Category: About Kelly

1983

Do you remember 1983? If so, what were you doing in July?

Because that’s the month that marks my last serious connection with one of the main drivers of American mass culture: Television. I could push the date further back, to spring of ’82 perhaps, when I first started dating. Or later, to fall of ’94, when Laura and I formally disconnected the antenna on the television we hadn’t watched more than once a month in the four years we’d been living together. But August 12th 1983 is probably the best date. That would be the day I got my driver’s license and was formally free of being stuck at home in any meaningful way. That’s the day I stopped knowing what was on on any given evening.

This comes up because over the years I’ve had any number of conversations that follow a certain pattern.

1. Someone will ask me something about television, a program, an event, something.

2. I say I don’t watch television.

3. They say, “oh really?” or “I don’t watch it either,” or something else that acknowledges that they’ve heard and processed what I said.

4. A bit of time goes by and then they make some reference to something on television and are quite surprised that I don’t know what they are talking about.

5. Repeat steps 2-4 up to half a dozen times before it sinks in.

Sometimes this will happen more than once with the same person. It’s understandable really. Television plays a central role in American culture and most people watch at least some television, often without even registering that they’re doing so. I have no moral or cultural objections to television, it just doesn’t interest me all that much.*

The only non-DVD** television shows I’ve watched since 1994 are scattered episodes of Myth Busters,(~15-20) The Daily Show,(~5-8) Muppets Tonight (~5-10) and Whose Line is it Anyway, (10-20) all seen either while staying in hotels or because friends taped stuff and insisted we would enjoy it.***

From ’83 to ’94 I watched occasional episodes of Night Court, (~5-10) Next Generation, (~5-8) Deep Space Nine,(~5-8) The Young Ones (~15-20) and Cheers (~6-12), mostly because it was on when I was visiting someone.

I’ve never seen a single episode of Friends, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, or The Drew Carey Show. Nor have I seen Voyager, Buffy, Angel, Babylon 5, Xena, Hercules, BSG, or any other f&sf favorites of the last 25 years. I have never seen an entire episode of reality tv of any kind.****

I am not plugged into television culture and haven’t been for 30 years. But it is so pervasive that even people who’ve known me that whole time and know that I haven’t been watching television are often surprised when they talk about some show, or a star or director of same, and I don’t have a clue who they’re talking about.

I find the phenomena fascinating and occasionally frustrating.

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*Let me repeat in the firmest possible terms I have ZERO moral or cultural objections to TV. It just doesn’t interest me. I got a lot of pushback on this post when I originally put it up from people who felt that I was judging them for watching TV. I wasn’t, and I don’t. I do however find it fascinating how many people assume that my not watching TV means that I condemn the idea. Not true. I really really really don’t care if other people watch TV.

The reason I blogged about it is right there in the post–Americans talk about TV shows on a regular basis and when I explain to them that its not a subject I can really participate in because I have no frame of reference, many of them either don’t believe me or don’t process the information and keep asking me questions that could just as easily be in Sanscrit for all the sense they make to me. I find it to be a fascinating phenomena.

**On DVD we’ve watched four new shows: Dr Who Seasons 1-6, The Big Bang Theory, Sherlock, and Downton Abbey. We’ve also watched two shows from my childhood: Soap and The Muppet Show, but those don’t add anything to my post ’83 cultural literacy.

***and they’ve been entirely correct.

****not quite true, I did watch one episode of the Nineteen Hundred House because friends thought Laura and I might be interested.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog September 16 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Why I Write Reason #429

I had really strange dream last night about visiting my old school and ending up having to take a standardized test on the Muppets. Only, during the part of the test period where they gave you the context for the questions (new Muppets with some interesting new story structure), my cat Nutmeg escaped and I had to go chase her done outside before anything bad could happen to her. When I got back I’d missed important parts of the test. I wasn’t stressed about it though because I knew I could ace the test anyway. Then I woke up.

What does that have to do with writing? I don’t know about it at a conscious level, but at an unconscious level I woke up with quite a few of the story tools I need to solve some of the problems I’ve been having with The Black School sequel. Pretty much without transition I went from the Muppet dream into waking, plotting on, and thinking about The Eye Of Horus, and I could feel my backbrain linking the two somehow.

Apparently my subconscious was able to use Kermit and the gang to organize my thoughts about what The Eye Of Horus is really about thematically and in terms of story arc and also to work out some of the details of the romance subplot.

Why Muppets? I don’t know. How? I can’t say for sure, but I could make an informed guess about symbolic reasoning and a brain wired for story making connections between a successful extant storyworld construct and the one I’m building.

Basically, at the unconscious level I think in story, which is why I tend to leak weirdness if I’m not writing. The stuff has to go someplace and the page is probably the safest place for it.

In short, I write to protect the rest of you from the stuff that would otherwise leak out of my brain and pollute the social environment.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog July 16 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Not All Writers Are Neurotic…At Least Not In The Same Ways

I was at a library author appearance recently (Catherine Friend–funny funny writer, go buy her book Hit by a Farm). She said that when she was younger she’d never really been interested in being a writer. Further she said that this was at least in part due to having read about writers and determining that (at least according to their bios) they were pretty much all insecure neurotic drunks. She then gave the punchline–she was here to tell us it simply wasn’t true and she was living proof…she didn’t drink. Then she went on to detail her insecurities and neuroses. It was funny and it did a great job of selling her most recent work–a humorous memoir.

On that level the joke and the related anecdotes worked great. On another level they grated on my nerves a bit. I won’t argue with the neurotic bit, I don’t think I’ve ever met a writer who wasn’t a bit neurotic in some way, but then I don’t know that I’ve ever met any human who wasn’t a bit neurotic in some way.

It was the insecurity thing. There is a school of thought, much reinforced by writer blogs, that suggests that all writers moan about how their work is crap much of the time…except for those writers who are egotistical monsters. Now, it is certainly true that some writers are insecure wrecks and some writers are certainly raving egotists, but there’s a lot of ground in between. And really, I suspect that most writers spend most of their time in that middle ground. If we didn’t believe we were doing pretty good work most of the time we’d never send it out. I certainly believe that I mostly do pretty good work most of the time.

I’m sure there are people who will argue with me on this, and that’s fine. There are 1,001 ways to write a novel and every one of them is right. If being an insecure wreck is your method and it works for you, I’m not going to try to say it shouldn’t or try to make you stop. I just want to provide a counter-example. It is perfectly fine to be happy writing most of the time and be happy with what you have written…as long as it doesn’t prevent you from seeing flaws and correcting them.

So, consider this official permission to enjoy yourself and give yourself the occasional pat on the back from a real live professional author (yes, that is tongue firmly in cheek, but it’s also sincere). If every time you write you enjoy it, and every time you reread your work you go “Hey that mostly works,” and sometimes you even say things like “I rock!” Or, “I’m a genius!” It’s all fine. Just don’t let it stop you from improving. It’s perfectly acceptable to be a happy and secure writer. You can even do that and sell books.

This message brought to you by the Kelly McCullough People Like Me, They Really Like Me, school of writing.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog May 17 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Insomnia

I am having one of my periodic wrestling matches with insomnia, which, in my case seem to be related to the same part of my brain that does the heavy lifting for storytelling. For me insomnia is invariably a can’t get my brain to stop whirring problem and one that feels like it feels when I’m processing story.

There are variations:

The worry whirr, in which I can’t get my mind off some care that I can’t do anything about.

The engineering whirr, in which I am working on a project of some sort and end up spending hours on design issues that I could solve in minutes with a piece of paper a pencil and some measurements.

The genuine story whirr, in which my brain picks away at some aspect of the current w.i.p. and won’t let go even once I solve the problem.

And tonight’s special joy, the what if whirr, in which my brain gets its teeth into constructing scenarios in which things are other than as they are–in this case the cascade was triggered by the ongoing work left by my grandmother’s rather abrupt departure from the scene.

None of it is terribly fun and I have found that the best response is to get out of bed and do something that is not sleeping for a while–hence this blog post. Now that I’ve done that for a bit I’m going to wander back to bed and see if I have successfully distracted the story-telling part of my brain enough that it will shut up and let the rest of me get to sleep.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog April 28 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

 

Ancient Interview

These are questions a student sent me and my answers to same. I thought it might be of some interest to the readers of this blog, so here goes:

1: How long did it take from having the idea for your first book to actually writing it and having a finished book?

About three months but I’m an extremely unusual case because I write significantly faster than most novelists. At this point it takes me 4-6 months to write a novel while the industry average is around a year.

2: After having it finished, how long did it take to find a publisher that would publish your first book?

I still haven’t found a publisher for that one. My first published book was the the fourth one I wrote, WebMage. It took about 14 months to write (the longest it’s ever taken me to write a novel). I started it about 2 years after the short story of the same name. I finished WebMage the novel in 2000 and it sold in 2005.

3: Do you think that being a previously published author of short stories helped to get your books published?

Absolutely. My first published book involved the same characters as my first published short story. It even incorporated the short story into the first couple of chapters. Most importantly, selling short stories made it much much easier to interest an agent in my work.

4: Was there a driving force that pushed you towards becoming a writer, a specific event or defining moment?

I quit theater. From the age of 11-22 I worked on and in theater, that’s where my BA is. Then I met my now wife, and decided I’d rather have a life than an acting career-they’re basically incompatible-and I needed something else to do that touched on the same artistic interests as theater. I’d always enjoyed writing, so I sat down and wrote a book and fell in love with the process.

5: Is there a specific author who’s work influenced you towards becoming a science fiction writer, and if so why?

One, not really. Half a dozen, yes. Tolkien, Asimov, Shakespeare, Zelazny, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, H. Beam Piper, Tim Powers. They all gave me experiences as a reader that I loved.

6: Did you ever doubt that your work would never be finished and published, and if so what kept you going?

Any number of times. Absolute iron in the bone stubborness. Once I started down the writing road I refused to stop for any reason. I liken the publishing process to knocking a brick wall down with your forehead. As long as you remember that your forehead will heal and the wall won’t, you’ll be okay.

7: Your books, WebMage and Cybermancy, fall under the science fiction category, but no previous books fall under the same type as yours. Was that helpful or hurtful towards getting them published by creating a new sub-genre within science fiction?

Both. It made it harder to sell them initially, but has made it much easier to attract attention from reviewers and readers once they came out. That in turn makes it easier to sell more books in the series and to keep a career going. I’m actually having the same issue with selling a couple of other books that I’ve written that aren’t quite like anything anyone else is writing, and I hope that once my agent finds a publisher for them the end result will be similar.

8: Were you daunted to become published along authors such as Jules Verne and H.W. Wells who arguably created the entire genre of science fiction?

Not really. One of the coolest thing about being a professional author, particularly in science fiction and fantasy is that the writing community is quite small and friendly. I’ve gotten to meet and make friends with a number of authors who I look up to.

8: What would be your advice towards first time authors, trying to finish a work and starting the daunting task of trying to find a publisher who will take the risk and publish them?

The most important thing you can do is write. Everything else is secondary to getting words on the page. That’s number one. Number two is to understand that no two writers use the same process or follow quite the same road to being published. There are 1,001 and one way to write a novel and every one of them is right. Third, hang in there. It’s a long slow process and most writers don’t sell their first book, or even their second, but persistence pays off. Fourth, learn how the industry works. There are a lot of people in publishing who blog about the process and that’s a huge resource that wasn’t there when I was getting started. Use it. Learn. Then write and write well and everything else will follow.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog April 3 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

 

The Affordable Care Act & Making Your Living In The Arts

Despite Republican politician feet being stamped and Republican politician breath being held and Republican politicians shutting down the government, Obamacare begins to go into effect today and a lot of people who had no insurance or junk insurance are now going to have the opportunity to sign up for real insurance.

The Affordable Care Act will almost certainly save the lives and/or livelihoods of people who are my very dear friends. Lives is obvious. Livelihoods a bit less so. Let me elucidate: medical bankruptcy, like all bankruptcy, treats copyrights as assets. Get too sick without proper insurance and you lose control of your life’s work. Further, I have friends who have died because of things that might not have killed them if they’d had this level of insurance.

I am a very fortunate artist in that I am married to a women whose insurance carries us both. If I were not, I would not have functioning knees, and I’d be down a number of teeth. That or I would have had to give up on writing to find other work. This isn’t an abstract partisan argument for me. This is personal and it is life and death.

More Story Dreams

The first was a typical fantasy quest dream except for a detail which I am totally putting in a book. My weapon was a length of rope with an unbreakable, intelligent, talking, immortal box-turtle on one end–a magical, talking morning-star, and a remarkably cynical one to boot. The turtle had not volunteered for this mission, thank you very much, nor had it signed up as a companion and mentor to heroes. Nope, it just sort of happened that way because it had all of the above-mentioned qualities and a remarkable inability to run away whenever the next damn hero came along. …Must write.

The other was a writers dream. Big castle hall, young mages squatting on the floor waiting their turn to demonstrate their magics and earn a place at the table of the great. Only, all the mages were writers–it looked like World Fantasy but with a lot more leather. Oh, and I got to follow Bear in the competition. I’m not sure whether I’m happy or sad that I woke up before I got my chance to compete.

This glimpse into my subconscious provided by lack of sleep inc. All opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent any endorsement by the sponsor.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog February 21 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

A Day In The Life

So one of the things that I keep getting asked at interviews and appearances this winter is: What does your typical day look like? Since it’s typical for me, I don’t find it very interesting, but in case anyone out there was wondering, here is the ideal version of my typical day.

~7:30 I wake up briefly when Laura gets up and goes off to herd faculty and teach physics. I give her a kiss goodbye and go back to sleep for half an hour to an hour.

~8:00-8:30 I get up.

~8:00-10:00 I stagger out of bed (still not awake) and start infusing caffeine into my system, either diet cola or black tea followed by the other. I do this while putting in an hour-and-a-half on the treadmill reading my email and morning news blogs on my laptop. 2013 addition: I now start the caffeine drip in the hot tub.

~10:00-11:00 I actually wake up. I do all the not-writing work that’s accumulated, like answering the email that I read and prioritized on the treadmill, posting to this blog, any promotional stuff that needs taking care of, breakfast, etc.

~11:00-12:00 I read through and revise the ~2,000 words I wrote yesterday. (Note, this is ideally, as the 8:00-11:00 stuff often spills over, especially if I’ve had a book launch recently and that can mean getting started later or that I wrote less yesterday)

~12:00-4:00/5:00 I write till Laura gets home.

~5:00-10:00 we do couple stuff together.

~10:00 Bedtime. Laura goes to sleep and I do research reading for another hour or two.

Notes:

1) I almost never write on the weekends. Writing is my job. It’s a job I love, but it’s still a job. That means building break time into my schedule.

2) I used to write more of each day and I used to write more words in that time, but I also used to have to do a lot more revision and throwing away of words. These days, first draft is about what a beta draft used to look like.

3) I don’t write every day or follow this schedule every day that I do write. I’m the spouse with the flexible schedule and that means I run life-support activities including the vast majority of cleaning, most of the joint meal cooking, and all of the vet appointments and the like.

4) I can and do occasionally compress everything else or let much of it go by the boards if I’m writing fast or on deadline.

And that’s about it.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog February 18 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

The Other School Dream

The School Dream

You’ve all had it. Where you find yourself back in school with everything going wrong. Either you’re naked, or you’ve got a test in a class you don’t remember signing up for, or some other horror of adolescence. My recurring variation is one where someone at the St. Paul School Board realizes I failed to take some vital cluster of courses and contacts me to let me know that if I don’t come back and take another year of high school they’re going to revoke my entire education including college. I had this dream at least a couple of times a year from graduation through selling a book, almost always when I was worrying about something or feeling insecure.

After that first sale, the school dream changed. Now when the person at the school board calls me into their office, I will bring a copy of my university diploma and a couple of my books, drop them on their desk and either walk out or offer to teach a seminar or two. I usually have this version after some sort of writing milestone. Apparently getting to the place where I can see the end of MythOS counts.

Last night I dreamed that I was back in school looking for my home room. I was late, but unworried about it. When I finally showed up, the teacher asked me if I was always going to be so late. I told him yes and explained that I was back for the year because it was a cheaper way of picking up some college course I needed for research for my books. The teacher challenged me on the books front and I upended my backpack spilling out something like thirty books under five names, all of which I had written. The pile included the WebMage stuff, several of my books under submission and, for reasons known only to my subconscious a couple of Star Wars tie-ins.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog February 15 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

15th Publishing Anniversary

I sold my first short story 15 years ago today. The story was WebMage and went to Weird Tales, then edited by George Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer and published by Warren Lapine—I still remember the magazine’s address: 123 Crooked Lane. That short later became the 1st couple chapters of the novel. I started writing fiction in 1991, so in terms of my career, I have now been a professionally published writer twice as long as I was an unpublished one, which is surreal beyond all words.