Notes from The Lost Highway

Last night, I submitted "Exemplary Employee" to Clarkesworld Magazine. Then I got "Problem Solving" off to The Westchester Review, and Untoward Magazine. Since hope springs eternal and "Problem Solving" was too long, I sent "Colonel Tom" (with another round of alterations to the end - not changing but trying to get it more focused) to trampset. Then I took myself off to bed.

My hip woke me at 5 am. I ate, swallowed my allotment of ibuprofen, and watched a little TV before getting online. That lasted about an hour, then I went back to sleeping. This last until 20 minutes ago. I may have overworked myself yesterday.

During the first round, I went back to The Westchester Review. There I read a very impressive short story, Popcorn Ceilings of the Midwest by Jennifer Fliss. Set during a road trip from Wisconsin to Toledo, Ohio for narrator's father's funeral. 

Outside of Schaumberg, I call Mike again. Ask him to drive the few hours to meet me at another, different, but identical, motel. The ceilings are popcorned, and dull lines swirl with caked-in dirt on gray, packed carpet. 

He comes and we order in pizza. After, crammed into the bathroom, we discuss the high-quality travel-sized toiletries this motel has provided. We snap on shower caps, and I put the incongruously provided shoeshine glove on my hand and we bat at each other until my stomach aches from laughter. We open the little bottles and smell them but don’t use them. Honeysuckle and mint. 

Later, bullets of rain assault the window and roof in one of those great Midwest thunderstorms. The lights flicker but don’t go out. I turn on the TV and find Return to Oz, which feels like a sign....

What I can glean from Ms. Fliss' bio, she may be from the Midwest, but she did go to college in Wisconsin. If she is what The Westchester Review publishes, I can expect another rejection. She has an entire page of links to stories and articles published. I had to skim A Tour of the United States in Hot Sauce (you paying attention, DM?).

I hope to accomplish a little more this round. Right now, I have WMBR coming in from Boston, today's Backwood's episode a tribute to Jerry Lee Lewis, but the previous show ended with Hank Williams. That song hit me between the eyes, felt just right for this morning's mood:

I need caffeine. It is 22 degrees with a stout wind blowing. McClure's seems a long walk from here.

I was going to submit to The Raven's Perch, but they want nothing over 2,000 words and I have nothing that short. I read The Shape of Death by Judith Amber, attracted by its title, and thought to check out the magazine's submission guidelines. Oh, well, I liked the poem; rather uplifting in a way.

Then I read Meg Horridges' essay, The Unfamiliar and the Strange. It is about science fiction, and enlightening without being a fanboy exhortation even for its concentration on Ted Chiang:

In order to satisfy this balancing of the familiar and the strange, sci-fi stories often conform to a “what if?” construction, centring the story on one key oddity—the “novum”—and then building the resulting events from what would logically follow. For example, The Matrix can be boiled down to one basic idea: what if we lived in a simulation? As such, this “what if?” scenario becomes the central suspension of disbelief for the audience, and so long as they accept this novum to be true in the world of the story, the rest of the events follow on logically in the form of a cognitive experiment, as Suvin describes.

This balancing act, however, is a rule that can be broken—at times with great success. Ted Chiang is an award-winning short story writer whose understanding of the sci-fi genre allows him to break these rules and write stories that, though overwhelmed with novelty, allow for even more experiment than a single novum could initiate. In many of his stories, Chiang combines multiple ideas and concepts that could form stories on their own, thus creating unique and enriching science fiction worlds that capture the imagination. This is demonstrated clearly in Stories of Your Life and Others (2002; republished as Arrival in 2016).

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In both cases, the way Chiang achieves this overabundance of the strange is rather simple: he introduces each concept separately before combining them toward the end of the story. Both stories described here are made up of short fractions, which switch between the two ideas. In the case of “Seventy-Two Letters,” we at first follow the main character in his automata workshop, before moving to the lab where we are introduced to the homunculi. Chiang ensures both concepts are fully understood apart from one another before it becomes obvious how the two intertwine. In “Story of Your Life,” a similar tactic is used, as the story is formed of fragmented memories of Lousie’s child told alongside the story of how she learned to communicate with the heptapods. In both cases, the reader is left unaware of how these two “sides” to the story will interact until quite late, leaving a sense of mystery as to how Chiang will resolve both elements. Thus, it is necessary that hints are given even as the reader is still being taught the rules of the world, and this is done in an intentional manner, though with a light touch. For instance, Louise’s “memories” throughout are told in future tense: “I remember a conversation we’ll have when you’re in your junior year of high school.” As such, even before the reveal that time has been distorted by Louise’s knowledge of the heptapods’ language, the reader is made to view her memories as strange due to the presence of both remembrance and the future.

Chiang does not, however, entirely discard familiarity; if he did, his stories would be near incomprehensible. Instead, he manages to balance his worlds’ strangeness with the constant presence of logic. For both of these stories, the reader is able to guess at how the two ideas will connect before they do, because once you understand both concepts in full, it is logical how they snap together....

I have read one story of Chiang, wish I had read more, and he is as good as Ms. Horridge makes him out to be. She has given me a bit to think about for my own stories. I wonder if I do not bury the science too deeply in "Exemplary Employee" (psychology and political science and sociology) and "The Psychotic Ape" (political science and paleontology) in favor of using familiar types in strange circumstances (working stiff in the former, and in the latter, priest and spy and terrorist).

HILoBrow continues its Kill Your Enthusiasm series with SGT. PHIL ESTERHAUS. If you do not recognize the name, then you are far younger than I am.

I almost the point in On Writing While Surrounded by Great Writing and Writers by Josh Sapan:

I know that I am not writing like those greats. I am writing, well, like me. Once I get a little momentum, my thoughts and words merge. I stop making comparisons; I don’t judge. I move into the satisfaction of just having found a different voice. The voices in Third Act: Reinventing Your Next Chapter have helped me consider my third act. I am grateful to be able to share their stories and curious to discover my own. 

Another way of saying what I have been sermonizing for years, after finally taking my own writing seriously, that one cannot be intimidated by writers thought of as great, to not be kept from saying what you have to say. I did, and paid the cost for my timidity.

From The Guardian, I read about the Ukrainians defending Snake Island and Black Panther star Letitia Wright: ‘Since Chad died I’m so afraid to lose people’ (I find her very impressive actress and now an impressive person).

Seeing the title of Angie Hodapp's Never Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Story
in an RSS was too much for my curiosity. The subject is integrating research into a story. Ms. Hodapp makes the following point:

What do I mean by frontloading with research? I mean that the writer spends too much time and energy “papering the walls” with details that don’t drive story. Often in historicals, such opening chapters feature:

• Food (what it is; how it was prepared, seasoned, and served; what rituals or traditions exist around eating it)
• Clothing (what it looks like, what it’s made of, how it was put on, what all the various articles are called)
• Dialect (phonetically spelled accents, regional phrasing, occasional foreign words in italics)
• Music (Cyndi Lauper’s new song “Time After Time” comes on the radio)
• “Current” events being mentioned or discussed in the background (the Berlin Wall is coming down)

All this is wallpaper in your novel unless…

• the food is poisoned
• the character dressing herself is stowing the Golden MacGuffin she has just stolen in a hidden pocket in her underskirts
• the dialect causes a misunderstanding that launches a war
• the protagonist believes the song on the radio was written for him
• the fall of the Berlin Wall sends the protagonist on a journey to discover the fate of the child she was forced to abandon on the other side thirty years earlier.

OK, obviously not every setting detail has to launch a plot or subplot. But I did want to illustrate the difference between wallpaper details (yes, #notallwallpaper is bad) and plot-driving details.

One problem I have with some science fiction - even stuff I like - is the info dump. I notice this more in series; they allow me to skim. I have read criticism of Sinclair Lewis, chiding him for dumping his research into a story to the detriment of the narrative.

I finished off round two with Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket. 

For instance, many full-time freelance writers learn over time that it's not good to receive more than 50% of their income from only one client. The reason? If that one client goes under or decides to go a different direction with their content mix, then a freelancer will suddenly have to make up more than half their income in new ways, which is difficult to do in a short period of time.

And creatively, writers are playing with fire if they only work on one project or write in one genre. While there are times for buckling down on one project or story to get it finished, only focusing on one type of project or genre for a sustained period of time can increase the chances of burnout.

So it's not good to put all your eggs in one basket, whether it's related to freelancing, platform building, or writing. But what's the solution?

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The bottom line: Whatever you do with your writing and publishing career, look for ways to diversify. One thin string can be easily snapped, but several thin strings woven together can create a strong rope. Each new thread makes that rope thicker and stronger. As a result, writers who diversify are much better positioned to weather the unexpected storms of change in publishing.

Well, I learned that lesson back when I had a law practice. The thing is not getting in too deep, where one does not have the time or finances to retool. 

It is now 12:28. I am taking a break, going to McClure's. When I return, I will restart my typing up "Best Intentions."

Forgot to mention I had a call from my niece yesterday. She read "Passerby" and liked it.

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