Clarkesworld Magazine - Issue 17 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction magazine
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2008-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

About the Author

Alexander Lumans is originally from Aiken, South Carolina. He has fiction forthcoming from StoryQuarterly. He has also been nominated for the anthology Best New American Voices 2009 as well as for a 2008 AWP Intro Award. Currently, he is enrolled in the MFA Program at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale.

I Like Writing but Hate Being a Writer

Richard Bowes

I said that aloud as I sat stone cold sober at the World Fantasy convention in Saratoga Springs last fall. All over the lobby, bright faced young writers fresh out of workshops gazed covertly at editors and agents who passed them by with that blank eye that acknowledges no one. Desperate older writers without publishers circled endlessly like raptors over a barren landscape, while a well-oiled horror writer strode within an entourage comprised of his smiling wife and adoring groupies.

Nick Mamatas of Clarkesworld, who was present when I spoke, said he’d buy an essay on liking to write while hating being a writer, were I to write it. Maybe moments like that are why speculative fiction writers go to conventions.

It was after the thoroughbred racing season and before the first snow, but Saratoga Springs, that aristocratic old resort in upstate New York, was still beautiful. Locations favored by the rich tend to be. The air was crisp, the foliage still turning. For a long weekend this fall, the streets of the tiny, picturesque town were flooded with what I’ve come to think of as The Blob, that floating spec fiction community that assembles, breaks down into component parts, and then reassembles at the next preordained spot.

I’d been nearly as one with The Blob some months before at an awards ceremony and would be again in Manhattan a few weeks after World Fantasy. Is there something special about seeing The Blob in cold foothill air? Does it do something special to the noise and gossip, rumor and self promotion — and the booze? Sober, I don’t believe it is possible to entirely participate in a convention.

I came late to being a writer, or at least the kind who wrote stories and books of the sort one could publish under one’s own name. The first SF novel I wrote was acquired when I was forty. Though I’d read SF and fantasy for most of my life, I’d never belonged to any fan organization or attended a convention until I sold my first book. It was much too late for me to fully enjoy being a writer because I’d stopped drinking.

Probably it’s only because I stopped that I was able to write or, for that matter, that I’m still alive, but sobriety has its drawbacks. When I first attended a certain quite wonderful Midwestern convention, everyone talked about, “its spirit” My discovery was that for many the spirit was vodka.

Writers tend to be shy, antisocial people who require various amounts of lubrication to function in crowds. Being sober at any of their gatherings after a certain hour in the evening gives me the sensation

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.