Assorted Nonsense

Heard a lot of Rex Murphy today, first on Fresh Air, then on his own show, Cross Country Check Up.

Made me think of the first time I met the man.

I’d just returned from living in France, so I’d been out of the CBC Radio loop for awhile.  One of my first bookings upon returning was recording a little voicer from someone I assumed was a freelancer.

I met the gentleman in the studio and he handed me his script.  I helped him get comfortable in the booth, asking him if he knew how to turn his mic off and on and whether he knew how to adjust the volume of his headphones.  I did this because I’d learned that many freelancers and guests come from backgrounds far removed from radio and any little thing you can do to help them get comfortable in a radio environment helps their performance.  This particular freelancer did not let on that I might be telling him stuff he already knew.

He did one and only one pass on the script, which was a commentary the subject matter of which I’ve long since forgotten.  I do remember that I had two issues with the freelancer’s performance.  One was a slight vocal stumble at one point, and the other was a word choice that I questioned.

When the freelancer came out of the booth I mentioned both issues.  I did so because when you’re working with mere mortals, and even when you’re not, everyone involved in the process usually wants to get things right, it’s just a part of the job to point out mistakes so that they might be corrected.

Instead of responding to my constructive criticism the freelancer thanked me for recording him and left the studio.  I remember thinking, well that was interesting.

It wasn’t too long afterward that I discovered the freelancer wasn’t a freelancer at all but a well established broadcasting personality in Newfoundland on the cusp of becoming a well established broadcasting personality nationally.  I don’t think he intended to be rude by ignoring my attempt to improve his performance in the studio.  I expect his confidence in his performance by that point in his career was such that he knew it was fine and that I was just being picky.   I can’t remember what word choice I had taken an exception to but knowing what I know about the man now I’m fairly certain that whatever it was he was right and I was wrong.  He was probably just bemused by my attempt to correct him.

I’m letting him off a bit easy.  He should have at least acknowledged my remarks before leaving the studio.  There was perhaps a little bit of the CBC “class” system at play, in which he was the talent and I the mere technician.

But I’ve met the man a few times since then and (although he never remembers me from encounter to encounter, there’s really no reason why he would) he’s always unfailingly polite and as far as I know a nice guy.  Plus I have developed enormous respect for him as a talent.   I love his commentaries and I appreciate his stance on most subjects (his remarks this morning on Fresh Air concerning the science and politics of Global Warming were spot on).  The sheer breadth of his vocabulary and the skill with which he wields his weapon of choice — words — commands my respect.

I can’t remember who wrote it, but the best line I’ve ever read about Rex Murphy was a blurb on the cover of one of his collection of essays.  Paraphrasing here, but it went something like:

“When Rex Murphy dies, they’re going to have to beat his mouth to death with a stick.”

Love that line, love Rex Murphy, a true Canadian institution.

Even if he did ignore my criticism.

The writers at Anticipation impressed me.

They’re all so darned friendly and approachable. A few examples… I met John Scalzi back at Torcon in 2003. Interviewed him briefly and was left with a positive impression of the man. He was there promoting his first book, Old Man’s War, which was just on the verge of being published. So he was an unknown at the time. Since then he’s become something of a phenomenon. He won the John W. Campbell award for best new writer, at least one Hugo, I think he’s on his fourth or fifth novel now, you get the picture.

So I had every reason to believe that Scalzi would have no memory of me at Anticipation, or even if he did, no reason to acknowledge my existence if he happened to set eyes on me.

I ran into him on the Friday night. My friend Fergus hailed him and they exchanged a few words. I extended my hand and began to introduce myself. “Of course I remember you Joe,” he said (this feat of memory may have had something to do with my nametag. Or not…). And we had a pleasant little chat. And I met up with him again later and another pleasant chat ensued.

Why does this matter? He’s not a rock star — outside the science fiction field he’s a mere mortal, like you and me. Okay me, at least. But at one of these cons, a guy like him IS a rock star. Despite this, if you click on the link a paragraph or two back and read his abbreviated bio, you’ll see further indication that this guy has his feet firmly planted on the ground.

Like Scalzi, I met Robert J. Sawyer before his first book was published. And then watched in awe as he completely conquered the field of science fiction over the next twenty years. I worked with Rob at CBC Radio a bit and discovered that despite his success he also has his feet firmly planted on the ground. At the con I asked him how he was finding the experience (he has experienced many). He commented that it takes him a long time to get from one panel to the next as fans are constantly introducing themselves. He doesn’t mind this one bit, of course, but it is a fact of life for him at the con. I told him I was aware of this, and as a result tried to leave him a wide berth despite our acquaintance, feeling he had enough on his plate without having to kibbutz with people like me. “Don’t worry about it, Joe,” he told me. “You’re a friend, it’s different with you.”

I appreciated that, especially because he could easily have written me off at any point following our work together at the CBC. There’s not much I can do for his career anymore. But he hasn’t written me off, because he’s a genuinely decent guy.

I met several writers for the first time at Anticipation, and they were all equally friendly. We were all amongst like-minded people, with a common frame of reference.

In stark contrast I offer up one odd exception. I once met a writer and was introduced to him as somebody from “the media.” I was gathering tape at the time (it was around the time I interviewed Scalzi and several others). We hit it off right away. I really like this guy, I thought. I got some tape of him but never did a proper interview, I’m not sure why. We parted ways, and I thought so well of him that I purchased his first book and read it.

Afterward, I wanted to let him know what I thought of it, offer a few words of encouragement, so I found his web page and dropped him a line.

Never heard back.

Dropped him another line.

Never heard back.

Honestly, I don’t know what the deal was there. I just told my wife that if somebody makes you feel paranoid, the truth is it probably has nothing to do with you or your actions, it’s something on their end. Maybe he didn’t get my missives, or there was something going on in his life, or what have you. I hope it isn’t that I was just a potential means of publicity for this guy, and when that didn’t pan out, I was of no use to him. At the very least he did manage to sell one copy of one of his books to me.

But this is the exception. Except for this blog with its limited (but, ahem, exceptional) readership, I’m not in a position to enhance writers’ careers anymore. I never really was.

And yet the writers remain friendly.

Here’s an interesting phenomenon I’ve encountered lately. People expressing concern because I am nearing completion of my novel “A Time and a Place”. They’re concerned because I’ve obviously invested so much time and energy into this project — the genesis of the novel was more than twenty years ago (though I’ve only been working on it in earnest for about four years).

So my friends and family are concerned that when it is inevitably rejected (brutally, repeatedly), the rejection will CRUSH me.

I’ll be disappointed, sure. But here’s the thing. Several things, actually.

1. I have a day job, a good one, and I’m reasonably good at it, or at least deluded enough to think that I am. I earn my living with it. So there’s a bit of self-esteem happening there.

2. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War was rejected about eight times before St. Martin’s Press picked it up (okay, Analog serialized it first, but still). Donaldson submitted his Covenant series forty or fifty times before it was picked up. Ursula K. Le Guin received crazy (in retrospect) rejection letters for The Left Hand of Darkness (you owe it to yourself to click on that link if you haven’t already… come back though y’all, ya hear?). So even if A Time and a Place is rejected, I will just keep submitting it. The Forever Submission, the process will eventually be called.

3. Internal Values versus External Values. This one’s the most important of all, so pay strict attention. I do not derive my self-worth from what other people think of me or my work. I derive it from ME. You can reject my manuscript, all my hard work, but you are not rejecting ME. Only I can reject me. And I don’t.

4. The pleasure derived from my novel comes from the writing of the novel. Countless hours of pleasure writing it, thinking about it, crafting it, editing it. I will derive some fleeting pleasure from publishing the novel if that ever happens. I will derive some fleeting pleasure from any positive response to the novel. But mostly I’ll be satisfied just to have finished it, and finished it well (which is why it’s taking so long, by the way… that and the fact that I have a life, a family, a job, obligations, responsibilities etc… and I’m just not selfish enough to place myself or my novel first)

Incidentally, because I’m an optimist I thought I would have the novel done by now. In my bio for Worldcon I wrote that it was done, and that I was hard at work on my second novel, Captain’s Away! (the title includes an exclamation mark, in case you thought I was just getting all excited there). Honestly, I probably have about eight more months work to do on A Time and a Place. Sixty to eighty pages left to revise, and that’s how long it will take me, eeking out a bit of time here, a bit of time there (got half an hour in this morning, enough to revise about a paragraph).

A true professional (say, Mike Resnick, famous for his hard-nosed approach to the business) might deride this approach, and certainly were I looking to write full time and make a decent living at it this approach would not work. But that is not my plan. Someday, maybe. For today, I write when I can, while living the life I have as best I can.

Another time, another place, maybe things will be different…

One panel I attended at Worldcon was called something like “The Analog Story”, or “What Makes an Analog Story”, or “How To Get Your Hopes Up Only To Have Them Dashed Much The Same Way That Girl in The Tenth Grade Ripped Your Heart Out Of Your Chest With Her Bare Hands, Then Spit On It, Then Threw It Into A Woodchipper.”

What the heck am I talking about.

I’m talking about a panel moderated by the well known, well regarded Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog. Mr. Schmidt, along with three or four other panelists (among them London, Ontario based writer Paddy Forde), discussed what they consider to be the kind of stories Analog magazine is looking for.

I must admit it’s been a while since I thumbed through the pages of an Analog, and I kind of had the impression that they were looking for nuts and bolts kind of stories these days, heavy on the hard science fiction. According to Mr. Schmidt, this isn’t quite the case. He prefers character based stories, with plenty of emotion (the kind of story Paddy Forde delivers in spades… he’s had two stories published in Analog, both reader favourites.)

I asked Mr. Schmidt what he thinks of humourous stories. He said he would like to see a lot more of them. This got me thinking. I try to insert a fair bit of humour into my stories. Actually, I don’t try, it just comes naturally (of course, whether anybody actually thinks it’s funny is another story). It just so happens that in the middle of my novel-in-progress (so close to being finished! so close!) there is a standalone story. Kind of a rumination on time travel, laced with (attempts at) gentle humour. I decided to package it up and throw it Mr. Schmidt’s way. It seemed to me that it might be his kind of story.

So there, you see, I got my hopes up. The story (called She That Dwells) is now in the mail, wending its way to Mr. Schmidt. A few weeks from now I’ll get a self-addressed envelope in the mail containing a form letter informing me that BZZZZZZT!!!! I should think about trying again. (Yes I know I should think more positively… it’s just that I’m bracing myself, you see.)

Because if this story is rejected, it means… maybe… the novel will be rejected.

Which actually means nothing, of course. Because one of the other things I learned at Worldcon (or was reminded of, because I already knew it) is how many times some truly fantastic novels have been rejected in the past. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman was rejected eight, nine times before St. Martin’s Press picked it up. This is astonishing to me… such a readable, important, fantastic novel, rejected so many times. Publishers should have been BATTLING one another over it.

So if my story (and subsequently my novel) is rejected, it won’t matter much. Like Haldeman, I’ll just keep plugging away until somebody somewhere buys it.

Shook Haldeman’s hand at the con, by the way. Told him how much I loved his book. What else is there to say? Thanks, he said, and signed it To Joe from Joe (what else was there for him to say? He’d said everything he needed to say in the book).

So wish me luck, because even though it won’t matter if Mr. Schmidt rejects She That Dwells…

… it sure would be nice if he published it.

David Hartwell is the Senior Editor at Tor/Forge Books, and one of the people I very much wanted to meet at WorldCon. He is the editor of many well known, well regarded Tor/Forge authors such as Robert J. Sawyer and Karl Schroeder and a great deal many more. He’s the man responsible for putting Guy Gavriel Kay on the map (to name just one) and I have the perception that he knows a great deal about publishing, writing and editing. I wanted the opportunity to extract as much information out of this man as possible.

Plus he seems like a nice guy.

I didn’t get to meet him one on one, but I did attend a panel which, although called a panel, consisted only of him facing an audience of perhaps twenty-five interested souls. I would call them aspiring writers, but the questions they asked did not indicate that writing or editing was of any particular interest to them. Because those subjects are my chief interest, I don’t really remember any of the questions or answers not related to writing or editing.

That’s what the panel consisted of: people lobbing questions at Hartwell, all of which he answered gamely and at some length. I got two questions in. The first was something along the lines of: “I’m interested in your work as an editor. Specifically, you edit the manuscripts of highly accomplished writers. What do you typically find wrong with such manuscripts, and how do you fix them?”

He said (and I am of course paraphrasing): “That question is just specific enough that I can answer it in something less than half an hour.” (Which got a chuckle.) “Most of the manuscripts that we receive have too many things wrong with them, so they don’t get published. Of the ones that we do publish, the single most common problem of professional writers is setting. The writers don’t spend enough time on setting.”

I found this really interesting. Naturally you might think that professional writers get most things right, maybe they might screw up continuity or make the odd grammatical error, but setting? I’ve spent a lot of time on setting in my (darned near completed) novel, so this response gave me hope, though that doesn’t mean that I’ve necessarily gotten it right.

Hartwell provided this example of a writer getting it right. There’s a sentence in a Heinlein novel (Fergus Heywood later told me which novel, but I forget) that goes like this: The door dilated. That sentence (according to Hartwell, and I agree) packs quite a punch as far as setting goes. Instantly you know you’re in the future (doors don’t typically dilate in this day and age).

Later I got to ask Hartwell another question. That morning, I told him, listening to Neil Gaiman speak, Neil had spoken of his quest to learn how to write a compelling story, one that keeps you engaged. One day events conspired to teach him this. It was after watching a Peter Greenaway movie, I believe, which lacked a compelling plot, yet that nevertheless kept his eyes riveted to the screen. I apologize to Gaiman if I have this wrong. But the point is the plot itself didn’t keep Gaiman engaged, it was other factors in the movie. Gaiman decided all that was necessary to write an effective story was to write a sentence that compelled the reader to move on to the next sentence, which compelled the reader onto the next sentence, and so on.

I related a portion of the above to Hartwell and asked for his opinion on writing a compelling story. He said, more or less, that it was up to each individual writer to find the secret of telling a compelling story for themselves. And it was different for each writer. Some writers use the interesting sentence after interesting sentence method, others painstakingly plot things out, others make it up as they go along, others use a sketchy outline, and so on.

I prefaced this last question with the remark that I had a thousand questions for Hartwell, but I would limit it to one this time.

He replied, “One for now.”

Here’s hoping I get to ask him many more in the not-too-distant future.

The Easter Rabbit is happy enough to bring our girls treats, it seems, but he makes them work hard for those treats.  This morning the girls got up at five o’clock and discovered the following notes outside their door (the first one to K is partially a response to a note K wrote the Easter Rabbit):

Dearest K,

You asked me if your bunny

was my very own cute honey

I do hope you are not frustrated,

but we’re not at all related

You’ll probably notice that I took

your gift, it’s such a nice phone book

To business now: if for a treat

you’d like to eat something that’s sweet

You should hop on your hind feet

to a place that sees the street

***  

K’s Clue Number Two:

Did you think to find treats here?

Then you’ll be disappointed dear

I’m sorry to be teasy

but finding treats is not that easy!

Careful: don’t become a grouch

Instead, go down and look beneath a couch!

*** 

K’s Clue Number Three:

Of course the treats won’t fit down here

There’s far too much of it I fear

Now to read the next sweet clue

You have but to find a shoe

*** 

K’s Clue Number Four:

Are you getting tired now?

Perhaps you’d like to ride a cow

But I don’t have a cow to ride

Instead I have a place to hide

Yet another Easter Clue

Inside the sometimes stinky loo

Where you go to have a poo!

*** 

K’s Clue Number Five:

This is the last clue my friend

after this will be the end

But if I may just kindly posit:

tooth decay: chocolate can cause it

when you eat your treats don’t rush

Afterwards be sure to brush

Now to find some real sweet deals

Go to where you cook your meals!

*** 

Dearest E:

Such a pretty, friendly girl

Like your sister, quite a pearl

Because you’re both so nice and sweet

I have brought for you a treat

But first a clue you understand

Underneath a great big can

*** 

E’s Clue Number Two:

With the treats a furry friend

If you make it to the end

To find the next clue go downstairs

And look beneath a great big bear

*** 

E’s Clue Number Three:

Congratulations!  You are now

One step closer to a cow

I beg your pardon! That’s not true

I meant to say that if you moo…

Wait a sec!  That’s not it either

Just find a cow and look beside ‘er

*** 

E’s Clue Number Four:

Now you’re getting really near

And if you listen you might hear

Something chocolate calling dear

Don’t go shedding any tears,

One more clue awaits, I fear

If you want your special stash

Go and look beside the trash!

*** 

E’s Clue Number Five:

Because you’re like a shining star,

and you’ve found your way this far,

I shall make you wait no more

Look behind a closet door!

Thank you both for playing this game

Next year we shall do the same!

*** 

You’ve got to like a rabbit not afraid of including the odd scatalogical clue.  It took the girls all of fifteen minutes to find every clue and baskets full of chocolate and fuzzy animals at the end of the trail.  Did they go back to bed after that?  Of course not.  Am I ready to go back to bed?  You bet.  And I’ll get to go back to bed, too… in another fourteen hours.

Ah, to have the energy of an eight year old again…

Happy Easter Everyone!

Here’s another casualty of the untimely and senseless destruction of Assorted Nonsense Version 1 that I think is worth reposting.  It’s a brief conversation with science fiction author Larry Niven that I had at Torcon 3 in 2003:

On my birthday my wife teased me about getting old. I said I didn’t mind… lots of people don’t get the chance to turn forty-three. Little did I know that on that very day Canadian Blues Great Jeff Healey would be one of them, passing away at the all-too-tender age of forty.

I was fortunate enough to meet the man twice, once way back in the spring of ninety-two, when I’d been working as a CBC Radio technician for all of four years. Here’s a piece I wrote in my journal at the time about meeting him:

Spring Nineteen ninety-two.

I was asked to work overtime and it turned out to be a two-hour booking packaging My Kinda Jazz, hosted by Jeff Healey.

Myself I’m not really into the kind of music he plays, although I do like the kind of music he apparently prefers, which is the sort he featured on his show. Antiquated jazz, dating back well into the Forties and beyond. Anyway, when he got to the studio booth he greeted me over the talkback, having been informed of my presence in the control room by the producer. I thought this was a friendly thing for him to do, as it’s not of unheard of for people to completely ignore us technical types until they just about trip over us.

I said hi back, and he commented that he couldn’t hear me very well over the talkback. This was unimportant, really, as in all likelihood I wouldn’t be talking to him during the show, but I decided to look into it anyway. I went to the booth and pointed out a certain knob that I suspected might have control over the volume of the talkback. He had his hand partially over the knob in question so I couldn’t turn it up myself, and as he is blind, I was pretty sure he didn’t know which knob I was talking about.

I did sort of a stupid thing, I said, “It’s the one just to the right of your hand”, and then reached out and touched the knob, also brushing his hand slightly. It let him know the position of the control I was talking about, but I think it annoyed him greatly. I guess I was acknowledging his handicap and underestimating him.

He said huffily, “No, that doesn’t have anything to do with it, that’s the monitor control.”

I suppose I had a thing or two to learn about dealing with blind people, not to mention studio booth controls. Finally I just adjusted Healey’s mic and with my tail between my legs returned to the control room. (Found out later you can’t adjust the level of the talkback, it’s pre-set.)

If Healey really was annoyed with me it didn’t last long; there was a bit of friendly banter before we started the show. The packaging went well, it was a straightforward sort of affair, chatter, song, chatter, song, with all the songs prerecorded by Healey one right after the other on a DAT. I guess he has a DAT machine home. Made my job easy.

Just so happened it was March 25th, 1992, his twenty-sixth birthday, I think, the producer (David, I don’t know his last name) told me.

Healey was quite knowledgeable about his subject matter. I couldn’t tell how much he was reeling off the top of his head or how much he derived from his notes (all in braille). All the tunes were from old 78′s, his own; apparently he has a collection of about 6000 or so (note: as of 2008 it numbered 30,000 plus).

We played a song from Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, one of four versions the Duke recorded of this particular song, called the Mooch. There was a muted trumpet solo in the song, and Jeff remarked in the intro that what the trumpet player used for a mute was a plunger. I asked David if Healey was joking and he assured me he wasn’t. Maybe they were having me on, I don’t know, but during the song David asked Jeff over the talkback if the plunger the guy used was a used plunger. Jeff laughed and remarked that if it was, it was probably a “shitty plunger”.

He sat with his eyes closed the entire booking, rocking a bit to the music, and when he left he didn’t say goodbye.