This is a Christmas one so not much to say about it. More relaxed and cutesy for the holiday. Gonna get really meta and talk about something I have though about artists who have a large body of work over time that is personal to some degree. My two favorite artists are piers anthony (author) and ian anderson (musician in the band jethro tull). Their works go across decades and anthony would always put these authors notes talking a bit about his life. For me he is the greatest story teller but not necessarily writer. What I mean is he had works that were sorta rehashes of other works but I was alway excited to get to the authors notes and that gets to the story teller part. I found he could talk about making eggs for breakfast and it would be fascinating. Ok switch to anderson and his music had a lot of viewpoints and feelings that come from him. So the thing im getting to is years later they have this log of their lives in their art. They can sit down and read or listen to something they did you their youth and recapture who they were then. I find that magical. I think this is the reason so many people recommend journalling. Thing is you have to not lose the journal. When you release them into the public space they become functionally immortal in the modern age. So you can never lose that precious bit of timespace encapsulated in the art. It makes me a bit jelly as if there is one aspect of human existence that is contrary to my skillset it is art. Writing being the closest I may get to it and well. You all know what my writing is like.
Xanth was very special to me when I was young.
Oh! You just changed my mind about Piers Anthony.
I didn’t like his writing, but I did like his author’s notes. But in one, he wrote that writing is a job, and some days you just have to sit at your word processor and put some garbage on the page even if you’re not feeling it.
At the time I hated that. I had some grand illusions about the craft and how every word must be intentional and earnest in order to have value.
So that’s why I quit reading his books.Well, it was that and the reverse poop in Bearing an Hourglass.
His big advice for would be writers is have a spouse who works. He essentially became a writer by making a deal with his wife to let him write full time for one year. He got enough published that they kept the expiriment going and eventually she did not have to work. I actually put the incarnations as his best series up till geoodessey but I have not read much of his since the one about god. I get not liking bearing an hourglass. I liked it but he was really trying a difficult thing with the way he set up rules around the incarnation of time. fate is an interesting one do to the way that incarnation works. I can be more specific but it would be a bit of a spoiler.
Oh, I finished it and got halfway through the Green Mother book before running out of steam.
My partner and I both work because we both have to. :(no judgement here. I think the last book I read is the last wheel of time written by jordan. adulting sucks.
Oh, I mean both my partner and I would love to take a year off while the other works, but we can’t afford for either of us to stop working.
oh. for writing purposes. I get it now.