tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post6355808169008469962..comments2024-03-17T03:17:43.229-04:00Comments on David Anthony Durham: An A ProjectDavid Anthony Durhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13885922955551669016noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-60699512878487197022008-07-24T12:56:00.000-04:002008-07-24T12:56:00.000-04:00Again... Well said. :)Again... Well said. :)David Anthony Durhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13885922955551669016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-34511666232849168892008-07-24T12:48:00.000-04:002008-07-24T12:48:00.000-04:00Lol, that's a lot of pans in the fire... I think ...Lol, that's a lot of pans in the fire... I think it's great, though. As someone who likes to dabble in various genres and styles (and blends thereof) it's nice to see someone else willing to take that risk. <BR/><BR/>It reminds me a bit of your comment on Lethem, and how some people distrust him and think he's somehow betrayed his SF roots. I can never really understand such viewpoints. They make it seem like writing stories is a much more rational process than it's ever been for me. I don't decide that I'm a such-and-such genre writer, and then lay out a bunch of stories in that genre. Things percolate and come together and grow on their own. Stories, rather organically, come to take over the mind. I write the stories that come to me, that in some sense demand to be written. Those are the ones with true vision, backed by the passion to make them something vivid and real. It's not necessarily easy to just fix yourself into a box that says "SF writer" or "Fantasy Writer" or "Historical Writer". There's just stories.<BR/><BR/>What comes to you? What story makes you put the pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, etc.)? That's what you write. So Lethem being trashed on for moving from weird SF to a Tourrettes crime novel and then literary superheroes... well, that just seems silly to me. He wasn't consciously rejecting a genre or its fans, I'm guessing, but rather those are just the stories that came to him, the ones with enough force to possess him for a time. And if you try and write a story that doesn't have that force or passion... well, that's usually a pretty long slog. And what's the point? (Unless you need the money to put food on the table - necessity is the mother of invention and glaringly turgid sequels).<BR/><BR/>It reminds me of music fans, ones who seemingly want their favourite bands to write albums exactly the same each time. They loved the first one so much they want something exactly like it, only different. But as a musician, as an artist, maybe you don't want to to do something exactly the same. You already did that. Maybe you want to do something new and different, maybe you want to push and challenge yourself... <BR/><BR/>So kudos to you for having the brass to write what you want. Nice to see. In the end it's about good writing, hopefully. I read Lethem not because he writes SF or Crime or Lit novels... but because he writes great stories.<BR/><BR/>My best, as always,<BR/>Bryan RussellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-66341358508701259702008-07-23T12:09:00.000-04:002008-07-23T12:09:00.000-04:00I'd love to write some sci-fi. I'm not going to ru...I'd love to write some sci-fi. I'm not going to rush it, though. I'll need to have the right idea - one that won't let me go. I've been reading a lot of sci-fi lately. Just turning the soil...<BR/><BR/>But that's out there in the distance. Need to finish things Acacian, probably write something big and historical, and also dabble in YA fantasy. I've got an idea in mind on the latter...David Anthony Durhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13885922955551669016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-89167868998657089502008-07-23T11:04:00.000-04:002008-07-23T11:04:00.000-04:00Hey, David, Paranoyd may be on to something... you...Hey, David, Paranoyd may be on to something... you've already conquered lit and historical fiction, and now fantasy... so how about some sci-fi? Virtual reality game players anyone? (And obviously we can't forget the chocolate milk and pizza - otherwise, what would be the point?)<BR/><BR/>My best, as always, <BR/>Bryan RussellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-10432261381190443002008-07-22T20:20:00.000-04:002008-07-22T20:20:00.000-04:00Paranoyd wrote:"I like to think they give them all...Paranoyd wrote:<BR/><BR/>"I like to think they give them all Playstations and have huge multiplayer tournaments while drinking chocolate milk and eating pizza, but I get the feeling that is not going to be the case."<BR/><BR/>Trust that feeling. Unfortunately, I'm too far in with the current plotline to turn around. Maybe next series I'll look to the Playstation option. I quite like it.<BR/><BR/>-David.David Anthony Durhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13885922955551669016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-80299845270278387012008-07-22T16:02:00.000-04:002008-07-22T16:02:00.000-04:00All good points, both David and Brian. It is true ...All good points, both David and Brian. <BR/><BR/>It is true that no novel is perfect, and I think you are right, being able to overlook its imperfections is directly related to novel enjoyment. I DID enjoy Acacia - I just wanted to enjoy it even more! <BR/><BR/>That said, I don't mind having some open threads at the end of a book, even as many other threads are tied up, and I thought you did that rather well. I like that the title of the next one is "The Other Lands", which makes me hungry to know who those "other" people are, and what they do with those children! (I like to think they give them all Playstations and have huge multiplayer tournaments while drinking chocolate milk and eating pizza, but I get the feeling that is not going to be the case.) <BR/><BR/>So, yes. I did enjoy it, and I am glad I finally read it. I liked that everyone was varying shades of black, except the Numrek - that was a nice turnabout. I liked the political issues - I'm big on politics. I liked that there was no definitive "Answer" to who was right or wrong, and that everyone had a valid point. (Although carrying a grudge that long - someone needs a hug and a tall glass of Get Over It. ;) )<BR/><BR/>And yes, good discussion. I know I can be a bit tough to take sometimes, David, but I really appreciate your responses. You give me things to think about that go beyond your own work - which is something else I took away from Acacia (as I'm sure you were intending).<BR/><BR/>And you were worried (?) I'd stop posting here!Corby Kennardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06891081576090200925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-49991511023836128862008-07-22T12:26:00.000-04:002008-07-22T12:26:00.000-04:00Thanks Bryan. Well said.-David.Thanks Bryan. Well said.<BR/><BR/>-David.David Anthony Durhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13885922955551669016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-70535908161254909512008-07-22T11:26:00.000-04:002008-07-22T11:26:00.000-04:00Interesting little discussion. This is something ...Interesting little discussion. This is something I've thought a lot about as well. I usually frame it like this: You may be the most successful, popular and lauded writer in the world... but huge amounts of people still won't like your work. I mean, J.K. Rowling sold 11 million copies of Deathly Hallows in one day. One day. (Which sort of makes me dizzy just thinking about it, but hey...) Yet, for all that rather scary success, there are hordes of people out there who hate her books and think she's rubbish as a writer. What it comes down to is the subjectivity of the reading experience and of any aesthetic evaluation. Hemingway thought Faulkner was tripe, and Faulkner held the same view of Hemingway (though literary rivalry might have had something to do with that too). You can't please everyone. How could you? The only way everybody would like the same book is if everyone had the same tastes, aesthetic values and needs... and who would want such a homogenized world merely for the sake of success? Well, me, occasionally... Ah, universal acclaim!<BR/><BR/>But really, I think you first have to write the story that you as the writer want to read. It's the story that's unlike any other you've read: that's what you want, and so you write it. And afterward (or during) maybe you make decisions about trying to take that interior vision that you're shaping into words and make it more accessible to an audience. In some ways, I think you always write who you are. Now, that "who" might be vast and variable and ever changing... but to write well I think you write within that encompassing frame. You can push and extend it, but I don't think it's wise to step outside it. Step outside and you're no longer writing for yourself but some extraneous (and rather amorphous) audience. Rather than pleasing yourself with your story you try to please yourself with accolades and adulation from that audience. And I think that's usually the death of true vision and true story.<BR/><BR/>I like what you said, David, about a writer making decisions. It's so true that these decisions won't all work for everyone, but they're necessary anyway. It's those decisions that make a story the unique thing that it is. When you brought that up it made me think of Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys, and his main character's endless novel, a novel in which the writer has abnegated that responsibility for making decisions and shaping the story in a certain direction.<BR/><BR/>I read a comment by a writer a little while ago (their name escapes me, sadly) who said that by it's very nature a novel is a failure, and that this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. This made me start wondering if part of the experience of a novel is its failures, those internal tensions and fractures that in some sense reflect life rather than create a perfect facade. All the worlds we create with words are imperfect (much as our own world is), but what matters is the effect that world has, the impact it has on those it successfully pulls into its pages.<BR/><BR/>I suppose you just have to write the story and let the chips fall where they may. Hopefully they'll fall with Rowlingesque success. We can all keep our fingers crossed on that. Heck, I'd even settle for nine or ten million sales in a day. I'm not greedy that way.<BR/><BR/>My best, as always,<BR/>Bryan RussellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-83753394782912479692008-07-21T15:41:00.000-04:002008-07-21T15:41:00.000-04:00Paranoyd,No apologies necessary. That’s an astute ...Paranoyd,<BR/><BR/>No apologies necessary. That’s an astute reading, and I’m glad to note that the things you point out are areas where you wanted MORE. Considering the book is 247,000 words long (802 manuscript pages), that’s a compliment of sorts all by itself!<BR/><BR/>You picked up on things that were tensions I dealt with during the writing process. I did consider covering the story arc in three different books. I wrangled about the idea with my publisher, but we eventually decided I had to get everything into a single book. In some ways I’d have loved to have the greater length to develop each section and all the characters even more, but I wouldn’t risk going back and changing the decision if I could. I can just as easily see readers finding that three volume work less immediately compelling – I mean in terms of winning over the skeptical readers that had never heard of me. Also, a lot of people have said how much they liked the feeling of closure in the book. I got approached at Readercon about this a few times – several times by writers, actually, that liked how much I got into the single volume.<BR/><BR/>And, as for having more battles… I did deal with those parts with more brevity than I did in Pride of Carthage, but that’s because I had just written Pride of Carthage. You want battles? Take a look at Pride. That’s got battles a plenty. So coming off that book influenced how I wrote Acacia. In a way I didn’t want to emphasize the massed warfare as much, since I’d just spent 225,000 words describing all the key Punic battles in the detail I thought they deserved. On one hand you could argue that my battle fatigue might have taken away an element that should have been more a part of Acacia. I can see that. My response, though, is that I thought about that carefully. I felt that 1) the battles in which the point of view characters are at hand are pretty developed, and 2) I was aware that some of the readers I want to have for this series in the long run wouldn’t necessarily welcome the extra gore.<BR/><BR/>But there you have it. A writer makes decisions. Not all of them work for everyone - and some of them don’t work for anyone – but such is the nature of writing fiction. I’m not one that believes any book is perfect. Sometimes a book may seem perfect for a particular reader, but I’m inclined to believe what that really means is that the reader likes such significant things about the book that they’re happy to ignore the areas that might not have quite worked for them. That’s fine. (The flip side – when a reader hates something about a book so much that they refuse to acknowledge anything good about the rest of it – is not so fine, but it’s life.)<BR/><BR/>That, honestly, is how I read books myself. Was every moment of American Gods or Thirteen or The Terror or Strange and Norrell or The Diamond Age perfect? No way. But they were each bloody good, enough so that I both enjoyed them as a reader and understand the accomplishment as a writer.David Anthony Durhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13885922955551669016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12158536.post-89335898326914305282008-07-21T03:11:00.000-04:002008-07-21T03:11:00.000-04:00Nice interview. Good job on getting that kid an "A...Nice interview. Good job on getting that kid an "A". He'll probably become famous now - you've influenced a person! <BR/><BR/>So, I finished Acacia and, well, the author photo is nice. <BR/><BR/>HA! Just kidding. <BR/><BR/>I thought it was very interesting, and reading issues aside, was a deep, compelling world that felt like it existed prior to you writing about it. I liked where each of the kids went and how it made them who they were. I thought that you did a good job detailing how Hanish changed after book one. I believe The Who said it best "Here is the new boss, same as the old boss." <BR/><BR/>Now, I do have a couple of specific criticisms, but they are probably just because of the type of reader I am. I thought it was a little short - I would have liked to seen more on the battles, the actual Meinish people and how they were coping with their new place in the world (you touched on it briefly, I just wanted more). I thought the book could have been expanded to two or three books all on its own - but that may have been too large. It just seemed very abbreviated. I got a lot on all the relationships, and that was mostly interesting enough to keep me reading, but I like the action and that was something I missed. <BR/><BR/>I really wanted to know what the Prince and the Hanishs' brother were "discussing" in that last fight. Seeing it from the outside, while it was a fine choice for certain readers, did not appeal to me. I felt a bit distanced by that. <BR/><BR/>So, all that said, I still would give it an A-, and recommend it to many fantasy readers I know. I will also be reading the next book, now that understand your style a bit more, and will probably enjoy it a bit more than Acacia. How many books do you see this series being, anyway? Just curious. <BR/><BR/>Keep in mind that I am a high level reader who hates literature. I CAN read it - I'm more than halfway through Cold Mountain and I think it is fantastic - but I mainly enjoy horror and action-y novels - I am reading Th1rte3n right now, and loving it. Since you are up for an award with Acacia, and it has many many fans, my opinion is merely the tree falling in the forest alone, unwatched, and unheralded. That's fine, though. That's more or less where I live.Corby Kennardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06891081576090200925noreply@blogger.com