I cannot say how other writers experience life. I know that for me, one of the best perks of being a writer is that sometimes you get to hang out with writers you admire -- especially writers you admire as people, because they get it about writing. And when you sit around swapping tales about the business of swapping tales, you not only learn valuable insights about writing, but occasionally you even get a bit of feedback on how your own work is regarded in the professional realm. Call it the self-selected personal Algonquin Round Table. (No, I will not explain it. Look it up.) For me, that round table includes Harlan Ellison, Len Wein, Adam-Troy Castro, Daniel Keys Moran, David Brin, Josh Olson, John Shirley, and Spider Robinson. There are others who I would name, but I dont get to see them or correspond with them enough. Like Samuel R. Delaney, Ben Bova, and goddammit, Fred Pohl, who had the bad taste to die earlier this year, just when I was getting to the point that I thought I could write a story good enough to satisfy his critically astute editorial eye, despite the fact he hasnt edited a magazine since before most of you were born. I would add George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass to that list, but they keep passing through L.A. on their various whirlwind trips and I keep missing opportunities to spend time with them. I would grumble here about the cost of success -- that the fame attendant to being good at your craft will conspire to keep you away from the actual practice of your craft. I would say, George, stop being so famous, go home and write the next book, but there are two reasons that would be tragically ironic, the first being that by the time June is over, I will have spent six consecutive weeks attending four different conventions, three of them as a guest of honor. And the second reason being that I am not the best one to speak about discipline to an author with an unfinished book series. If I have several personal honors that I cherish, it is that there are people I admire who have surprised me by letting me know they respected my work. Carl Sagan once pulled me aside to tell me how much he liked The Man Who Folded Himself. Neil deGrasse Tyson once asked for my autograph. So did Bill Nye the science guy. A shuttle astronaut also once asked for my autograph. And I have had the pleasure of kissing Nichelle Nichols. More than once. (Eat your heart out, Trekkies.) I can now add one more to the above list. Last week, I finished a novelet about [REDACTED] in which Harlan Ellison shows up as an important character. (Its called The Thing On The Shelf and it is currently in the hands of the appropriate editor. Once it is published, I expect it to earn me the Marcel Proust award for Remembrances of Things Passed in the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. The trophy itself is a gilded kidney stone.) In the story, along the way, I reveal the truth about Chuck The Bad Luck Fairy and why you should not win a Stoker award unless you want to lose weight and have bad dreams. I did not, however, include the tale of the Dunsmuir Horror, that will have to wait for another time. I sent a copy of the story to Uncle Harlan to make sure he would have no problem with my writing him into a comedic horror story as Murray The Explainer. (Thats another writer term. Its the character who provides the necessary exposition by explaining it to someone else along the way.) Anyway, Harlan just called, to tell me how much he enjoyed the story, which to me is the highest possible honor it could ever achieve -- the joyous respect of a colleague, especially one whose respect and affection mean so much. So the way this year is progressing, I might finally be able to resolve those nagging self-esteem issues of adolescence.... I have always felt that being a science fiction writer is the best job in the world -- I could write a short novel about that, maybe I will -- partly because you get to think about anything and everything, you get to go anywhere and everywhere in time and space, and best of all, you get to hang out with other science fiction writers. More on this whenever.
Posted on: Fri, 30 May 2014 23:26:27 +0000