Not All Parties

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A reader sent me an email yesterday saying (in the nicest possible way and with a ton of good humor) ‘all well and good for you to be partying and having a wonderful time traveling about the world, but when do we see more of the next book?’  Two Serpents Rise is due out in July or June, I forget which, and hopefully we’ll have some juicy excerpt-like information to share before long, so there’s that.

The letter did point out that I don’t generally write about writing here.  Part of that’s because, while writing is wonderful, it’s also not all that exciting in a day-to-day sort of way, and especially not exciting in the way that makes for good blog posting.  Some days my characters feel like they’ve found themselves and the scenes flow. Some days I find myself lost and in a wood, and I write anyway.  Fingers hitting keys: this is the internet, you all know what it looks like.  But maybe you won’t mind a few notes on the course of my day, posted here.

Monday’s unseasonably wonderful weather receded today, leaving a morning cold and rainy and perfect for squirreling myself away in a cafe with word processor and book.  I keep discovering new scenes and threads as I write this novel–elements that should have been there all along, so that I have this strange sense of writing the book front to back to front.  The early stages of this draft were more halting and controlled, but I think I’m getting used to the freedom of this working arrangement.  The story feels more balanced, and the process flows.  I’m still using the stopwatch, but I’m more likely to write two sessions at a stretch now before taking a break or a walk.  I deleted almost an entire day’s work on Friday, but I reworked all that over the weekend, and I think it’s better now.  Hooray for accidents.

I finished an excellent book today called The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons, which is an exploration of Buddhist themes in modern fantasy.  Don’t go to this looking for an academic treatise—it’s more like an attempt to analyze fantasy classics through a modern Buddhist lens.  Chapter 2 is on Tolkein—yes, Tolkein!  Inspiring and fun criticism.  For me to say more would require many more paragraphs, so let’s just leave it at that.

2 Responses to “Not All Parties”

  1. CD

    Two thoughts:

    The literary life may appear glamorous at times, especially when the lens is focused on touring, book signings, and conference appearances. But I’d like to suggest those events have their own pressures. Celebration of status is always carries certain expectations, and meeting those expectations often seems to occur as some kind of strange performance-art.

    Second – fantasy and Buddhism? Interesting! I see the book discusses Princess Mononoke, which is an excellent choice. The plot of the movie is driven in no small part by dharmic attachments of the different characters, and as we see the story unfold we see the suffering they have each experienced at each other’s hands (or jaws, as the case may be).

    Tolkien is a good choice as well, given the nature of attachment to the ring. There’s some potential for comparison between Buddhist warnings of attachment and early medieval literature that raises warns of the dangers of blood feuds and revenge cycles.

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    • max

      Agreed absolutely on the pressures of events. I’ve spent a lot of my time on this blog talking about the fun and excitement, but of course events are risky, too. Talk about yourself or your work too much and you can lock self and work into your descriptions. I enjoy public events and conversations, but my work takes a little while to recover the feeling of freedom.

      Re: fantasy & buddhism, the book confronts the works it examines with different aspects of different buddhist traditions. The Mononoke / Nausicaa section focuses on nonduality and the myth of retributive violence in a very cool way. The Tolkein section, as you guess, is about attachment, and also about power. I really liked the section on Ende’s Momo, a fable about the perils of ‘saving time.’ I haven’t read the book, but the authors’ descriptions of it, and the parallels they draw with Dogen’s approach to time in the Shobogenzo, have been subtly changing my being-in-the-world for the last couple days. I need to read more Dogen, and more Ende apparently.

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