Home Again I
Hi, All,
I’m back from Portales and an afternoon continuing to play hookey from work and responsibilities. I’m probably going to have to report on these past few days in bits and pieces because so many wonderful things happened, and so many fun, poignant, thought provoking, fascinating and funny conversations took place that it’s going to take awhile to marshall all the thoughts and memories.
Wednesday was a bit crazy making. I headed down to Albuquerque early in the morning, and ran errands (picking up Quick Books for Mac) before heading to the dentist’s chair. Three small fillings later I met Walter for lunch at a favorite Indian restaurant, and he laughed at me as I tried to eat when my lip was so numb that I was hard pressed not to eat the inside of my lip or drool chai down my front. After lunch I headed to Powdrell’s, our favorite BBQ joint, and ordered way too much food. If I believed in this stuff I’d have to say I was a Jewish mother in a previous lifetime. Nobody leaves my house hungry, damn it! I had an interesting chat with one of the Powdrell daughters while they put together the massive order. She was talking about the interesting people who frequent the restaurant, and I learned that one of the premier repair and restoration shops for violins, violas, cellos and basses is in Albuquerque. People bring their priceless 18th century instruments to Robert’s Violins. Who knew? And I’m a singer and grew up in Albuquerque.
I came racing home, and had hoped to sneak in a ride, but Connie Willis and Ed Bryant called and they were only thirty minutes out from the house. They arrived, we had a brief visit and they had a bit of time to decompress from the long drive and then it was time for the party to start. Let me give you the run down. We had George R.R. Martin and his lady, Parris, Steve Stirling, sadly without his wife, Jan. She was a bit under the weather because they had just returned from a wedding in India the day before. I was amazed Steve joined us, but it was great to have him. Daniel Abraham, his wife Kat and baby Scarlet. Walter Jon Williams, Emily Mah Tippets and her husband Trevor, Steve Gould and Laura Mixon-Gould, Terry England, Sage Walker and her SIG Hank Messenger, Ian Tregillis, Ty Frank and his wife Jayne.
The roar of conversation and shouts of laughter soon filled the house. Everyone had brought delicious side dishes for our feast, and I was left flying around making sure everyone had enough to drink, plates, washing forks, guiding people to the trash sack vs the recycling sack, making coffee, and then at 8:00 pm I gathered those of us with submissions to critique and we retired into the library. We did some good work, and we had some terrific submissions, but it was hard to be responsible when waves of laughter would come rolling down the hall and we would all look at the doorway and wonder what we were missing.
We finished around 9:30, and rejoined the party. Things broke up around 10:00 pm until just Connie, Ed, George, Parris, Carl and I were left. There had been great stories and sharp zingers exchanged earlier in the evening, but now things because rather serious and very thoughtful, and a discussion began that I think is fascinating and worth reporting about in some detail. The topic had turned to the decline of the short story magazines and George said rather sadly that people didn’t want to read short fiction now and he wondered why. I suggested that it was due to how we are entertained today — movies and television and that even movie going isn’t a stand alone experience anymore. We love Spiderman, and we know there will be another Spiderman movie along in a year of so. And television is all about falling in love with the characters and the setting and wanting to visit with those people in that place week after week.
George considered that, and pointed out that when the novel began it was just that — novel. In a world where you never travelled beyond the confines of your small village and you followed your father into his trade, and you married the girl next door and eventually you died and were buried in the same place where you were born; people wanted to read about the life they could never have. They wanted to follow Tom Jones to London and meet eccentric characters along the way, and be taken away from the safe, known confines of your world.
Connie then elaborated on this theme, presenting the idea that in our completely frantic, fragmented world readers want a safe and familiar place to which they can retreat. And hence the power and popularity of the series, or at least a known universe where you can count on seeing the characters you love and live in a world that seems more comforting (even it it’s sometimes dark and dangerous) than our own chaotic lives and times.
Then with my head full of this conversation and many other we all called it a night and adjourned to bed. And now I think I’ll tie this up and continue tomorrow with the trip to Portales.
Melinda
April 29th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Sounds like quite the gathering! I am jealous.
About short fiction I find I read it when I have a limited amount of time and the chance to read. I used to read on the starmaster and the cycle at the gym until I switched to a cross trainer that kept my arms busy. I suppose I should go back and just learn to turn pages quickly.
Another reason people do not read short fiction as much could be that they have other entertainments now like ipods, cell phones, lap tops, computers in general to provide entertainment.
The current distribution of short fiction magazines is not so great these days. Try finding one in a Barnes and Noble. In my home town I can find them in news stands and corner stores but I think that might be an exception.
April 30th, 2007 at 2:13 am
What’s interesting about the decline of print short fiction magazines is that boom in on-line short fiction venues. Within the last year or so you’ve had the launch of Baen’s Universe, Subterranean, Clarkesworld Magazine, Heliotrope (the runt of the litter), and no doubt others.
Some of this is in response, I think, to Ellen Datlow’s marvellous (and now sadly defunct, though the archives live) Sci Fiction. Either they were inspired by it’s existence, or by it’s end, or so I think.
So … some of these magazines aren’t going to go the distance, no doubt. Maybe it’s just a fad. But each one of the publishers and editors must believe they’re capable of getting enough buyers (in one way or another) to be a worthwhile endeavor.
For short fiction, I think print is going the way of the dodo. One of the major complaints about reading on a screen is that most people can’t stand to sit hours in front of the computer. But most short stories only take 30-60 minutes to read, and that’s entirely manageable. There’s also the sentimental, tactile argument for handling a new book with that new book smell and leafing through the pages, but I don’t recall many people gushing about thumbing through a digest-format magazine like Analog and Asimov (I assume they are still in digest format — I haven’t seen them since moving to Sweden), so that’s also not a problem.
Last but not least… see this aggregator, Free SF Online. They basically post links to every SF story that’s published for free on the Internet. “Free” has a lot of power. Heliotrope is a free magazine. Clarkesworld is a free magazine. Subterranean is free. Baen’s Universe is the only exception, I think, though all I’ve heard suggests that this isn’t a problem for them financially speaking (but I hear very little, so who knows).
How viable is this in the long run? No idea. But right now I suspect that there are more people reading SF short fiction on-line on a regular basis than there are reading it in print.
April 30th, 2007 at 6:55 am
SO jealous!
April 30th, 2007 at 9:11 am
I think Elio is right on the whole “free” thing. I’ve got some ideas for short stories that will tie into the book series I’m writing, but I don’t think they would sell unless the books do well so I’m planning on writing them and posting them on my website for people to read. Sort of the loss leader school of writing.
Now I just have to get up the nerve to write them. I fear the short story because I think they are really hard to write, and to write a good one is really, really hard.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Wednesday’s gathering was indeed a wild one. I always have a blast
on Critical Mass nights, even when we don’t have out-of-towners
joining us. It’s hard to return to the real world after spending time in
the company of so many wonderful people.
Ian
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Oh sure, all the interesting conversation happened after Sage rushed us out the door! I hate leaving before the good stuff happens.
Since writing short fiction comes as naturally to me as talking, and I seem to be chemically free of the ability to write novels, the conversation above does not bode well for my writing. I guess I could just post them all on a free website. Is it still considered a ‘loss leader’ if you don’t actually have anything to sell them afterward?
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:14 am
Well, as noted above, some of those magazines are free, but that doesn’t mean the writers sold the stories for free. All four of the on-line magazines are paying venues. So there’s still hope.
OTOH, people like Scott Lynch, John Scalzi, Peter Watts, Charles Stross, and a mess of Baen writers have done nothing but improve their sales (or, in Scalzi’s and Lynch’s case, actually land publishing deals) by giving away material for free. So there’s something to be said for the approach, whether you’re established or just starting in the business.