Whiling Away the Time

Well, while I'm waiting for news to come, here's a few interesting points on the 'net.

First, check out Jeff Vandermeer's interesting comment on Haruki Murakami's new book, Kafka on the Shore:

The idea of dreaming well or dreaming poorly, the idea that the imagination--its fruition or deformity--is the core of our (moral and ethical?) being begins to show the lie of frivolous interpretations of the imagination. In the world I like to think I inhabit--whether it is the real world or not--imaginative play is not something whimsical (in the derogatory sense of that word) but something vital--a part of humane interaction and communication, even a springboard for or practice for the part of us in which the serious and the silly are indistinguishable, and one may rise out of the other with ease. The imagination is, in some sense, and quite simply, the world. (Am I sure I'm saying this correctly? No. Am I sure I'm investing it with melodrama? Yes.)

...and...

Are there books we under-appreciate through no fault of the author's, but because our own imaginations as readers are not up to the task? And are there books we admire in part because we are not imaginative enough to see them for what they are?

Makes me want to mix metaphor and point out that axiom about power, in this case the power of imagination: its ability lies in being used and not just the potentiality.

Likewise, Fantasy Grandmaster Michael Moorcock tells it like it is for wannabe-writers (from the IROSF):

In my view unless you've been bankrupted as a writer or gone to prison at least once you haven't really been a writer...I would advise them not to try to avoid bankruptcy and prison. These are necessary credentials, amongst others. If they want to write fantasy I always advise them to stop reading fantasy and read modern realists. If they want to write autobiographical realism, I advise them to read some of the best visionary writers of our day. But if you're not risking bankruptcy and prison you're probably not taking enough risks in your work, either...

We should all maintain areas of risk, I think, however cautious we are by nature. The danger to a writer is to get too set in their ways, too comfortable, even if it's in their own misery.

First they tell me that writers are a poor lot. Now they expect us to go to jail? I don't know-- to paraphrase Billy Crystal in "Analyze That", I'd probably be much-liked in jail. Eck.

For those who are keeping an eye out for speculative short fiction, here's a nice site: Free Speculative Fiction Online, a catalogue of all speculative short fiction online. (Courtesy of the Slush God.)

Lastly, a book reviewed in SFSite gave me the shivers when I found out it had three concepts similar to a book I'm putting together. That damn common well of imaginative ideas again...