something a little different. where ‘prisoners of perfection‘ was black on white, for the new ‘missy tonight‘ it’s white on black. i had no idea that people made bonsai redwood trees! the image represents the (unusually, for me, happy) ending of the book.
Driving on I-280 on the way to visit the in-laws yesterday, I saw this and naturally my first thought was “oh, shit!”. My second thought was “who the hell was Tommy?” Turns out to be a guy who fell off a cliff north of Santa Cruz. My third thought was “how the hell did they do that?” Hanging over the side of an overpass above a freeway in the middle of the night to put up a tribute to a guy who fell off a cliff … seems the act of putting it there was a tribute in and of itself.
This is a recurring theme of mine which has come up again in a series of conversations with my wife, who is currently reading “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott, a sort of how-to-write-fiction book. It is full of very sensible advice which, if followed, would certainly help someone to turn out a reasonable product. And that is what “craft” means to me in terms of writing. How to make a product. When I went to summer day camps as a child, we had “arts and crafts” and in the crafts sections we made leather wallets and lanyards according to the practical rules of same. They turned out more or less decent depending on how well we followed instructions and how nimble our fingers were. In the arts section, we more or less did whatever we felt like doing, and that is precisely what “art” means to me, as in “the art of writing”, as opposed to the craft. From the craftsman we expect the thing we ask for. From the artist, we expect something different, something we could not have anticipated or come up with for ourselves. The artist deals in revelation. The craftsmen deals in trade.
Naturally there are markets for both of these kinds of wares, but I find it helpful to keep them in separate categories. Only once in my years of writing have I followed a formula. This was a story called “Somebody Somewhere”, a somewhat-suspenseful story based on the instructions of the great Patricia Highsmith in her own rule book, “Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction“. It was definitely helpful and some people have certainly liked the book, but the general reaction has been “it was okay”, “it was what I expected”. It played out the way those things play out. It had a beginning, a middle and an end. It had a set of characters who interacted and had their own background stories which led to appropriate conflicts and resolutions. It had a useless cop (my own Inspector Stanley Mole, who in his many appearances throughout my books has yet to solve a single crime) and a crime scene left behind for the blood-moppers (though the violence occurs off-stage, where I prefer it, as well as being as brief as possible). In other words, it could be a television movie. That was enough craft for me.
It’s not being snooty or condescending to say that when it comes to fiction, I far prefer to read an artist than a craftsperson. I want something more than what I expected. If there’s action, let it have some meaning, at least. If there’s romance, let it be real. Otherwise I want ideas that never occurred to me, phrases that ring unexpected bells, images and metaphors that make me take notice. Some might argue there are those writers who are both artists and excellent craftsfolk. You could point to people like Tolstoy, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Guy du Maupassant and many others, certainly. There’s no doubt about that. But my favorites (and I’m somewhat eclectic I know) are all on the far side of the seesaw.
I’m also thinking of this because I’ve been reading a few things by Roberto Bolano. I’ve tried before (The Savage Detectives and By Night in Chile) without success because of my own particular buttons (I’ve had enough of twenty-somethings drinking and fucking. Seriously. And then there’s the whole bloodbath thing which I simply can’t deal with anymore. An isolated death here and there, okay, but non-stop fighting and slaughter puts me to sleep faster than anything – I’ve recently had to put down otherwise strong books because of this pattern), so it was a matter of finding books by him that didn’t push those. “Monsieur Pain” was one such book. It resonated with my fondness for dadaists and surrealists and experimental dabblers, as well as my fascination with outsiders, losers and generally pathetic individuals (am I identifying much?). It was also full of wonderfully interesting bits and pieces. I’m now reading a collection of stories called “The Insufferable Gaucho” and also enjoying that. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be a fan of his masterpieces (such as 2666, which has carnage written all over it), but I’m very glad I found a path I could follow into his writing.
Anyway, my whole view of the arts versus crafts thing was summed up nicely in an interview with Kurt Vonnegut, in which he said “Art is not for making a living. Art is for growing your soul.”
happy with this one – the font is ’28 Days Later’, and the parrot is from my photograph from the Botanic Garden aviary in Dunedin, NZ. It was layer-burn-merged with an overlay of an abstract drawing, also gimped with some mild cartoonification and posterization
The Literary Man discusses this diagram under the heading “why do we write”?
but the topics were far too lofty for my feeble, cynical mind. In trying to figure it out, I came up with my own categories.
Instead of “Art” I use “Method”
Instead of “Soul” I use “Meaning”
Instead of “Fame” I use “Motive”
The intersections of two categories add up to:
Method + Motive = Hack (you’ve got the craft and purpose, but nothing to say)
Motive + Meaning = Flake (you’ve got inspiration and purpose, but no technique)
Method + Meaning = Freak (you’ve got talent and inspiration but not purpose) (I think I fall into this one)
The intersections of all three I will simply call The Sweet Spot – no need to glorify it. Luck’s got a lot to do with it, too.
Reading some Jose Saramago reminds me how writing is in many ways a performance art. The writer is on an inner stage when in the act of bringing words into the world. An improvisational writer is a live performer, whereas one who works more in edit mode is more like a recording artist in the studio. I prefer mainly live writing, with as few touch-ups as possible as I go along, partly because I’m kind of lazy, but also because I enjoy the performance aspect. It’s one reason why I write in the first place.
While I’m thinking about it, there was an article on Indie Reader’s Facebook page today talking about how setting ebook prices low “devalues” the written word, and how doing so is threatening to ruin the publishing industry. My usual opinions stand (i.e. fuck the publishing “industry”, and stop confusing money with value) but it also strikes me how people really think that innate human behavior can possibly be threatened by passing trends in finance. People like to sing – they will sing. People like to tell stories. They will tell stories. Those who want to make money doing these things had better find a way, one way or another, and stop whining about it. I don’t give a shit about you and your money. As for ruining the world by giving away my stories for free, well, like they say here in New Zealand, “I apologise for any inconvience this may cause you.”
reading David Byrne’s chapter about performance in his book How Music Works, he talks about how the audience always wants to hear their favorite hits from the past, while the musician wants to play his new stuff. the artist gets tired of touring and wants to create. after all, this is why he is an artist. for painters and sculptors and writers who create permanent pieces, those favorite hits are always with them, always available to the audience like musician’s record album. for those artists, what’s done is done and it’s time to move on. I wonder if, on their versions of tours, they get sick of answering the same questions about the same old pieces. no doubt. the next thing is always the most interesting to the artist. in some ways the old stuff is just like dead matter. it belongs to the past.
This interesting interview with David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) has been on my mind the past few days. He discusses the myth of the lone artist off creating eternal works in isolation, and how, rather, every artist creates only within layers of context. These layers can be viewed from different perspectives; you can zoom in (as it were) or zoom out to these different viewpoints. You can zoom in to the artist’s current surroundings and milieu, zoom out a bit to their localized era (the ‘spirit of their age’), zoom out some more for more historical perspectives (gender, race, politics, age) and even further for more general insights into the human condition, animal being and so on. Even when you zoom in all the way on the artist in isolation, he (or she) is in fact teeming with influences from within and without, such as thoughts flitting around, emotions from circumstances past and present. As an artist develops their work, the events of every day life intervene and make their presence felt. Each piece, whether it’s of music, writing, painting, or drama, carries with it all these layers of context. Byrne also emphasizes physical context – how the acoustics of a place influence the music that is created there, how the light in a studio influences the colors a painter uses. Very interesting stuff.
The idea was driven home even further by my reading of Patti Smith’s memoir, “Just Kids”. The name-dropping in this book is jaw-dropping (but being one of those names herself makes it justified). She brought her raw self into the circles she found herself in (New York City, 1969-1970′s, Chelsea Hotel) but her raw self was shaped and molded by many powerful influences. You find yourself wishing it had been your own damn raw self that had also been dropped into that blender of space and time and that yours too had turned out so outrageously! Yet it’s not merely accident, not merely luck. You – whoever and whenever and wherever you are – also have to align yourself, and also on many levels. You have to align within yourself (be and accept who you truly are) and where and when you are. Go where you ought to be and do what you ought to be doing. Are there people who can actually do this? If so, they are some lucky bastards.
I was just glancing at some blog post about “what price should you charge for your ebook?”, which, translated into my first language, reads “bla bla bla bla bla”, and I noticed this line: “it depends on your genre.”
Do you have a genre?
Or does your genre have you?
And can you say the word ‘genre’ twenty times fast without realizing what a stupid word it is? Then say it some more and think about what a stupid concept it is.
Look, if you’re happy doing what other people are already doing, then go ahead and copy that out and worry about genre-appropriate prices and everything else that goes along with the crowd. Yes, X can sell for Y so if you do X then go ahead and charge Y.
Or maybe do something that only you can do.
Experiment and try and figure out what that is. Take your time and try a lot of different things and don’t pull our your price gun and tag everything in sight.
If you find there’s nothing that only you can do, then you probably haven’t tried hard enough or looked long enough, because for everyone – everyone! – there is something that only they can do.
As Bob Marley once said, “don’t be just a stock on the shelf”
Seriously.
Had the great opportunity to see the Cindy Sherman exhibit at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art today – very impressive work from an artist who is a genuine still-life performer (if there can be such a thing!). I was especially moved by the ‘Centerfolds‘ room, which consists of portraits of women in very anti-erotic boudoir poses – depressed, bored, frightened, angry. It makes a powerful statement about female objectification and voyeurism, especially in photography. Her other works are by turns hilarious, incisive, fascinating, moving and just plain interesting. One thing’s for sure – the woman knows how to take pictures of herself! Definitely worth checking out for yourself if you ever get the chance.
