RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
I'm not rejecting SFF. I didn't want to read it while I was writing it, that's all. Never mind guys, I'm not going to win this one ...
'contamination'
- Thread starter RJM Corbet
- Start date
Interference
Destroyer of Words
Win or lose, you generated a lot of thinking in others and that is an important contribution by any standards.
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
Thank you! Maybe, finally, to go back to the music allegory, when Dylan or Bach are touring, they may be totally contained with the work, then they get home and start playing CDs again...
goldenapples
of the sun
I read this:
"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid you'll kill yourself the way your mother did," I said.
"I know," I said.
by Kurt Vonnegut, who is very influential, if that helps. It all depends what you read in my opinion
"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid you'll kill yourself the way your mother did," I said.
"I know," I said.
by Kurt Vonnegut, who is very influential, if that helps. It all depends what you read in my opinion
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
I read this:
"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid you'll kill yourself the way your mother did," I said.
"I know," I said.
by Kurt Vonnegut, who is very influential, if that helps. It all depends what you read in my opinion
I love Kurt Vonnegut. Slaughterhouse Five? Unputdownable. Player Piano? The guy's got style. It's just the way he uses words. That dialogue! He can write about a brick and keep you reading, laughing, but the end result is serious, important. Is he still alive?
Alfred Bester: Tiger, tiger; Demolition Man? Brilliant.
Ira Levin? Rosemary's Baby, Marathon Man, The Stepford Wives?
But we're talking about literary greats. Ray Bradbury: Golden Apples of the Sun? Classic writers.
But look man, in the end it's writing, not reading, that makes you a better writer?
Thanks for your interest in this thread ...
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RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
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I couldn't agree more: Some things take longer than you think they will, and they're some kinds a things you can never kill (from 'Time out of Mind')
I couldn't agree more: Some things take longer than you think they will, and they're some kinds a things you can never kill (from 'Time out of Mind')
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
Sorry Judge, I have been thinking about what you said. Samuel Johnson?
Do you think he meant that possibly in the context of editing, rewriting? Boil it down, boil it down?
J Riff
The Ants are my friends..
Heh, Bach's new album. remastered for the rap crowd...
I don't imagine anyone is too seriously contesting your comments, obviously 'contaminated' is tongue in cheek, and if you don't read SFF for a while, yet manage to write it, lucky you, best o both worlds.
I don't imagine anyone is too seriously contesting your comments, obviously 'contaminated' is tongue in cheek, and if you don't read SFF for a while, yet manage to write it, lucky you, best o both worlds.
I wasn't aware that it was a competition. You asked for our opinions, and I thought it was a discussion.
Probably we all have times when we're working on our writing for such long, intense periods that we're too exhausted to enjoy reading anything. I certainly do. Or if I do read something, I want it to be light, unchallenging, or else what I call "comfort" reading: an old favorite I know so well that I don't have to think about it as I read and I can just enjoy revisiting favorite moments and favorite characters.
Most of the time it doesn't matter so much about the genre, but sometimes when the writing is mostly self-editing, the closer that what I am reading is to what I am writing the harder it is to get out of the editing mode. I'll keep wanting to change the words around, or questioning the character motivation. This is hardly relaxing, and can really spoil a book I might otherwise have enjoyed. At those times, I do want to avoid reading anything in genre, but it's not because I think the other book will influence my writing; it's because I think my writing will have a bad influence on my enjoyment of the other book!
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
Sorry, it wasn't meant that way. Certainly not in a personal sense. It's just that one gets so tired of being told what the market demands. Obviously that is a most important consideration if one is writing directly for publication, Theresa.
I have worked on a newspaper, staff job, other journalistic work.
I'm used to having my stuff I've written spiked, rejected. I don't take it personally.
Newspapers, magazines, books, have to sell - especially books, which are not supported by advertising revenue.
Please don't take offence at anything I've said. The 'artists' comment.
You guys are fun to talk to, really.
Someone has to play devil's advocate?
Sorry.
Roger
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
I went back and tried to change my mis-spelling of 'plagiarism', but it was too late to edit the entry. You didn't correct me directly, you just used a sentence with the word correctly spelled. I learned by it. Sorry, I really don't mean to sound argumentative, ok?
Thank you very much for your intesest in the thread, which by now has probably ravelled out to a natural end, or given me enough rope to hang myself, whichever way you see it
Thank you very much for your intesest in the thread, which by now has probably ravelled out to a natural end, or given me enough rope to hang myself, whichever way you see it
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
I agree. A most unfortunate word to use, in retrospect. Thank you
Don't think so. The full quote -- which I'd have been better off giving in the first place!
-- is: "The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book."Also: "I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."
Incidentally, while I'm here -- when you're responding to several posts at the same time, there's no need to put your replies in separate posts of your own. In fact, we'd prefer it if you didn't, since successive posting is frowned upon. There's a multi-quote button next to the ordinary quote one -- the thing with quotation marks and a + sign (it took me months before I found it...).
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
Thank you. I still don't understand how to work that? Could you please just explain a bit further? I was using the 'quote' thing to address a response to a particular person. I found out what GWD means, and appreciate that you did that. I don't know who you are, although I've read the general rules...
Me? I'm the Bearer of the Scales of Justice. The Wielder of the Sword of Truth. The Smiter of the Spammer. The Terror of the Trolls. I also cook.** (Not on Chrons, however. The kitchens here are not what they could be. Here... I also critique.) In other words, the newest and lowliest of the mods -- but with an impressive vocabulary and an even more impressive embonpoint, so I make a good entrance.
Anyhow, asking me for technological assistance is like asking a cat to bark, but I'll have a go. If you hit the multi-quote button on every post which you want to quote, and then on the last of those posts hit the ordinary quote button, it should bring them all up in the order in which you hit the buttons. I think.
** Prizes for getting the quote...
Anyhow, asking me for technological assistance is like asking a cat to bark, but I'll have a go. If you hit the multi-quote button on every post which you want to quote, and then on the last of those posts hit the ordinary quote button, it should bring them all up in the order in which you hit the buttons. I think.
** Prizes for getting the quote...
I'm afraid not. http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/37102-kurt-vonnegut-jr-november-11-1922-april-11-a.html
Well, I never went along on any of Bach's tours; I imagine his keyboard technician must have been a wiz with the tiny screwdrivers and leather flaps.
But I can say that since there have been portable ways of reproducing music, musicians have been listening to other perpetrators of their own style, to music from other artists that interest them, or are selling well, or are the fashionable flavour of the month, in tour busses, dressing rooms, airport lounges…
And no few riffs and turns of phrase have been absorbed, digested and re-emitted in an unrecognisable form, in a totally different context following this exercise. I wouldn't be that surprised to see Paganini studying his competitors' scores in the stage coach while travelling.
Art does not develop in a vacuum. The principal interaction is between the artist and his public, certainly; but there is afield of creation, evolving and mutating over time. Not being in contact with this field does not only mean you are unfashionable, but that you are far more likely to land on an idea someone else has already written the definitive tome on.
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Steven Seagal's character in Under Siege. Now cough up -- my humiliation at admitting I know that must be worth something.
chopper
Steven Poore - Epic Fantasist & SFSF Socialist
since the quote is Steven Seagull in his metaphysical tour-de-force Under Siege, I'm already scared of the prize.....
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Alas, TJ, I am unfamiliar with the quote, so I'll have to concede the prize to somebody else.*
But it did remind me of a favorite quote from Buffy:
*Which I see turns out to be HareBrain.
That is what I meant about the field evolving, but you have expressed it much better than I did.
But it did remind me of a favorite quote from Buffy:
*Which I see turns out to be HareBrain.
chrispenycate said:
That is what I meant about the field evolving, but you have expressed it much better than I did.
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
Huh? as regards the technical advice ...
I would love to read all the books y'all written, but I can't afford to buy them unless I get my own published.
Signed complimentary copies gratefully accepted ...
I would love to read all the books y'all written, but I can't afford to buy them unless I get my own published.
Signed complimentary copies gratefully accepted ...
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