Texas Fantasy

Now I never have to go to Corpus Christi again. That’s where the World Fantasy Convention took place, and there’s not a lot I can tell you about the town itself because the weather is not conducive to anything but hiding out in the hotel. This was the end of October, mind you, and when I stepped off the plane the air that slumped down on top of me had the precise warmth, thickness, and sodden weight of the air I encountered at an airfield in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1961 (minus the particular smell that gave that Nigerian air, rich with smoke, vegetation, palm oil, peppers, and sewage, its unforgettable character). And the wind blew. My God, how the wind blew, tearing along the curve of the harbor with a kind of bullying gusto that was pretty invigorating, for a block or so. After that, you wanted to kill yourself.

I ran into an academic friend whom I know from the yearly International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts at Ft. Lauderdale, leaning into that wind on his way back to the hotel, and he snarled that he had enough of humidity and wind back home in Fla., thankyou.

I think he had been trying the other hotel restaurant (the Omni has two hotel towers separated by an office block on the bayfront). I tried that, too, only to discover that the exact same menu, plus quality of food (barely describable), is on offer at both of these establishments. So were the crowds, as the other tower had the Elks, in red jackets, overrunning the place, instead of fantasy writers.

That said, however, I’ll gladly add that the convention itself was just fine (and I could even get to the treadmills in the hotel exercise room when I needed to, which is a rarity in these big places). As usual, great masses of business were conducted at the bar over drinks, people with wheels gallantly transported friends without same to other eating places (such as the shack on Padre Island called Snoopy’s, where there are “no diving” and “Do not feed the seagulls” signs nailed up on the porch railing) for relief, and the book dealers’ room was chock full of collectors’ items carefully shielded in plastic and priced accordingly.

Highlights for me were running into quite a number of graduates of the Clarion Writing Workshops, east and west versions, a good half dozen of them people from summers when I’ve taught there myself (including last summer). This is always a delight, since there are these consistent rumors of people being crushed by their Clarion experience and never showing their heads, or any written work, again. You go home from your teaching stint wondering whether you have destroyed some nascent genius, thereby earning indelible karma that you can only pay off in a later life by becoming a publisher or an agent. So nice to find these Clarionites so cheery and pleased to be in the thick of it, full of news about those who have made sales or found jobs in publishing, and obviously, eagerly, still in the game. Silly sods; didn’t they listen?

I also met, at long last, my net-scout, Wiley, who drove in with his mother from a nearby town where he is living while he completes his schooling. Wiley has been working for me (and for a colleague of mine who is the one he first contacted, Quinn Yarbro) for about a year and a half, and it is largely to his diligent prowling of the net on my behalf that I credit the good visit-rate that this page has had since its inception (the page is well-made, I think, but there are a million well-made pages out there — so something is pointing people to this one). He’s twenty-one, has already done a month’s internship at a New York publishing house this past summer, and has apparently found his calling in publicity rather than editing (thank God).

We discussed publicity strategy for my next book, a non-fiction piece on whales and channeling called Strange Seas, coming out in DVD from Mike Ward’s Hidden Knowledge site. The nature of the book being what it is, we are wondering how to get the word out at New Age venues without becoming targeted by unwelcome loonies (New Age readership being perceived as a very mixed bag of curiosity seekers, scholars and students, and blazing nutcases — more and possibly corrective commentary on this as experience teaches). We also need to announce the book among more traditional partisans of the cetaceans without incurring anger and scorn for daring to offer material that is provocative without being scientifically verifiable at present (if ever — if we murder all the cetaceans, by intent or by carelessness and selfishness, no more primary science can be done on them to either support or obliterate my material or anybody else’s on cetacean culture and nature).

In another place Wiley and I would have taken a walk to see the sights while we talked, but we were in Corpus. So after lunch he and his mom took off to check out a local bookstore and head home again, and I went off to drop in on another program item.

I nearly missed the mass book signing (I was out at dinner with Ellen Klages, who persistently takes me to meals at places from which I cannot possibly get back in time for appointments previously made — and I keep letting her do this because the food is always good and the company irresistible); but I got there in time to be put in touch with a contact I had previously made with someone working for the Jim Henson organization, and who I knew was looking for me too.

Joy Haldeman kindly located Rachel for me, and so we met me at Corpus after all, and next day we talked over food at a local diner about the persistent weirdness of the guys (and it is guys, almost exclusively) who run Hollywood being absolutely opposed to anything labeled “fantasy” (which they seem to feel is all girlie and soft), but eager for anything labeled “horror” even if it’s, well, the same thing with a different title (and no elves).

This suggests to me, although with no possible way to test the theory, that Horror (as it is generally presented, not when subverted to carry other content) really is reactionary at base, because these guys love it — all that screaming, and women covered with blood for having the absolute gall to be sexual (even if they’re not, just female you know); but fantasy is full of people who win by guile and by knowledge instead of manly muscle, and some of them are even women (magicians, queens, warriors), yechhh, gich, aarrghh! And elves, well, they’re — they’re sort of close to Fairies, right? And we can’t have anything like that, or somebody might think that we aren’t real boys ourselves.

Christ, I am so sick of this kind of crap; but hey, we have probably just elected one of these bluff, dull fellows as the leader of our nation and of the self-styled Free World, so what else can be expected? At any rate Rachel has been trying to find a buyer for Emma Bull’s fine fantasy novel, War for the Oaks, for years; no dice. Elves, you know. She’s hoping for more women to join the team, which might help overcome the problems of getting the go-ahead for fantasy work of any kind other than Matrix-type morph-and-crash epics.

Some shifting is to be expected if the new film version of The Lord of the Rings is the smashing success that is being predicted. There are elves in it, but it’s still going to make a fortune, unless (and probably even if) it’s really, really bad. And that these Hollywood money guys do understand. Also slavish imitation, or anything that can be viewed as such. This, plus the advances of CGI (which is, however, still expensive), makes the future of fantasy look brighter in film.

I was also alerted to watch for a new series called “The Fearing Mind” that sounds promising — an hour long tv show intercutting a horror author’s mixed-up life and the horror tale that the mix-ups are inspiring him to write. Looking forward to it.

[News flash: a note from Rachel, explaining that she is no longer with Henson and that “The Fearing Mind” is about to be torpedoed, so — never mind. It’s worth noting, however, that the creators of “Buffy” are guys, and that is fantasy and it’s hugely successful. Anybody notice that, besides legions of viewers? Ditto “Xena,” which is fantasy if ever there was any.]

I browsed the book room and put some red “Tiptree Award winner” stickers on the copies of The Conqueror’s Child that I found there. Tor managed not to remember to note this award on the cover of the trade paper edition, so they were convinced to print up some stickers that they said they’ll put onto copies still in the warehouse, while I do the same in bookstores where I find unstickered copies. This is important not only for encouraging sales of the book but for publicizing the Tiptree Award, which is still not as well known as it ought to be. Considering that you get not only chocolate and art but $1000 when you win, it seems to me a little strange that more authors and readers aren’t keenly aware of the thing’s existence. It will be given for year 2000 next March in Madison, Wisconsin, at the 2001 Wiscon.

I also bought more books than I ought to have, of course.

The panels were the usual sorts of offerings and casually attended (remember all that business going on in the bar; and some folks wandered off to see the aquarium and the Lexington, an aircraft carrier tied up further down the bay for tourists to visit).

I checked out one panel on Fat Fantasy Books, at which editors and authors discussed what it is that makes Very Fat Fantasy novels sell. They didn’t seem to know, but agreed that some stories are so large that no shorter form will serve; and that it’s really cheaper and less of a risk for publishers to print thinner books that use less paper so what does get out there in this huge format is either very good or else very obviously commercial. At another panel, on using and re-using the hoary old cliches of fantasy (oh, you know — elves, wizards, prophecies, magical animals, long journeys over picturesque but economically nonsensical countryside, and big, big battles), everyone agreed that you just have to be original about it. That was helpful. More specifically, the suggestion was to take the little guy’s point of view, although, as was pointed out, pretty soon you have to get the little guy distinguished — ie big — in some way or else he’s going to miss out on all the doings of the nobles and wizards that give the story the illusion of enough significance to merit those three fat volumes or more.

Then there was The Panel, as it was described to me, on narrative technique and pacing, with Gene Wolfe, Steve Donaldson, Connie Willis, and others whose names at the moment escape me. Connie reminded everyone that “Your characters can’t run away with your story because they aren’t real. You made them up. Get a grip.” Steve D. rephrased the matter as follows: a character can attain influence or move in a direction that suggests alternate lines of development to the author, who then gets to decide whether to pursue these opportunities or not, and once pursued, whether they are worth keeping or should be junked after all and the original story-line restored.

My own experience suggests that this is a pretty good description of what writers mean when they widen their eyes and announce with astonishment that some character or other “just took over,” as if they were served with an order to show up for jury duty. In fact you just get tugged in an unexpected direction by the intriguing potentialities of a character that you didn’t see at first, and you run with them a bit, for the fun of it. Then you have to make some decisions about whether this will unbalance your story and overshadow the doings of your major people, or whether it can be made to fit into and enrich the overall picture. You are still required to exercise artistic control, and as the author you do have the last word, and it’s a bit looney to pretend otherwise.

We do that to claim a kind of special magic for our characters and through them for ourselves, as if we can bring imagined persons into actual being by an act of creative will; and that pretension is what Connie was objecting to, I think, and rightly.

I must add, though, that although I too recoil from writers who insist that they make characters real enough to run up Visa bills, I am nonetheless firmly rooted in the camp of those who grow their stories and characters as they go along; that's a process that invites characters to show everything they've got, even if you end up cutting some of their best lines in the interests of the rest of the story. They do have, at best, a kind of life, and that kind of life is what we read and write to experience.

Some of The Panel were adamant about knowing every scene of a story before beginning to write, which, Connie (I think) said, really meant that the putting-down-on-paper happens much later in the process for them, while improvisers (like me) are writing words down very early in the same process and revising their way through numerous rewrites on the page instead of in the mind. Makes sense to me. I have a lousy memory, so I start writing immediately and revise many, many times to get it right (without forgetting previous alternatives that I might have to go back to later on). I think the way your memory works may be a decisive factor here.

There were parties, of course, most in the Con Suite, among them the first public meeting of Broad Universe, a brand new alliance of writers committed to publicizing and promoting the work of women SF authors, similar to Sisters in Crime in the mystery field, but located more on the net (they have a site) than on paper. There was chocolate. Amy Hanson made the pitch, and people in a very crowded room gave money to help build a Broad Universe site (and pay for the party food), as well as signing up to be members of the organization.

Questions about membership and function of Broad Universe (particularly, on what basis should men be included, and how to counter the usual dumb criticism of being unfairly exclusionary toward male authors merely by organizing female authors — as if the guys haven’t always commanded the vast majority of publicity bucks, shelf-space, and reviews simply by virtue of being male) are still in the discussion phase. The Broad Universe steering committee plans to confer with Sisters in Crime (and Women Writing the West) for information on how they’ve handled such questions. Everyone agrees that it’s about damned time, anyway, and the party was cheerful and energetic.

The World Fantasy Convention banquet took place on Sunday afternoon, but having completed my business pretty well the day before, I left for home via an endlessly delayed flight on American Eagle (avoid, avoid, avoid!), and arrived safe but not sound, as I now find that I’ve caught a cold.

Never mind, it was worth it.

Next year, Montreal. The food is bound to be better, but of course we’ll be packing sweaters and scarves... so that we can sit in the bar and gossip and talk business.

--SMC
October 31, 2000

Copyright © 2000 by Suzy McKee Charnas