Death of John Collins' are probably going to push it in a young-adult sort of direction, and I'm wondering if I shouldn't split my work and embrace this. I guess it depends how well the new novel idea works out. Here's the pitch;
"I met a man who wasn't there...
The Non-Agency ushers ghosts into the next life. Tom presents them with something of a problem; he refuses to believe he's dead, and the Men Who Aren't There are having a hard time proving it to him. When Tom falls for a living girl, it starts to look like he might never move on, and that means the Non-Agency are free to play dirty..."
And here's a sample chapter (let me stress, this is a very rough first draft job, just to air the idea):
In the small hours of the morning after my death, I woke up on a sandbar out in the Cohl delta with a Man Who Wasn’t There waiting for me. It’s hard to describe Men Who Aren’t There. After all, they’re not there. He wore a smart pin-striped suit, his silver smiley-face cuff-links glowing in the moonlight. Everything about him was polished to a shine, from his shoes to his briefcase. I couldn’t tell you whether he himself was smiling, but looking at his face gave me a sense of comfort. It’s not so much that Men Who Aren’t There don’t have faces, but the light never seems to fall on them right, you never get a clear look – and so you never remember what they look like.
Of course, while I was taking all this in, another part of my mind, in a voice of rising, uncomfortable urgency, was telling me that I was face-down on a sandbar, soaking wet, cold and very confused. Still another part of my mind was wondering why the shiny shoes in front of me weren’t sinking – as my face was – into the sticky silt of the sandbar.
I spat sand and started to push myself up. The Man Who Wasn’t There leaned down and offered me a hand up. I took it, gratefully, and was surprised by the strength in the wiry fingers. Standing, I did my best to brush the mud off, which mostly ended up spreading it onto my hands.
“Well, aren’t we a live one?” said the Man Who Wasn’t There.
“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, then remembered my priorities, “Where am I?”
“That’s an interesting question. If you’re asking about this place, we’re about half a mile down-stream from the Seaward Gate, in the delta. Where you are? Well, that’s more complicated.”
“What do you mean? Who are you?”
“Me? Oh, I’m Not Here. But you’ve got more important things to worry about. I’m sorry to be so blunt about this, but you’re dead.”
“Dead?”
“Quite so. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“I’m not dead!” I waved my hand at him, “Look! Moving around!”
“Well, that’s rather the problem. You may be moving around, but your body...” He looked towards my feet, and I got a distinct feeling of surprise emanating from his faceless face. Quietly, he said, “Oh, damn, we don’t even have a body? This is going to be tough.”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“Well, normally when we get a- No, wait, let me start again,” He took a deep breath – no mistaking that sound – and straightened his tie. “You’re a ghost. A particularly lively one, it has to be said, but a ghost. Your belief that you didn’t die last night is what’s keeping you going right now. It’s my job to look after you until you’re ready to let go of that belief and move on to the next world. That’s why I’m Not Here – to remind you that you aren’t, either. Normally, the first thing I’d do, horrible as it sounds, would be show you your body. Unfortunately, yours seems to have washed out to sea, so that’s out.”
“I’m a ghost?” I pressed a hand to my chest, and was immensely relieved when it didn’t go through.
“Thinking ghosts don’t have bodies?” he paused, and once again I got the sense he might be smiling, “If only it were that simple. If you believe hard enough that you didn’t die, you can be completely indistinguishable from a living person.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“That I can’t help you with right now. Can I at least persuade you to come with me? If nothing else, I can get you back to the city without you having to swim.”
I looked around. With the moon so near full, I could see just how much of the broad delta lay between me and the river gate. I nodded. He opened his briefcase and rummaged inside. After a moment, he pulled out something that looked like a small fountain pen.
“Right, before we go, I’m supposed to give you a list of warnings about how walking around the city might feel a bit different now that you’re a ghost, but in your state I doubt you’ll notice. People might be a bit surprised by how damp and muddy you are, but in this light you’ll be lucky if they notice that.”
“I still don’t think I believe you,” I said, frowning.
“Look, just come with me, there are some things I can try that might convince you,” He stopped fiddling with the pen for a moment, “Oh, by the way, your name’s now Pondin.”
“My name is Tom.”
“Sorry, I’m not allowed to let you use your life-name, either with me or with anyone else you run into. My boss is very strict about that. Your name is part of what’s holding you to this world, you need to let it go. Pondin it is.”
“That’s a stupid name!”
“Uh-huh. You’ll be less likely to get attached to it this way. Ghosts who hate their names never hang around as long as those who get attached. Forget about Tom. Move on.”
“But I don’t want to move on! Why should I?”
“You aren’t supposed to be wanting anything right now. You should be in Heaven, receiving all that’s your due.”
I looked at him, confused. At this point I still hadn’t lost the habit of trying to get a good look at his face. He gave the pen a decisive twist and, with a sharp pop, we were in the hostel.
The thing that struck me first was how stale the air seemed; dusty, dry and tasteless. The lack of smell meant we had to be in uptown Cohlin. The walls were wood-panelled, but the panelling was cracked and battered. There was no carpet, just unvarnished floorboards and a lot of cobwebs.
“Where are we?”
“You kids these days. You couldn’t even manage to be surprised by the jump?” The Man Who Wasn’t There, who wasn’t stood behind me, sounded petulant.
“Everyone knows you rich folk carry all sorts of tricks these days. What’s that one called?”
“A teleporter. And as it happens, nobody has one unless they work for us. You have to have special permission from On High before the magic will work for you. Which is a tremendous hassle, but worth it.”
“On High?”
“You know, Him Upstairs. The Temples. God.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t ever spent much of my life thinking about God. I’d been too busy trying to scrounge enough to live on. The Temples were places you went to throw money away, not find it – even God wouldn’t help you if you stole from a priest.
“Come on,” said the Man Who Wasn’t There, not stepping past me, “Follow me.”
“Where are we?” I asked again.
I followed him out through the door, into a hallway where cold air sucked at my still-wet clothes. A staircase ascended into darkness on one side; the other way, an open doorframe led into some sort of cafe. The Man Who Wasn’t There led me into it.
“One of our hostels. It looks like you’ll be with us for a while, so you’d better have somewhere to stay. Being around other ghosts can help you let go.”
I nodded.
“What, no protest about how you have perfectly good lodgings of your own?”
“I don’t have any lodgings at all.”
“Oh. Um, sorry.”
We sat at a table near the counter. The chairs were bare, hard wood, but well-polished.
“Now, Pondin,” he said, “Whether or not you believe me, you’re dead, and it’s my job to get you to believe it. Can you remember anything about last night?”
“I was trying to rustle up some silver running errands for gents in the pubs down by the docks...” I thought back. The evening was a bit fuzzy, “I... uh, I think I ran into Mick and Percy at one point. Oh, yeah, they were going to try to sneak into Mr. Everay’s place. I can’t really remember... I might have gone with them.”
“Oh, fantastic,” there was no mistaking the sarcasm in the Man Who Wasn’t There’s voice, “you can’t even remember how you died. I’m guessing you got a bang on the head, fell in the river and drowned before you could regain consciousness. Now, if we could find your body, I could show you the bruise and we’d be sorted, but no, you had to go and lose that too.”
“Hey, I didn’t choose this!”
“I might give that some credit if you could remember what you did choose. Look, Pondin, is it at least possible you got killed sneaking into this house?”
“Sure. Mr. Everay has armed guards.”
“And are you likely to have gotten caught?”
“If I went with them, I’d give us a three-to-one chance of getting away with it.”
“So there’s a twenty-five percent chance you died last night?”
“Percent?”
“Never mind. A one in four chance.”
“I guess. If I went with Mick and Percy.”
“Can you think of any other reason why you might have ended up in the river?”
“Bad luck. People fall in the river all the time.”
“Do they usually live?”
“I don’t know. Some do.”
“You don’t have the slightest bit of doubt that you’re alive, do you?”
“I don’t feel dead.”
“Well, of course not,” he snapped, “If you were dead you wouldn’t feel at all. That’s the problem. No, I’m afraid we’ll have to do this the hard way.”
“The hard way?”
“Yes. Well, to start with, we’ll put you on a vengeance-on-your-killer geas. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“What’s a geas?”
“Sort of like a goal, a purpose. We give all our ghosts something to work towards that focuses them – you – on the moment of your death, help you come to terms with it. Often it’s just things like saying good-bye to a loved one or visiting your funeral – which is always a pain, by the way – but in really serious cases, it can be vengeance. Of course, you’re almost too lively even for that. The first thing you’ll have to do is figure out who killed you.”
“If anyone did.”
“Well, yes,” he said. A moment’s pause, then, “Fancy a drink?”
“Sure.”
The Man Who Wasn’t There waved at someone behind the counter. A pale, skinny waiter brought a tray across to the table. There was a single tall glass of green liquid on it. The Man Who Wasn’t There handed it to me.
“You’re not drinking?”
“Me? I’m on duty, of course. But please, drink up.”
It was such a natural offer that for a moment I left my guard down; I drank. The liquid was rich with all sorts of exotic flavours, and delicious. When I put the glass down, it was half-empty. The Man Who Wasn’t There made another gesture towards the waiter.
The waiter produced a saucer from a trouser pocket and tipped a little of my drink into it. He placed it on the table and went back to the counter.
He returned a moment later carrying a rat. A live rat, and a large one, over eight inches long. It wriggled and chittered in his hands until he put it on the table, right in front of me, right next to the saucer. With the energy of a cat finding catnip, the rat pounced on the saucer, tongue extended.
Barely had the rat’s mouth closed when it screamed and slumped prone. It gave one brief shudder, then lay still. A cold lump developed in the pit of my stomach.
“You’ll observe the rat drank only a tiny fraction of the quantity you did, Pondin,” said the Man Who Wasn’t There quietly. “The glass contains a pure venom, a single drop of which would be sufficient to kill you were you still alive. There is neither antidote nor immunity, and death is close to instantaneous. The only way it could not have killed you is if you are already dead.”
----
As I say, it's pretty rough. I'm more interested in your responses to the idea than precise line-edit stuff right now. I'm a bit nervous because I'm sure I've read a book very like this by someone else already, but I can't place it. If anything comes to mind, please let me know - I'd also like to know whether you think the book is worth continuing with.
Thanks for reading.
The first is that I finally got it through my thick skull that there are serious problems with 'The Death of John Collins'. Rather, there's one serious underlying problem with a wide range of negative effects. The whole thing is bloated, because I've stretched what should only ever have been a novella into a full-blown (if short) novel. The current draft is just over 60,000 words long, and looking at the outline, I think it probably wants to be more like 40,000. There are at least two whole chapters which are totally redundant, and there's far too much dialogue dragging the pace down. I'll be taking the hatchet to it sometime in the next month, then soliciting a new round of beta reads - anyone currently betaing for me, please feel free to stop (though guidance on what to cut is welcome).
The other major development is that I was assaulted on Tuesday morning by a new story idea. It knocked me out, tied me up, and is currently keeping me in a cabin in the woods while it uses my neurons to assemble itself. I've never had such an easy time putting together an outline. I'm sort of hoping to write it in the course of the next week, while the iron's still hot. This is madness, but it's no more work than was NaNoWriMo, and I loved that.
A new novel by itself isn't so much a spanner in the works as an unexpected bonus. The problem comes because the new idea is quite a different kind of novel to the 'thinky' stuff I've been writing thus far. It's much more naturally a Young Adult-oriented work (though everyone seems to think I've been writing YA all along, based on beta feedback I've received), and I'm not sure that anyone who found me through this book would like my main oeuvre.
The thing is, the changes that need to be made to 'The Death of John Collins' are probably going to push it in a young-adult sort of direction, and I'm wondering if I shouldn't split my work and embrace this. I guess it depends how well the new novel idea works out. Here's the pitch;
"I met a man who wasn't there...
The Non-Agency ushers ghosts into the next life. Tom presents them with something of a problem; he refuses to believe he's dead, and the Men Who Aren't There are having a hard time proving it to him. When Tom falls for a living girl, it starts to look like he might never move on, and that means the Non-Agency are free to play dirty..."
And here's a sample chapter (let me stress, this is a very rough first draft job, just to air the idea):
Heaven Can Wait
Chapter 1 – The Man Who Wasn’t There
In the small hours of the morning after my death, I woke up on a sandbar out in the Cohl delta with a Man Who Wasn’t There waiting for me. It’s hard to describe Men Who Aren’t There. After all, they’re not there. He wore a smart pin-striped suit, his silver smiley-face cuff-links glowing in the moonlight. Everything about him was polished to a shine, from his shoes to his briefcase. I couldn’t tell you whether he himself was smiling, but looking at his face gave me a sense of comfort. It’s not so much that Men Who Aren’t There don’t have faces, but the light never seems to fall on them right, you never get a clear look – and so you never remember what they look like.
Of course, while I was taking all this in, another part of my mind, in a voice of rising, uncomfortable urgency, was telling me that I was face-down on a sandbar, soaking wet, cold and very confused. Still another part of my mind was wondering why the shiny shoes in front of me weren’t sinking – as my face was – into the sticky silt of the sandbar.
I spat sand and started to push myself up. The Man Who Wasn’t There leaned down and offered me a hand up. I took it, gratefully, and was surprised by the strength in the wiry fingers. Standing, I did my best to brush the mud off, which mostly ended up spreading it onto my hands.
“Well, aren’t we a live one?” said the Man Who Wasn’t There.
“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, then remembered my priorities, “Where am I?”
“That’s an interesting question. If you’re asking about this place, we’re about half a mile down-stream from the Seaward Gate, in the delta. Where you are? Well, that’s more complicated.”
“What do you mean? Who are you?”
“Me? Oh, I’m Not Here. But you’ve got more important things to worry about. I’m sorry to be so blunt about this, but you’re dead.”
“Dead?”
“Quite so. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“I’m not dead!” I waved my hand at him, “Look! Moving around!”
“Well, that’s rather the problem. You may be moving around, but your body...” He looked towards my feet, and I got a distinct feeling of surprise emanating from his faceless face. Quietly, he said, “Oh, damn, we don’t even have a body? This is going to be tough.”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“Well, normally when we get a- No, wait, let me start again,” He took a deep breath – no mistaking that sound – and straightened his tie. “You’re a ghost. A particularly lively one, it has to be said, but a ghost. Your belief that you didn’t die last night is what’s keeping you going right now. It’s my job to look after you until you’re ready to let go of that belief and move on to the next world. That’s why I’m Not Here – to remind you that you aren’t, either. Normally, the first thing I’d do, horrible as it sounds, would be show you your body. Unfortunately, yours seems to have washed out to sea, so that’s out.”
“I’m a ghost?” I pressed a hand to my chest, and was immensely relieved when it didn’t go through.
“Thinking ghosts don’t have bodies?” he paused, and once again I got the sense he might be smiling, “If only it were that simple. If you believe hard enough that you didn’t die, you can be completely indistinguishable from a living person.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“That I can’t help you with right now. Can I at least persuade you to come with me? If nothing else, I can get you back to the city without you having to swim.”
I looked around. With the moon so near full, I could see just how much of the broad delta lay between me and the river gate. I nodded. He opened his briefcase and rummaged inside. After a moment, he pulled out something that looked like a small fountain pen.
“Right, before we go, I’m supposed to give you a list of warnings about how walking around the city might feel a bit different now that you’re a ghost, but in your state I doubt you’ll notice. People might be a bit surprised by how damp and muddy you are, but in this light you’ll be lucky if they notice that.”
“I still don’t think I believe you,” I said, frowning.
“Look, just come with me, there are some things I can try that might convince you,” He stopped fiddling with the pen for a moment, “Oh, by the way, your name’s now Pondin.”
“My name is Tom.”
“Sorry, I’m not allowed to let you use your life-name, either with me or with anyone else you run into. My boss is very strict about that. Your name is part of what’s holding you to this world, you need to let it go. Pondin it is.”
“That’s a stupid name!”
“Uh-huh. You’ll be less likely to get attached to it this way. Ghosts who hate their names never hang around as long as those who get attached. Forget about Tom. Move on.”
“But I don’t want to move on! Why should I?”
“You aren’t supposed to be wanting anything right now. You should be in Heaven, receiving all that’s your due.”
I looked at him, confused. At this point I still hadn’t lost the habit of trying to get a good look at his face. He gave the pen a decisive twist and, with a sharp pop, we were in the hostel.
The thing that struck me first was how stale the air seemed; dusty, dry and tasteless. The lack of smell meant we had to be in uptown Cohlin. The walls were wood-panelled, but the panelling was cracked and battered. There was no carpet, just unvarnished floorboards and a lot of cobwebs.
“Where are we?”
“You kids these days. You couldn’t even manage to be surprised by the jump?” The Man Who Wasn’t There, who wasn’t stood behind me, sounded petulant.
“Everyone knows you rich folk carry all sorts of tricks these days. What’s that one called?”
“A teleporter. And as it happens, nobody has one unless they work for us. You have to have special permission from On High before the magic will work for you. Which is a tremendous hassle, but worth it.”
“On High?”
“You know, Him Upstairs. The Temples. God.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t ever spent much of my life thinking about God. I’d been too busy trying to scrounge enough to live on. The Temples were places you went to throw money away, not find it – even God wouldn’t help you if you stole from a priest.
“Come on,” said the Man Who Wasn’t There, not stepping past me, “Follow me.”
“Where are we?” I asked again.
I followed him out through the door, into a hallway where cold air sucked at my still-wet clothes. A staircase ascended into darkness on one side; the other way, an open doorframe led into some sort of cafe. The Man Who Wasn’t There led me into it.
“One of our hostels. It looks like you’ll be with us for a while, so you’d better have somewhere to stay. Being around other ghosts can help you let go.”
I nodded.
“What, no protest about how you have perfectly good lodgings of your own?”
“I don’t have any lodgings at all.”
“Oh. Um, sorry.”
We sat at a table near the counter. The chairs were bare, hard wood, but well-polished.
“Now, Pondin,” he said, “Whether or not you believe me, you’re dead, and it’s my job to get you to believe it. Can you remember anything about last night?”
“I was trying to rustle up some silver running errands for gents in the pubs down by the docks...” I thought back. The evening was a bit fuzzy, “I... uh, I think I ran into Mick and Percy at one point. Oh, yeah, they were going to try to sneak into Mr. Everay’s place. I can’t really remember... I might have gone with them.”
“Oh, fantastic,” there was no mistaking the sarcasm in the Man Who Wasn’t There’s voice, “you can’t even remember how you died. I’m guessing you got a bang on the head, fell in the river and drowned before you could regain consciousness. Now, if we could find your body, I could show you the bruise and we’d be sorted, but no, you had to go and lose that too.”
“Hey, I didn’t choose this!”
“I might give that some credit if you could remember what you did choose. Look, Pondin, is it at least possible you got killed sneaking into this house?”
“Sure. Mr. Everay has armed guards.”
“And are you likely to have gotten caught?”
“If I went with them, I’d give us a three-to-one chance of getting away with it.”
“So there’s a twenty-five percent chance you died last night?”
“Percent?”
“Never mind. A one in four chance.”
“I guess. If I went with Mick and Percy.”
“Can you think of any other reason why you might have ended up in the river?”
“Bad luck. People fall in the river all the time.”
“Do they usually live?”
“I don’t know. Some do.”
“You don’t have the slightest bit of doubt that you’re alive, do you?”
“I don’t feel dead.”
“Well, of course not,” he snapped, “If you were dead you wouldn’t feel at all. That’s the problem. No, I’m afraid we’ll have to do this the hard way.”
“The hard way?”
“Yes. Well, to start with, we’ll put you on a vengeance-on-your-killer geas. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“What’s a geas?”
“Sort of like a goal, a purpose. We give all our ghosts something to work towards that focuses them – you – on the moment of your death, help you come to terms with it. Often it’s just things like saying good-bye to a loved one or visiting your funeral – which is always a pain, by the way – but in really serious cases, it can be vengeance. Of course, you’re almost too lively even for that. The first thing you’ll have to do is figure out who killed you.”
“If anyone did.”
“Well, yes,” he said. A moment’s pause, then, “Fancy a drink?”
“Sure.”
The Man Who Wasn’t There waved at someone behind the counter. A pale, skinny waiter brought a tray across to the table. There was a single tall glass of green liquid on it. The Man Who Wasn’t There handed it to me.
“You’re not drinking?”
“Me? I’m on duty, of course. But please, drink up.”
It was such a natural offer that for a moment I left my guard down; I drank. The liquid was rich with all sorts of exotic flavours, and delicious. When I put the glass down, it was half-empty. The Man Who Wasn’t There made another gesture towards the waiter.
The waiter produced a saucer from a trouser pocket and tipped a little of my drink into it. He placed it on the table and went back to the counter.
He returned a moment later carrying a rat. A live rat, and a large one, over eight inches long. It wriggled and chittered in his hands until he put it on the table, right in front of me, right next to the saucer. With the energy of a cat finding catnip, the rat pounced on the saucer, tongue extended.
Barely had the rat’s mouth closed when it screamed and slumped prone. It gave one brief shudder, then lay still. A cold lump developed in the pit of my stomach.
“You’ll observe the rat drank only a tiny fraction of the quantity you did, Pondin,” said the Man Who Wasn’t There quietly. “The glass contains a pure venom, a single drop of which would be sufficient to kill you were you still alive. There is neither antidote nor immunity, and death is close to instantaneous. The only way it could not have killed you is if you are already dead.”
----
As I say, it's pretty rough. I'm more interested in your responses to the idea than precise line-edit stuff right now. I'm a bit nervous because I'm sure I've read a book very like this by someone else already, but I can't place it. If anything comes to mind, please let me know - I'd also like to know whether you think the book is worth continuing with.
Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
The Death of John Collins: More covers
This is the cover I posted up for feedback last week:
And this is the version I've produced in response to the feedback I've had:
Fonts are still completely negotiable, particularly for the title (I'm not actually happy with this one, I just wanted to get the new version of the art up). I've raised the background colour a bit, and added detail to the sand. I've also added a faint reflective effect to the glass which I'm not sure about. Please let me know what you think; is it any better? (This version is suffering from horrible jpeg compression artefacts. I hate jpeg.)
And this is the version I've produced in response to the feedback I've had:
Fonts are still completely negotiable, particularly for the title (I'm not actually happy with this one, I just wanted to get the new version of the art up). I've raised the background colour a bit, and added detail to the sand. I've also added a faint reflective effect to the glass which I'm not sure about. Please let me know what you think; is it any better? (This version is suffering from horrible jpeg compression artefacts. I hate jpeg.)
Clicking Tags and Taking Names: If you can't write what you love, what's the point?
Recently, I was chatting to Dustin Ashe (@DustinAshe) on Twitter about whether authors should talk about their politics in their platform, and it's sparked off a chain of thought which has led to this possibly-unwieldy blog post. I want to talk about being who you are and writing what you love, and about genre and trusting one's audience.
Right now, I'm quite glad just to be writing at all. For those of you who've skipped reading all my other whining (can't say I blame you), on Friday of last week my left elbow blew up with tennis elbow. I'm left-handed, so this has proven quite a handicap; it gets quite sore with even pretty light use. I was all set to write this blog post yesterday, but by the time I'd finished showering, brushing my teeth and shaving - and I didn't really finish shaving - the elbow was too sore for me to do anything besides lie on the sofa playing videogames one-handed. This morning, I'm skipping all that personal hygeine stuff to bring you this blog post (don't speculate too hard on the implications of this sentence).
Sidebar: I never thought I could be this irritated by an enforced 5-day spell of videogaming. I want to write!
On which note, my position on politics in your platform: honesty is the best policy. If politics matters to you, don't lie about it for the sake of popularity. It might bring in a few more sales short-term, but your politics will have gotten into your books (unless you aren't writing what you love; see below), and those sales from people who are put off by politics won't turn into long-term author-reader relationships. Same goes for anything else that might turn people away.
Think of it this way; the people you turn away by being you probably aren't worth your time anyway. Your time is - or should be - devoted to being yourself and valuing the things you find important. People who aren't interested in the things you find important aren't likely to have very much to add to your life. Don't worry about them. We're constantly being told that niche is the way to go in the new e-book market; go for your niche and stay there. If you end up writing thrillers about Sumerian basket-weaving, so be it.
Which brings me to the main point of this post; writing what you love. The way I look at it, if you're a writer, it should be because you love writing. If you don't love writing, for the love of God pick a different job. Writing is too much work, hassle and insecurity to do unless you really love it.
And if you love writing, then you're going to write what you love regardless of what else your life involves. If you love writing and what you really love writing is, say, sci-fi (or thrillers about Sumerian basket-weaving), you're going to write sci-fi whatever else you end up writing.
My point is this: if the way you approach writing as a career ever comes between you and writing what you love, stop. Go get an office job, settle things down, and get back to writing what you love at evenings and weekends. If you can't write what you love, there's no point writing at all.
Now, I'm not saying you should never take a writing job just to pay the bills - a couple of friends of mine are planning to cynically cash in on the urban-fantasy-with-vampires bubble before it bursts to put some money in the back pocket while they work on what they really love - and you should also write things you don't love for practice, but the moment any of that gets in the way of writing what you love, it's not better than an office job, and an office job has a regular paycheck. Maybe even insurance.
For my own part, I'm writing what I love and simply trying to make money off that. Given the lukewarm reception I'm getting from some of my beta readers for 'The Death of John Collins', I think I have a fair way to go before a lot of money will be involved, but hey - I loved writing it. Money is a bonus.
The problem I have with writing what I love is that what I love to write, really, are idea-driven novels. Many of my projects have started from an idea - often an abstract concept - and sprouted characters, settings and plots later, and that means my first three novels are all completely different genres; one contemporary romance, one sci-fi and one political thriller (sort of).
Now, I have faith that I have the philosophical skills to justify writing these books. I'm starting to believe that I can develop my writing ability to the point where I can justify selling them to people as something they might want to read. I definitely don't have the kind of literary chops and credentials to allow me to hop around genres in this way without ruffling a few feathers.
Which brings me to my last point, which has to do with trusting your audience; and this is why it's important to be yourself in your platform. The reason we're told as writers not to mess around with genre too much is that readers use genre as a filter; they like particular things, those things fit a category, so they don't read outside that category. If you brand yourself as writing a particular genre, readers who like that genre know they can come to you for what they like - and if you write something else, you break that trust.
Genre is therefore both a useful tool and a ball-and-chain to a writer like me (and I'm pretty sure most other writers, too). Reliance on genre is all well and good, but I think it involves patronising readers a little, particularly when it comes to authors changing pen name to write different genres. Can't we trust our readers - those who have become fans and are therefore likely to care - to check whether a new book is their kind of genre before buying? Can't we trust them to be intelligent people with open minds?
Building a strong platform based on who you really are as a writer can help with this; if your relationhip with a reader isn't based on a genre but on them having found you through some issue you have as a common interest, I think you're more likely to get them to engage with other work from your own sphere of interest. Particularly since you'll build better relationships with people you share more interests with; better relationships means a stronger niche and a better word of mouth overall, and that's a tremendous business asset, assembled out of nothing more than being yourself and trying to find people who share your interests. If your interest is Sumerian basket-weaving, then maybe it's not going to be a huge money-spinner, but at least you'll be doing the best you can out of your interest and making some new friends.
So, in short; with the changes that seem to be happening in the ebook world, and particularly if the new business model is niche-based, be yourself and be honest and open about it in your platform. You want readers who share your interests, because they're going to be better for your career than customers who don't.
And no, my next book after 'The Earth Trembles' isn't going to be a thriller about Sumerian basket-weaving. I'm much more into the Sumatran style anyway ;)
Right now, I'm quite glad just to be writing at all. For those of you who've skipped reading all my other whining (can't say I blame you), on Friday of last week my left elbow blew up with tennis elbow. I'm left-handed, so this has proven quite a handicap; it gets quite sore with even pretty light use. I was all set to write this blog post yesterday, but by the time I'd finished showering, brushing my teeth and shaving - and I didn't really finish shaving - the elbow was too sore for me to do anything besides lie on the sofa playing videogames one-handed. This morning, I'm skipping all that personal hygeine stuff to bring you this blog post (don't speculate too hard on the implications of this sentence).
Sidebar: I never thought I could be this irritated by an enforced 5-day spell of videogaming. I want to write!
On which note, my position on politics in your platform: honesty is the best policy. If politics matters to you, don't lie about it for the sake of popularity. It might bring in a few more sales short-term, but your politics will have gotten into your books (unless you aren't writing what you love; see below), and those sales from people who are put off by politics won't turn into long-term author-reader relationships. Same goes for anything else that might turn people away.
Think of it this way; the people you turn away by being you probably aren't worth your time anyway. Your time is - or should be - devoted to being yourself and valuing the things you find important. People who aren't interested in the things you find important aren't likely to have very much to add to your life. Don't worry about them. We're constantly being told that niche is the way to go in the new e-book market; go for your niche and stay there. If you end up writing thrillers about Sumerian basket-weaving, so be it.
Which brings me to the main point of this post; writing what you love. The way I look at it, if you're a writer, it should be because you love writing. If you don't love writing, for the love of God pick a different job. Writing is too much work, hassle and insecurity to do unless you really love it.
And if you love writing, then you're going to write what you love regardless of what else your life involves. If you love writing and what you really love writing is, say, sci-fi (or thrillers about Sumerian basket-weaving), you're going to write sci-fi whatever else you end up writing.
My point is this: if the way you approach writing as a career ever comes between you and writing what you love, stop. Go get an office job, settle things down, and get back to writing what you love at evenings and weekends. If you can't write what you love, there's no point writing at all.
Now, I'm not saying you should never take a writing job just to pay the bills - a couple of friends of mine are planning to cynically cash in on the urban-fantasy-with-vampires bubble before it bursts to put some money in the back pocket while they work on what they really love - and you should also write things you don't love for practice, but the moment any of that gets in the way of writing what you love, it's not better than an office job, and an office job has a regular paycheck. Maybe even insurance.
For my own part, I'm writing what I love and simply trying to make money off that. Given the lukewarm reception I'm getting from some of my beta readers for 'The Death of John Collins', I think I have a fair way to go before a lot of money will be involved, but hey - I loved writing it. Money is a bonus.
The problem I have with writing what I love is that what I love to write, really, are idea-driven novels. Many of my projects have started from an idea - often an abstract concept - and sprouted characters, settings and plots later, and that means my first three novels are all completely different genres; one contemporary romance, one sci-fi and one political thriller (sort of).
Now, I have faith that I have the philosophical skills to justify writing these books. I'm starting to believe that I can develop my writing ability to the point where I can justify selling them to people as something they might want to read. I definitely don't have the kind of literary chops and credentials to allow me to hop around genres in this way without ruffling a few feathers.
Which brings me to my last point, which has to do with trusting your audience; and this is why it's important to be yourself in your platform. The reason we're told as writers not to mess around with genre too much is that readers use genre as a filter; they like particular things, those things fit a category, so they don't read outside that category. If you brand yourself as writing a particular genre, readers who like that genre know they can come to you for what they like - and if you write something else, you break that trust.
Genre is therefore both a useful tool and a ball-and-chain to a writer like me (and I'm pretty sure most other writers, too). Reliance on genre is all well and good, but I think it involves patronising readers a little, particularly when it comes to authors changing pen name to write different genres. Can't we trust our readers - those who have become fans and are therefore likely to care - to check whether a new book is their kind of genre before buying? Can't we trust them to be intelligent people with open minds?
Building a strong platform based on who you really are as a writer can help with this; if your relationhip with a reader isn't based on a genre but on them having found you through some issue you have as a common interest, I think you're more likely to get them to engage with other work from your own sphere of interest. Particularly since you'll build better relationships with people you share more interests with; better relationships means a stronger niche and a better word of mouth overall, and that's a tremendous business asset, assembled out of nothing more than being yourself and trying to find people who share your interests. If your interest is Sumerian basket-weaving, then maybe it's not going to be a huge money-spinner, but at least you'll be doing the best you can out of your interest and making some new friends.
So, in short; with the changes that seem to be happening in the ebook world, and particularly if the new business model is niche-based, be yourself and be honest and open about it in your platform. You want readers who share your interests, because they're going to be better for your career than customers who don't.
And no, my next book after 'The Earth Trembles' isn't going to be a thriller about Sumerian basket-weaving. I'm much more into the Sumatran style anyway ;)
Sunday, 24 April 2011
The Death of John Collins: Sample Sunday edition
Hello, folks. Here, as a #SampleSunday treat (I hope), are the first two pages of 'The Death of John Collins', the first book of my John Collins trilogy, due out on November 1st.
“Sir, was John Collins evil?” The question came from a student in the front row of the lecture theatre’s seating. Two rows further back, Blanchett leaned forward, studying Professor Lambert’s reaction intently.
The Professor frowned for a moment, then said, “John was a loyal comrade and a war hero. Whatever you may have been told about him, I knew him, and he was not evil.” His voice was mild, but his face wore an owlish glare directed at the front row. In the dimness of the lecture theatre, the lines in his face became craggy and fierce. On the screen behind him, Collins’ face stared placidly down at them, one of the famous photos from him the early days of the Delta War.
From near the back of the room, a voice called out, “But he destroyed time, didn’t he?”
An audible rustling ran round the room as the students looked nervously at the Professor or tried to catch a glimpse of the questioner. On screen, Collins’ face was replaced by a screen-saver animation. It was a stylised drawing of the Clocktower being built, a tree of tangled black steel and ceramic against the dull grey background of the endless Causal Sea. The top widened sharply and spread into the white mushroom-cap of the City. The animation looped round to restart.
“You’re a new class,” Lambert said coldly, “so I’ll let that pass this once. In my classes, you must always be wary of careless statements like that. Precision is the essence of history. To answer the question as charitably as I can, no one person destroyed time, either by causing the collapse of the origin timeline or any of the other collapses in our history. Nor,” he held up a finger for emphasis, “did any one person cause any of the Temporal Wars. We will be covering the causes of each of these wars in due course. The assumption that John is to blame is a gross simplification.”
He paused and looked around the room, “Some of you are probably about to bring up the subject of Collins’ book, ‘A Radical Subjectivism of Time’. You may have been told that the book is banned because it is dangerous, because it describes the technologies which caused the Alpha Collapse. Well, I’ve read it, and it doesn’t. Yes, ideas it contained guided the engineers and technicians who did cause the collapse, but John wasn’t one of them and opposed their work. And if any of you are considering reporting me to the Truthers for reading a banned book, I read it during the Delta War, long before it was banned.” Lambert finished with a look that was almost a sneer. Blanchett thought she could read pride in his face. She wondered if her Council superiors could actually be right; was Lambert really Collins in disguise?
Another student asked, “So you don’t believe Collins was a Nihilist?”
Lambert barked a sharp, mocking laugh, “The Nihilists destroyed everything they touched. It’s because of them we live in this overgrown tin can,” – he gestured vaguely at the animation on-screen – “instead of on a proper world. If John had been a Nihilist, there wouldn’t even be that much. He’d have destroyed the Oracle and everyone on board after the Battle of Tibulon.”
“So you don’t agree with the Truthers?” the questioner pressed. Blanchett winced. She knew there were no Council agents other than herself assigned to monitor this class, but the other student seemed intent on making trouble.
Lambert, for his part, shot a wary glance at the doors at the back of the room. When he spoke, his voice was milder, his scowl less deep, “Well, of course, all historical perspectives must be considered. This would be a very deficient history class if I shied away from the Truther opinion out of personal sentiment, but you must surely admit – and I intend to show – that Controller Vilsteir’s evidence is unsatisfactory.”
Still staring at the Professor, Blanchett frowned. Other members of the Council militia said that Lambert’s controversial rhetoric on this point proved that he was Collins. She didn’t believe it, but she had to admit that it would make sense for Collins to talk in this way. Corrupting the youth, they called it.
Uncomfortable to let his statement stand, Blanchett spoke up, suppressing a nervous shiver, “What’s wrong with the Council’s evidence?” She tried to sound as nonaggressive as possible, affecting genuine curiosity.
In spite of her efforts, Lambert picked her out with a laser glare. Suddenly, she felt glad of the combat bodysuit she wore under her student ‘disguise’. It would provide little protection, but the knowledge that she was in some small way prepared for violence was reassuring. Lambert’s face softened a little as he said, “Well, personally, I have two problems with Vilsteir’s claims. Firstly, they go directly against my personal experience. I knew Collins. John was a close friend, and he just wasn’t like the character Vilsteir writes about. Secondly, he refuses to release his sources into the public domain. I call that bad practice.”
“But he’s still preparing his commentary!” Blanchett protested.
"As he has been doing, without aid or any apparent training in historiography, for twenty years. In the mean time, he has spearheaded a campaign to suppress alternative accounts. Banning books, for heaven’s sake! ‘A Radical Subjectivism’ is a harmless work of abstract metaphysics and deserves to be read and understood, not expunged.”
“It was the government that banned ‘A Radical Subjectivism of Time’, not the Council,” said Blanchett, feeling more confident.
“At the Controller’s very public urging. I doubt you are old enough to remember that unpleasantness, but-“ Lambert was cut off by the noise of the door opening. His eyes went to the back of the room and widened sharply.
Blanchett half-turned to follow the Professor’s gaze, and froze in her seat. Collins himself stood in the doorway.
Intrigued? I'm currently looking for beta readers for the remainder of the novel. Leave me a message in the comments or on Twitter (@eatthepen) if you're interested.
* * *
1
“Sir, was John Collins evil?” The question came from a student in the front row of the lecture theatre’s seating. Two rows further back, Blanchett leaned forward, studying Professor Lambert’s reaction intently.
The Professor frowned for a moment, then said, “John was a loyal comrade and a war hero. Whatever you may have been told about him, I knew him, and he was not evil.” His voice was mild, but his face wore an owlish glare directed at the front row. In the dimness of the lecture theatre, the lines in his face became craggy and fierce. On the screen behind him, Collins’ face stared placidly down at them, one of the famous photos from him the early days of the Delta War.
From near the back of the room, a voice called out, “But he destroyed time, didn’t he?”
An audible rustling ran round the room as the students looked nervously at the Professor or tried to catch a glimpse of the questioner. On screen, Collins’ face was replaced by a screen-saver animation. It was a stylised drawing of the Clocktower being built, a tree of tangled black steel and ceramic against the dull grey background of the endless Causal Sea. The top widened sharply and spread into the white mushroom-cap of the City. The animation looped round to restart.
“You’re a new class,” Lambert said coldly, “so I’ll let that pass this once. In my classes, you must always be wary of careless statements like that. Precision is the essence of history. To answer the question as charitably as I can, no one person destroyed time, either by causing the collapse of the origin timeline or any of the other collapses in our history. Nor,” he held up a finger for emphasis, “did any one person cause any of the Temporal Wars. We will be covering the causes of each of these wars in due course. The assumption that John is to blame is a gross simplification.”
He paused and looked around the room, “Some of you are probably about to bring up the subject of Collins’ book, ‘A Radical Subjectivism of Time’. You may have been told that the book is banned because it is dangerous, because it describes the technologies which caused the Alpha Collapse. Well, I’ve read it, and it doesn’t. Yes, ideas it contained guided the engineers and technicians who did cause the collapse, but John wasn’t one of them and opposed their work. And if any of you are considering reporting me to the Truthers for reading a banned book, I read it during the Delta War, long before it was banned.” Lambert finished with a look that was almost a sneer. Blanchett thought she could read pride in his face. She wondered if her Council superiors could actually be right; was Lambert really Collins in disguise?
Another student asked, “So you don’t believe Collins was a Nihilist?”
Lambert barked a sharp, mocking laugh, “The Nihilists destroyed everything they touched. It’s because of them we live in this overgrown tin can,” – he gestured vaguely at the animation on-screen – “instead of on a proper world. If John had been a Nihilist, there wouldn’t even be that much. He’d have destroyed the Oracle and everyone on board after the Battle of Tibulon.”
“So you don’t agree with the Truthers?” the questioner pressed. Blanchett winced. She knew there were no Council agents other than herself assigned to monitor this class, but the other student seemed intent on making trouble.
Lambert, for his part, shot a wary glance at the doors at the back of the room. When he spoke, his voice was milder, his scowl less deep, “Well, of course, all historical perspectives must be considered. This would be a very deficient history class if I shied away from the Truther opinion out of personal sentiment, but you must surely admit – and I intend to show – that Controller Vilsteir’s evidence is unsatisfactory.”
Still staring at the Professor, Blanchett frowned. Other members of the Council militia said that Lambert’s controversial rhetoric on this point proved that he was Collins. She didn’t believe it, but she had to admit that it would make sense for Collins to talk in this way. Corrupting the youth, they called it.
Uncomfortable to let his statement stand, Blanchett spoke up, suppressing a nervous shiver, “What’s wrong with the Council’s evidence?” She tried to sound as nonaggressive as possible, affecting genuine curiosity.
In spite of her efforts, Lambert picked her out with a laser glare. Suddenly, she felt glad of the combat bodysuit she wore under her student ‘disguise’. It would provide little protection, but the knowledge that she was in some small way prepared for violence was reassuring. Lambert’s face softened a little as he said, “Well, personally, I have two problems with Vilsteir’s claims. Firstly, they go directly against my personal experience. I knew Collins. John was a close friend, and he just wasn’t like the character Vilsteir writes about. Secondly, he refuses to release his sources into the public domain. I call that bad practice.”
“But he’s still preparing his commentary!” Blanchett protested.
"As he has been doing, without aid or any apparent training in historiography, for twenty years. In the mean time, he has spearheaded a campaign to suppress alternative accounts. Banning books, for heaven’s sake! ‘A Radical Subjectivism’ is a harmless work of abstract metaphysics and deserves to be read and understood, not expunged.”
“It was the government that banned ‘A Radical Subjectivism of Time’, not the Council,” said Blanchett, feeling more confident.
“At the Controller’s very public urging. I doubt you are old enough to remember that unpleasantness, but-“ Lambert was cut off by the noise of the door opening. His eyes went to the back of the room and widened sharply.
Blanchett half-turned to follow the Professor’s gaze, and froze in her seat. Collins himself stood in the doorway.
* * *
Intrigued? I'm currently looking for beta readers for the remainder of the novel. Leave me a message in the comments or on Twitter (@eatthepen) if you're interested.
What I've learned this week: a drummer's elbow
Very short blog post, as I've developed a sudden bad case of tennis elbow (from drumming; I've almost never played tennis in my life) which makes typing - and almost everything else I do besides videogames - quite uncomfortable. It's all under control and I should be back to full functionality in a couple of days, but I have to take it easy for now.
Friday, 22 April 2011
Objective: Objectivism - What's it got to do with objects?
Given that I know a lot of people in my part of the world aren't terribly familiar with Ayn Rand, I'm going to kick off this series with a brief sketch of her basic ideas. With this post, I'm focussing on the bits where I agree with Rand, which are mainly on the metaphysical/abstract side. We need to start by putting Rand in her historical/philosophical context
Rand called her philosophy 'objectivism', which may sound like a buzzword, but it does mean something and it's actually a pretty well-chosen label (much better than, say, neomodernism >.>). In philosophy, if something is 'objective' then it's not dependent on human beings - this is simplifying a bit, but bear with me. Rand's philosophy is a reaction against various kinds of subjectivism which were prevalent, particularly in Europe, during her lifetime. Among these kinds were postmodern relativism and existentialism, if you're interested.
The mid-20th-century subjectivisms all involved some sort of belief that the world we commonly experience is not objective - that in some way, it depends on human beings or human consciousness. The subjectivists had various reasons for this, all of which are complicated and obscure (if you really want to know, I'll send you a copy of my PhD thesis when it's done; most of my research is into a couple of progenitors of modern subjectivism). The upshot of this kind of subjectivism is the theoretical possibility of changing the world by changing the way you think about it.
Rand was dead set against this (her hatred of Kant can be traced to pretty much exactly this point). Her objectivism asserts that the world is as it is and no mere thought can change it. Rand believed that attempts to do this were at the root of the socialist mind-set, because socialism, she thought, was out of touch with reality.
Sidebar: Rand was in the bad habit of referring to this fundamental premise with Aristotle's formulation of the law of identity, 'A is A'. She never formally studied philosophy, and as a result seems to have rather got the wrong end of the stick on 'A is A' - the law of identity is a logical tool only, and pretty much trivial most of the time. Rand's point is good, but her invocation of Aristotle is not, and it set my philosophy-grad-student teeth grinding right through John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged.
Anyway, to all intents and purposes, I agree with Rand that there is an objective reality which we can't change by power of thought (and, hard as it may be to believe, lots of academics have disagreed, some with pretty good reasons). Rand says that the purpose of thought is not to change reality, but to understand it and learn how it may be changed.
Thought - rational thought - is the defining activity of the human species, according to Rand (and even given the growing body of evidence about the higher mental faculties in other species, the human capacity to reason remains unique at least in degree). Rand and I disagree about the role of emotion in thought, but that's a debate for another time.
If, as Aristotle said, man is a rational animal, then our ultimate fulfilment should come from the correct use of reason. That is to say, a good human being is one who approaches and solves all his problems through the use of reason, and said good human being will take his highest pleasures from doing so. It may sound a little implausible, but remember we're only talking about highest pleasure; other stuff can still be pleasant, it's just that the most pleasant experiences will be those in which a pleasant object is approached rationally. For example, Rand thinks that the highest musical pleasure comes from listening to music whose driving concepts one grasps and agrees with, as well as liking the sound (I won't get into her slightly distasteful views on sex).
There's another important consequence of the twin objectivist premises of objectivity and rationality, and it's a moral one; if human beings are definitively rational creatures, there is a moral obligation on us to be rational. It is immoral, Rand thinks, to lose oneself in irrational sentiment or waste time on unearned emotion. It's an austere, ascetic position rather at odds with Rand's own life story, but there's a grain of truth in it, and it lends her system a symmetrical beauty; rationality is in our best interests, and rationality is a moral obligation. It's an alignment of the practical and the principled which is a feature of all the best anti-subjectivism (because if there is an objective reality, principles derived from it will always be practical).
In summation, then, Rand argues:
1> There is an objective reality, independent of human beings
2> Human beings are inherently rational (for some appropriate definition of 'rational')
3> It is in our best interests to be rational, because this will best equip us to master objective reality
4> There is a moral obligation on us not to suppress our rationality, which stems from <2>
The conclusion of this argument is that we should be left as free as possible to engage in rational activity, which is where her small-government libertarianism kicks in (I gather she hated to be called a libertarian, but if the shoe fits...). There are all sorts of practical - and some theoretical - problems with that half of Rand's philosophy, but this 'first' or fundamental half is actually pretty plausible and systematic. I'll get into the particular problems I want to highlight over the coming months, but I needed to write this first so I've got it here to refer back to.
Your feedback is welcome - do you agree with my reading of Rand's philosophy? It's based mainly on Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged, and I haven't read any of her non-fiction.
PS. I realise I haven't actually explained what it's all got to do with objects; but then neither did Rand, so I blame her.
Rand called her philosophy 'objectivism', which may sound like a buzzword, but it does mean something and it's actually a pretty well-chosen label (much better than, say, neomodernism >.>). In philosophy, if something is 'objective' then it's not dependent on human beings - this is simplifying a bit, but bear with me. Rand's philosophy is a reaction against various kinds of subjectivism which were prevalent, particularly in Europe, during her lifetime. Among these kinds were postmodern relativism and existentialism, if you're interested.
The mid-20th-century subjectivisms all involved some sort of belief that the world we commonly experience is not objective - that in some way, it depends on human beings or human consciousness. The subjectivists had various reasons for this, all of which are complicated and obscure (if you really want to know, I'll send you a copy of my PhD thesis when it's done; most of my research is into a couple of progenitors of modern subjectivism). The upshot of this kind of subjectivism is the theoretical possibility of changing the world by changing the way you think about it.
Rand was dead set against this (her hatred of Kant can be traced to pretty much exactly this point). Her objectivism asserts that the world is as it is and no mere thought can change it. Rand believed that attempts to do this were at the root of the socialist mind-set, because socialism, she thought, was out of touch with reality.
Sidebar: Rand was in the bad habit of referring to this fundamental premise with Aristotle's formulation of the law of identity, 'A is A'. She never formally studied philosophy, and as a result seems to have rather got the wrong end of the stick on 'A is A' - the law of identity is a logical tool only, and pretty much trivial most of the time. Rand's point is good, but her invocation of Aristotle is not, and it set my philosophy-grad-student teeth grinding right through John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged.
Anyway, to all intents and purposes, I agree with Rand that there is an objective reality which we can't change by power of thought (and, hard as it may be to believe, lots of academics have disagreed, some with pretty good reasons). Rand says that the purpose of thought is not to change reality, but to understand it and learn how it may be changed.
Thought - rational thought - is the defining activity of the human species, according to Rand (and even given the growing body of evidence about the higher mental faculties in other species, the human capacity to reason remains unique at least in degree). Rand and I disagree about the role of emotion in thought, but that's a debate for another time.
If, as Aristotle said, man is a rational animal, then our ultimate fulfilment should come from the correct use of reason. That is to say, a good human being is one who approaches and solves all his problems through the use of reason, and said good human being will take his highest pleasures from doing so. It may sound a little implausible, but remember we're only talking about highest pleasure; other stuff can still be pleasant, it's just that the most pleasant experiences will be those in which a pleasant object is approached rationally. For example, Rand thinks that the highest musical pleasure comes from listening to music whose driving concepts one grasps and agrees with, as well as liking the sound (I won't get into her slightly distasteful views on sex).
There's another important consequence of the twin objectivist premises of objectivity and rationality, and it's a moral one; if human beings are definitively rational creatures, there is a moral obligation on us to be rational. It is immoral, Rand thinks, to lose oneself in irrational sentiment or waste time on unearned emotion. It's an austere, ascetic position rather at odds with Rand's own life story, but there's a grain of truth in it, and it lends her system a symmetrical beauty; rationality is in our best interests, and rationality is a moral obligation. It's an alignment of the practical and the principled which is a feature of all the best anti-subjectivism (because if there is an objective reality, principles derived from it will always be practical).
In summation, then, Rand argues:
1> There is an objective reality, independent of human beings
2> Human beings are inherently rational (for some appropriate definition of 'rational')
3> It is in our best interests to be rational, because this will best equip us to master objective reality
4> There is a moral obligation on us not to suppress our rationality, which stems from <2>
The conclusion of this argument is that we should be left as free as possible to engage in rational activity, which is where her small-government libertarianism kicks in (I gather she hated to be called a libertarian, but if the shoe fits...). There are all sorts of practical - and some theoretical - problems with that half of Rand's philosophy, but this 'first' or fundamental half is actually pretty plausible and systematic. I'll get into the particular problems I want to highlight over the coming months, but I needed to write this first so I've got it here to refer back to.
Your feedback is welcome - do you agree with my reading of Rand's philosophy? It's based mainly on Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged, and I haven't read any of her non-fiction.
PS. I realise I haven't actually explained what it's all got to do with objects; but then neither did Rand, so I blame her.
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