Hey, Lars, Which Science Fiction Writer Are You?
I ranked as E.E. “Doc” Smith. Who’s he? Yeah, that’s what I said, but I returned to change two of my answers and got the-much-more-respectable-in-my-mind Ursula K. LeGuin. Thank you. I’ll be signing her books in the lobby.
In related news, I ranked as J.S. Bach in the classical composer quiz. I’m glad someone is finally recognizing my talents.
I can’t confess to being a fan of James Brown, but I feel compelled to pass on this link to AccuRadio’s Classic Soul channel, which is playing a tribute to James Brown this month. “Throughout the month of January, we’re featuring dozens and dozens of songs by the Godfather of Soul, spanning the entire amazing career of The Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” reports one of the best, if not the best, internet radio sites.
I’ve started taking up my personal devotions more systematically lately (fortunately I started this just before I lost my meal ticket… er, renter, so I can’t accuse myself of doing it just to curry favor in Heaven. My mind does work this way. Really). I’ve switched from my old NIV Study Bible (great notes) to an English Standard Version Bible.
I like it. I’ve been reading Dynamic Equivalency Bibles for decades now, seduced by the argument that if you really want to convey the sense of the original you’ve pretty much got to rewrite everything. Moving back to a more literal translation, I get a pleasant sense of solidity. Nobody’s telling me what they think the text says. They trust me to be a grownup and be able to read books written for grownups.
My first Bible was King James, and then I got an RSV (the old one, before they went all PC and started fiddling with gender and stuff). The ESV is a direct descendent of the old RSV, and so far I’m pleased and comforted.
The following almost feels as if it’s connected, but I can’t think how.
When I was writing song lyrics in an obscure Christian singing group, there was one thing I never did (actually I never did lots of things, notably make time with girls, but that’s another story). I never claimed that “God wrote this song.”
I saw it way too many times. Some sweet, sincere kid with a guitar would say, “God wrote this song. It just came to me while I was laying in bed, and I got up and wrote it down in fifteen minutes. So I know it came from God.”
Then he/she would play the thing and it would be repetitious and clichéd, and you could always count on the word “strife” being employed in contexts where you’d never use “strife” if you didn’t have a desperate need for a rhyme for “life.”
And I wanted to scream at them, “Don’t you realize what you’re saying here? You’re saying that God’s a lousy lyricist!”
I never did, though. I’m too kind-hearted. And cowardly.
I thought of that today when a book crossed my desk at work. It was a novel written by a man whose shoes I am not worthy to polish. He’s one of those unsung saints the newspapers and magazines will never profile, someone who’s given his life in sacrificial service to Christ and his neighbor, living from hand to mouth and enduring a fair amount of danger along the way.
He wrote a novel.
And it’s lousy.
I want to tell people (I’m telling a few right now) that the fact that you have something to say, and a story to tell, and spiritual insight, doesn’t make you a writer of fiction.
Sincerity won’t do it. I might be very sincere about wanting to build a church, to the glory of God. I might pray over every nail, and work with a heart full of devotion.
But that won’t make it a good church building.
Because I’m not a competent carpenter.
Writing fiction is a craft, just like carpentry. It has its own tools and skills, protocols and shortcuts. Regardless of how good your basic idea is, the nuts and bolts have to be properly tightened, the corners squared.
I’m not telling you to stay away from fiction if you’re not a “professional.” I’m not saying I belong to some priesthood which alone is privileged to touch the holy written word.
I’m just saying if you want to get into the guild, you’ve got to learn your craft. And that will take time and diligence.
How am I today? Better, I think. A little better.
For one thing, the long-awaited third volume of The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis finally arrived. Each volume has been longer than one before, and this one tallies in at 1,810 pages, including the index. It’s going on the shelf for now, but the next time I’m laid up with a multiple fracture of the leg, I’ll have my reading material ready.
I know it’s silly to look for divine signs in the day’s events, but on the way to work this morning I tried to fill up with gas at The Station That Usually Has the Lowest Price. I noted that the toll seemed to have gone up from yesterday, but I was there, and they’re usually the cheapest, so I assumed everybody else had jumped too, and I tried a fill-up. But the lock on my locking gas cap was frozen, and I didn’t have any spray to loosen it, so I drove off in a huff (actually I drove off in my Tracker, but you know what I mean).
This afternoon I stopped at Another Station That Sometimes Has the Lowest Price. Not only did my gas cap open (it was a little warmer today, so it probably melted in the sun), but the price was a full dime a gallon lower than my previous stop.
This undeserved bounty pleased me inordinately. I took it (for no rational or biblical reason) as a sign that God isn’t against me. Not completely, anyway.
Perspective is important, but it’s not my strong suit. There are probably people reading this entry who face the loss of loved ones, to disease or war. What are my problems compared to theirs? I’m sure they’d gladly have a mortgage foreclosed on them if it meant the restoration of their friend or family member.
And when I think it out, my situation isn’t so awful. I got notice in time so that I can still place an ad in the February issue of the Minnesota Christian Chronicle. That means it’s possible I could have a replacement sometime next month.
In storytelling, the dynamics of plot are always the same, whether it’s a literary story about an intellectual with writer’s block (unless it’s something experimental and self-indulgent), or a thriller about international counterterrorists and nuclear devices. The point of the story is always to change somebody. And the change always comes through pain and struggle.
You never read a story where somebody gets good advice, from a friend or from a book, and decides, “Hey, that’s right! I’m going to change the way I handle my life!” and everything is resolved right there.
The change always comes through conflict and hard times. I don’t think that’s only because it makes for a more interesting story.
I think it’s because it’s the way life is for real people.
God is trying to teach me something. So He’s doing what I’d do if I were writing my life—He’s making things hard for me.
Hope it works.
Blast.
My nice quiet renter is moving out, due to a personal crisis. There goes my economic security, until I can find another one.
Another opportunity to put my faith in God. He’s always taken care of me before. Why should I worry?
I hate living by faith, by the way.
Phil asked if I’d care to do the following meme. I’ll try it, but he’ll probably be sorry he asked.
0) What’s your name and website URL? (optional, of course)
My name is Lars, and… you’re here.
1) What’s the most fun work you’ve ever done, and why? (two sentences max)
The job I have now. Working with books, pottering about with old Norwegian volumes, what could be better?
2) A. Name one thing you did in the past that you no longer do but wish you did? (one sentence max)
Amateur theater, which I wish I had time for nowadays.
B. Name one thing you’ve always wanted to do but keep putting it off? (one sentence max)
Getting married.
3) A. What two things would you most like to learn or be better at, and why? (two sentences max)
I’d love to play the guitar. Unfortunately, I know from experience that I have no (zero) talent for it.
B. If you could take a class/workshop/apprentice from anyone in the world living or dead, who would it be and what would you hope to learn? (two more sentences, max)
I’d like to have taken one of C. S. Lewis’ literature classes. He’d probably have chewed me up and spit me out, though.
4) A. What three words might your best friends or family use to describe you?
Lazy, depressed, self-absorbed.
B. Now list two more words you wish described you.
Happy and thoughtful.
5) What are your top three passions? (can be current or past, work, hobbies, or causes– three sentences max)
I used to be passionate about the Body of Christ, spiritual adventuring and Norway/Vikings. Now I’m too bludgeoned to get excited about much of anything, except maybe live steel, and it’s the wrong season for that.
6) Write and answer one more question that YOU would ask someone (with answer in three sentences max)
Me ask a question? No, I don’t think so.
“I’m not saying this is good for you,” Anderson said as she watched a stream of sizzling blobs of dough bob across a pool of organic palm fruit oil. “But it’s definitely not as bad.”
Here’s the article, but before you link what do you think Anderson is talking about?
The snow started last night and left about three inches behind. Nothing to compare to the kind of weather they’ve been getting further south and west, of course, but enough to turn the landscape into the sort of scene Walt Kelly said cartoonists loved—all that snow makes it very easy to draw. And, in classic fashion, the clouds rolled out to make way for clear skies and rapidly dropping temperatures. The high today was about 10 above, and tomorrow should be cut from the same climate.
I drove to work cautiously, tense with the secret fear that haunts my winter commute—that I’ll stop at a red light on an uphill grade and not be able to get traction to move again, listening to the horns of equally frustrated drivers behind me. All of them would be saying to themselves, “That idiot’s in an SUV! Why doesn’t he switch it into four wheel drive?” And I’d have no way of explaining that my 4WD doesn’t work, and it’s too expensive to fix.
But I made it in OK. I even got up the driveway at work, a stretch that’s stymied me more than once in the past. Fortunately our crack maintenance team had risen with the roosters and plowed it out.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d gotten stuck there, though. The head maintenance guy is the one who discovered my drive deficiency in the first place. It’s nice to work somewhere where they know your failings and accept you anyway.
By way of Mirabilis, here’s a story on how scientists have reconstructed the poet Dante’s face. He turns out to have been a little less formidable looking than we’d all thought.
I finished Stephen White’s mystery Remote Control last night. This isn’t a review, though I might mention that I found it kind of hard to follow, and thought the ending seemed a little contrived. I have a question about White’s books.
I’m quite sure (though I’m beginning to doubt myself) that I first heard of White in a column at National Review Online. Somebody wrote about mystery writers conservatives could enjoy, and I’m sure I wrote down the names of Jonathan Kellerman and Stephen White.
Kellerman didn’t disappoint. In spite of having a continuing homosexual character, the Alex Delaware mysteries have become steadily more anti-PC as time has gone by.
But I’ve read three White books so far, and I fail to discern any evidence of conservative views, either political or social.
Remote Control begins with the murder of a saintly abortionist by a fanatical pro-lifer. In the course of the book, association with Operation Rescue is just assumed to be a sign of utter moral turpitude.
Did I write down the wrong author name? Do the books get better later on?
Give me the benefit of your experience.
The snow started last night and left about three inches behind. Nothing to compare to the kind of weather they’ve been getting further south and west, of course, but enough to turn the landscape into the sort of scene Walt Kelly said cartoonists loved—all that snow makes it very easy to draw. And, in classic fashion, the clouds rolled out to make way for clear skies and rapidly dropping temperatures. The high today was about 10 above, and tomorrow should be cut from the same climate.
I drove to work cautiously, tense with the secret fear that haunts my winter commute—that I’ll stop at a red light on an uphill grade and not be able to get traction to move again, listening to the horns of equally frustrated drivers behind me. All of them would be saying to themselves, “That idiot’s in an SUV! Why doesn’t he switch it into four wheel drive?” And I’d have no way of explaining that my 4WD doesn’t work, and it’s too expensive to fix.
But I made it in OK. I even got up the driveway at work, a stretch that’s stymied me more than once in the past. Fortunately our crack maintenance team had risen with the roosters and plowed it out.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d gotten stuck there, though. The head maintenance guy is the one who discovered my drive deficiency in the first place. It’s nice to work somewhere where they know your failings and accept you anyway.
By way of Mirabilis, here’s a story on how scientists have reconstructed the poet Dante’s face. He turns out to have been a little less formidable looking than we’d all thought.
I finished Stephen White’s mystery Remote Control last night. This isn’t a review, though I might mention that I found it kind of hard to follow, and thought the ending seemed a little contrived. I have a question about White’s books.
I’m quite sure (though I’m beginning to doubt myself) that I first heard of White in a column at National Review Online. Somebody wrote about mystery writers conservatives could enjoy, and I’m sure I wrote down the names of Jonathan Kellerman and Stephen White.
Kellerman didn’t disappoint. In spite of having a continuing homosexual character, the Alex Delaware mysteries have become steadily more anti-PC as time has gone by.
But I’ve read three White books so far, and I fail to discern any evidence of conservative views, either political or social.
Remote Control begins with the murder of a saintly abortionist by a fanatical pro-lifer. In the course of the book, association with Operation Rescue is just assumed to be a sign of utter moral turpitude.
Did I write down the wrong author name? Do the books get better later on?
Give me the benefit of your experience.
Middlebury College students are playing quidditch with a few adaptations for non-magical folk.
Harry Potter fan fiction, La Septima M or The Seventh M, has been published by young author Francisca Solar of Chili. She says, “All the things I know about literature, about writing, I learned in the fan fiction world. I owe it everything.”
The Christopher Little Literary Agency, who represents J.K. Rowling, has announced a £1,500 prize and possible representation “to students on the creative writing course at City University in London. The agency said it wanted originality, talent and ‘not a Harry Potter clone,'” reports BBC News.
Jared asks, “Are there any interesting books you have in mind to read in the new year?”