"... they were a continent called the imagination..."
I am toiling the night away in the Word Mines, and feel like I may be up to see the sun rise - it's one of those times where I'm prepared to sit huddled under a blanket (only not in this heat) with my computer on my lap, imagining conversations until the metaphorical candle gutters out - but will probably give up on that, because I'm blessedly not on deadline.
I've spent a lot of time over the past few days thinking about writing, and then actually doing some of it, and realizing how very much of it I want to do, and how comparatively little time I have to do it in (that being the rest of my life). And I've been thinking, at least a little, about genre. Most of what I've written can be classified as some genre - a lot of it fantasy (or dark fantasy), some of it noir, even a little mystery - and precious little falls under the so-called natural, realistic world of "literary" fiction. I like my world, the world of imaginative and impossible stories. It's where I spend most of my time, reading, or writing, or watching.
And it has always bugged me when someone's said to me, "Well, I wish it was more literary," or "I tend to stay away from 'fantasy'." In the latter half of the Creative Writing class at UW, the professor instructed us at the beginning that we shouldn't be writing "genre" fiction (she later relented and qualified that after I cited Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link as precedents of "literary genre" fiction). And that irked me because I wasn't interested in writing stories trapped in the real world. And then, another professor, who I admire and respect, told me, after looking at Voices, that it was all very good, but that I should spend more time on human emotion and less on "the science fiction-y stuff".
So, as a writer, I've spent a lot of my time feeling like my world is the stunted, bastard cousin of literary fiction, that it's the world of pulp and that real writers stick to real life.
Read this speech, given completely impromptu by Clive Barker at Fantasycon 2006. It says everything I'd like to say about genre, and a good deal more.
And I'm going to go back to my world of myth, and fantasy, and magic, and imagination, and be very, immensely happy about it. Good night.
I've spent a lot of time over the past few days thinking about writing, and then actually doing some of it, and realizing how very much of it I want to do, and how comparatively little time I have to do it in (that being the rest of my life). And I've been thinking, at least a little, about genre. Most of what I've written can be classified as some genre - a lot of it fantasy (or dark fantasy), some of it noir, even a little mystery - and precious little falls under the so-called natural, realistic world of "literary" fiction. I like my world, the world of imaginative and impossible stories. It's where I spend most of my time, reading, or writing, or watching.
And it has always bugged me when someone's said to me, "Well, I wish it was more literary," or "I tend to stay away from 'fantasy'." In the latter half of the Creative Writing class at UW, the professor instructed us at the beginning that we shouldn't be writing "genre" fiction (she later relented and qualified that after I cited Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link as precedents of "literary genre" fiction). And that irked me because I wasn't interested in writing stories trapped in the real world. And then, another professor, who I admire and respect, told me, after looking at Voices, that it was all very good, but that I should spend more time on human emotion and less on "the science fiction-y stuff".
So, as a writer, I've spent a lot of my time feeling like my world is the stunted, bastard cousin of literary fiction, that it's the world of pulp and that real writers stick to real life.
Read this speech, given completely impromptu by Clive Barker at Fantasycon 2006. It says everything I'd like to say about genre, and a good deal more.
And I'm going to go back to my world of myth, and fantasy, and magic, and imagination, and be very, immensely happy about it. Good night.
Labels: clive barker, continents made of talented people, genre, not putting on blankets because it is as hot as the sun, writing
posted by jeereg at
10:24 PM
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