Electronic OtherRealms #30 The Parody Issue Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chaos Spring, 1991 Part 3 of 4 Copyright 1991 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved. OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact. OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use. No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other publication without permission of the author. All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author. The Writer's Day Melanie Rawn People who don't write for a living often ask people who do about "discipline" and "the writer's routine." Having heard this from friends and relatives for some years now, I've decided that they don't mention it because they're interested. Not really. They mention it because it's a polite way of asking, "What the hell do you do all day?" I suspect this curiosity has much to do with the fact that I work at home, set my own hours, and the nearest approximation to a boss (my editor) is three time zones away. Hey, who's to know if I spend the day watching rented tapes of Bugs Bunny? (Well, my publisher will know, of course, once the deadline arrives and the manuscript doesn't, but why else did I go to college except to learn how to pull all-nighters?) Every writer works differently. My method (though I'd hardly dignify it with that term) won't apply to anyone else. But my ideal writing day goes like this: 8:30 a.m. Read L.A. Times over breakfast 9:30 Sit down at processor and write four chapters of deathless prose 12:30 p.m. Mail delivery brings royalty check 12:45 Eat lunch while reading (book, Time, etc.) 2:00 Domestic chores 3:00 Energetic hour at health club 4:00 Review day's writing 5:30 Short nap (restorative to brain-burn) 6:30 Eat low-calorie dinner while watching Dan Rather 7:30 Answer all "Jeopardy!" questions correctly 8:00 Write four more brilliant chapters 12:00 a.m. More reading 1:00 Bedtime Real Life is like this: 10:30 a.m. Stagger blearily from bed (didn't get to sleep until 3:45, or got to sleep at semi-reasonable hour but got awakened by a faultline hiccup at 4:52 a.m. I love L.A....) 11:00 Realize that laundry, dishes, letters, bills, marketing, house plants, phonecalls to accountant/agent/editor, and 500 other professional and domestic details have not been dealt with in at least a month. There goes what's left of the morning. 1:00 p.m. Mail brings more bills, plus book club purchases and latest issue of Time. Haven't read previous purchases or last five issues of Time. Have lunch and take early nap. 3:45 Remember that checks will bounce moonward unless there is immediate transfer of funds; hasten to bank, which locks up at 4:00. Also recall that laundry is still in dryer, late bills have not been mailed, library books are three weeks overdue, last saw the gym five pounds ago...et cetera, et cetera, et cetera (as the King of Siam was wont to say). 6:00 Discover fridge contains tray of ice cubes and absolutely nothing else. 6:05 Discover that total cash on hand is one leftover quarter from laundry and scant contents of piggy bank (all pennies). 6:45 Write check for pizza delivery and swear to spend three hours at gym tomorrow. 7:30 Watch "Jeopardy!" in hopes of reassurance that I am not in fact brain dead. Phrase every answer in form of question--and get 73% of them wrong. 8:00 Sit down to work for the first time that day. Phone rings. Wait for answering machine to kick in and recall on fifth ring that I forgot to hook it up. First call is computer-generated sales pitch. Second is friend. Third is relation. Fourth leaves message because it's now 10:00 and I finally pushed the right button. 10:30 Neighborhood felines begin utilization of my outdoor plants as catbox. Spend 20 minutes in vigorous attack with water spritzer and resolve to buy truly vicious cactus. 11:00 Remember that Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Scott Bakula, or other major heartthrob is scheduled to appear on Arsenio. 12:10 a.m. Review notes of what was supposed to be written today. Correct typographical error in notes. 12:15 Go to bed. 5:12 Parrots vacationing in local palm trees begin vigorous discussion of flight plan back home to Mexico. 5:40 Fellow tenant who owns brand new fire-engine red Corvette and works two jobs to keep up payments opens car door without having first turned off alarm system. 5:45 Seriously consider phoning agent and editor in NYC to say "I quit!" and find honest work. 8:30 Get hot idea for solving plot problem. 5:30 p.m. Two chapters later, decide not to peruse Help Wanted ads. MIZ MANEURS HELLO AND WELCOME ALL! I've gotten a massive pile of mail recently, and I was most happy to handle it all in the form of this column, on request of Mr. C. Rospach. So much to do, and so little time.... Do write in with your questions, you'll always receive some sort of response if you include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. That is, unless I need the stamps for something myself. Dear Miz Maneurs: I receive over 60 submissions/week. Though I've attempted bravely to advertise what I am looking for, writers continually send me material unrelated to my publication, which is basically fantasy. How can I deal with (l) religious nuts (2) horror writers and (3) writers who sign their name with initials, thereby giving me no option in addressing a proper response? Concerned Fantasy Editor Dear Concerned: Forget the stuff you get unrelated to the tripe you are looking for. Make a form note, stick it on to your response if they provide an SASE, and take a Tylenol. Your form reject needs to say "Sorry, I can't give you a cigar for this submission." You don't need to explain further. If no SASE, burn it and enjoy. As for initials only--I think this is just wonderful. You should praise the Lord that you have initials instead of a proper name, which implies sexist origins. Nobody cares if you want to be nice. You are an Editor, silly fool. Dear Miz Maneurs: I've been starving in Albuquerque for seven months and am down to only 245 lb., trying to find work as a poet. My last girlfriend threw me out, and has tried to have me blacklisted, only I'm white. I write lots of offensive things, and wonder if the SF/F genre is best suited for my talents. If so, how can I redeem myself and get money to afford an apartment? This box is too small for me and my seven cats. Franz K. Albuquerque Alley Dear Franz: You deserve what you ask for. Poets are students of the mind and never will make any money because they write short stuff. Everyone knows it's only for filler, and you can't get anywhere if you say something that is too short. Even if it is, indeed, time-saving. I suggest you find a nice old lady who likes cats, move in with her. Then convince her you need a typewriter and write novels, like anyone with common sense does. Dear Miz Manneurs: I need yor help despritly. I a woking posin who is allso writtting to sel my storys. I rite sience and ficton. Somtimes i get no respons frm editrs. Well, I rite relly well, so i can not figur what si wron. P.S. Du you gt any kikbakcs? Alma Mae of Crossover, Tx. Dear Alma Mae: You are doing just fine. You need a spell-check and a computer and all that sort of thing, so I'm sending you my free brochures on what equipment to purchase with the money you'll get for appearing in my column. And yes, I do enjoy the residuals of my occupation. Dear Miz Manneurs: How many pages is a short story supposed to be? I have a ROYAL, with elite type and I single spaced it so how come they won't accept my story because it was a really great story, and only cost $.95 to mail? Oh, I also used the back of the pages, so as to save money. I think this is a great idea. What do you say? Frustrated Author (Omaha) Dear Frustrated: A short story? Well, we don't like short stories too much. That is, I wouldn't go public with them except in the very very small press. Mostly, they are used for filler just as poetry is, but I wish you luck. A tip: buy some of the equipment listed in my brochure and see if that helps. Also, if you MUST save paper, be sure you stamp "recycled" all over your pages before typing your stories. This really grabs the editors nowadays. Most editors are into saving the Earth, all that. A short story is about four pages, but you seem to be headed in the right direction for a really long one. Dear Miz Manneurs: I am a science fiction artist who has tried time and again to have my works published. I can't find any listings of anywhere to send them except the ones that ask for an S.A.S.E. I think this is quite rude. Do you think I have to cater to editor's whims? Down and Out Artist in Boulder Dear Down: In a word, yes. Don't forget to read my brochure. Jakes, Jacks, and Johns: An Analysis of Elizabeth Moon's Use of Waste Technology as a Metaphor for Feminist Survivalist Philosophy, or "Why So Many Jacks and So Little Shit?" E. Sophia Burks Several reviewers have commented on Moon's apparent fascination with lowtech sewage treatment facilities; some believe this enhances the realistic "feel" of a low-tech setting, which they assume to be medieval. But careful analysis of the entire corpus of this writer reveals that human excreta has in fact a metaphorical significance so far not appreciated. In the first place, her choice of the word "jacks" for the privies, outhouses, garderobes, and latrines might seem to be related to the traditional "jakes" or the more modern "johns," as "Jack" is often a nickname for "John" She herself has claimed this derivation (J.T., personal communication). It is only necessary, however, to consider the setting in which these "jacks" appear to realize another, more ominous, significance in the name. The first use of "jacks" is in the military-adventure novel Sheepfarmer's Daughter, in which recruits are set to dig a trench, Trenches, of course. are traditional military defensive emplacements. And the military form of "jacks" is the caltrop (children's jacks are merely miniature caltrops), used defensively against cavalry (originally) and later against vehicles, whose tires they puncture. So it is obvious that "jacks" has a military significance unrelated to any previous term for latrine, and that Moon linked (consciously or unconsciously) the defensive concepts of trenches and caltrops in her use of that term. When one considers the Freudian theories of character formation, in which defensiveness of a certain type is associated with the anal stage of development, one cannot doubt that the use of the term "jacks" implies absolute defensiveness of the most entrenched (or embedded) type. Throughout the novels, one finds repeated instances of compulsive or obsessive acts which support this hypothesis. It would be easy to dismiss the existence of so many defense images as required by the military setting of the story, were it not that the writer is a woman who has chosen the pen name of "Moon." Male writers of military fiction usually make much more use of phallic-aggressive images; the concentration on trenches, jacks, and cooktents (the characters eat several times during the book), and the number of walled cities (whose meaning is obvious to the least instructed!) suggested an overwhelmingly female approach (or defense) to the conventions of military fiction. The name "Moon" suggests a fixation on rhythmic fertility cycles, and a tragic subconscious conflict in this writer's mind between the desire to compete safely in a male arena (and this is even more strongly borne out in Divided Allegiance where the arena is explicit) and a deep female need to reproduce and express nurturance. More evidence of such conflict comes with understanding that the protagonist's name might as easily have been spelt "Pax"--meaning "peace"--and that the first military mentor this poor peace-loving girl met was named "Stammel"--an almost Joycean neologism combining "stammer" and "trammel" to reveal the basic conflict. She was "trammeled" or trapped (the metaphoric linkage to the spider demon called the Tangler is powerful) by someone whose goals (again) were subconsciously confused--hence the "stammer" converting "Trammel" to "Stammel." The mercenary commander's name also bears such reinterpretation: "Kieri Phelan" can be pronounced (in what I presume to be Moon's native southwestern dialect) as "Keer he Fay-lin" or "Care(s) he, (is he) Feeling?" In other words, as a poignant query to the destroyer (commander) about his motivation in pursuing war. (One can almost imagine this as the refrain of one of those wailing nasal country-western songs the writer must have heard so often in her youth.) Throughout this first novel, the author's emphasis is on the character's survival; the minutiae of techniques used to survive a few days of walking across country with friends reveals the link between defense (recall that the characters sheltered behind a thorny bush--again, caltrops, or "jacks"--and slept in hollows [= trenches]) and survival. More deeply, of course, these hollows and thorny bushes represent the vulnerability and defenses inherent in female anatomy. Compulsive elements abound, additional indication of psychological (as well as military) defenses. Divided Allegiance, the second novel, presents more evidence that for this writer survival as a female involves elaborate and difficult defenses. Paks, or Peace, repudiates the cruelties of the mercenary life, and chooses to become a caravan guard--again, a defensive position. But she bears a secret message to the north (the North, of course. signifies the intellect) from--not her own commander, Cares-he?--but Aliam Halveric. Halveric is immediately familiar to anyone who is conversant with the rather limited literature of Upper Boglund (annexed in the 13th c., of course.) One knows instantly that the short bald husband of a tall dark-haired archer is none other than Fierdi Loppleggin, the "low-father" of his race. The significance of "Cares-he?" not having children. and of the maiming of Halveric's (Loppleggin's) eldest son is thus shown forth. Peace has chosen fertility (again) over the uncaring destructive force represented by the Red Duke (red signifying not blood but fire, in this instance.) But the price paid becomes clear only in the third volume (a complete analysis of which will appear later in a scholarly journal. For interim analyses of Divided Allegiance and Oath of Gold, see also Burks, Jamerson, and Norris: "Verse and Perverse: Poetry in Modern Fantasy", "Arachniphobia in Women Writers of the 20th Century," and "Color Analysis as an Aid to Interpretation of Metaphoric Intent in Women's Writing.") Surrender None, overtly a tale of a peasant revolt, shares many of the same elements. One of the first things the young boy taken for guard training learns is to put ashes (mourning) on the jacks. This has several possible interpretations: the ashes may mourn the "gift" of fertility which rests in the jacks, or the "gift" of life which soldiers must expect to lose as involuntarily as they eventually contribute their nitrogen load. The boy's mother (highly significant) is repeatedly shown to be a fanatic about cleanliness, even to claiming that "demons" inhabit dirt and cause disease. As one would expect, a concern with cleanliness is shown to be a female trait, which the male protagonist has taken in and failed to expel. His associates express surprise at his attitudes, and chide him for it. But what a writer omits is often as important as what he or she includes. In the first three books, one might have suspected a difficulty with fertility and reproduction, since the main character never had a sexual relationship or a child. Concentration on excretion rather than reproduction suggests deep-seated conflicts in the writer's own psychology. Surrender None, however, is rife with reproduction and sexual encounters, although many potential relationships and births are truncated by violence (again, a very female approach to this issue, since many male writers present war as a sexual excitant.) Moon also seems to have some bias against small domestic animals, since there are few dogs or cats in the books, and no major character has a pet. Yet the most highly significant omission in Moon's books is that of the common word for human excreta. Now quite acceptable in print, this word is surely known even to the writer; in fact (S.S., personal communication) she is known to have used it verbally. Why, then, does it not appear where one would expect it to be moat common? Why so many jacks, and so little shit? The omission cannot be accidental, which means that it offers another opportunity to probe the writer's intent. The moat obvious clue comes from the word itself, which can be seen as a compression of "she" into "it." Again, in the southwestern dialect, the common pronunciation is "shee-it!" If one returns to the protagonist of the first three books, the young girl Peace, who in the process of militarization acts against her own feminine nature of fertility to become a neuter (note that she never takes a lover of either sex), then "she" has become "it" by engaging in repeated acts of survival-oriented defense, involving trenches (anatomically significant!) and "jacks." And the result is precisely that "shit" which is then preoccupies the author through not only a trilogy but a prequel! Survivalists, especially right-wing survivalists, are often perceived as being rigid, defensive. and anal...so the link to survivalism is also quite obvious to the trained mind. Commonly such persona are assumed to be male, but in recent years women have begun expressing an interest in survival as well. One well-known group of religious survivalists is even led by a woman, and although Moon's first novels were written before that group was organized, it is conceivable that she was influenced by this changing attitude among women. Yet the path to feminist survivalism is beset by many dangers, which this author recognizes (consciously or not) and espresses as concern for traditional female responsibilities (fertility and cleanliness) and by denying (in the avoidance of a common English word) that women survivors have changed from "she" to "it," even when all other evidence would make that precise conversion obvious. ------ End ------