Introductions

[desperance]

You'd think - wouldn't you? - that a person who has been reading books for forty-five years and expressing opinions about them for pretty much the same length of time, who has been professionally engaged in the booky business for thirty years, etc etc: in short, that a person who knew his way around a book could write a 700-word introduction to a collection of short stories with at least a modicum of fluency. Wouldn't you?

Uh-uh. It's taken me three days, and an awful lot of shelf-building and related displacement activities.

It's not that I disliked the book, because I completely did not; it's not that I had nothing to say about it, because I had more than I could conveniently fit into 700 words. Which isn't much at all. Three pages. The waft of an airy opinion, I could do it in my sleep.

Can't do it on paper, though. Not waftily. Fiction's easy by comparison; blogging is breathing. As soon as someone else's work is involved - a review or an analysis or an introduction, anything like that - suddenly I have no confidence in my own judgement. I have this magnificent inferiority complex anyway, that I haul around with a will - Chaz Brenchley, you know, the one who's not a graduate, the guy who never finished his degree - and being invited to be serious in print just brings it out full force. My opinions are suddenly worth nothing, my arguments are phony, I am myself a phony...

And like that. You know. Which is why a wee intro takes me three days of skull-sweat and neurosis. And gets done a month ahead of deadline, so's I still have time to pull out, or for the editor to discover what a phony I am and find someone else to do it. Like that.

Still, today's good news is that he likes it, so that's okay. He's asked me to find a better title than 'Introduction', but hey, I can do that. There's a lot of Tom Waits lyrics out there, and some of them I haven't even used yet...

Comments

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

Well, if you can write considerably more than the length it needs to be, I'd suggest doing just that, and then going through and cutting and condensing until you have it down to the requisite size.

[coppervale.livejournal.com]

It takes a genius to use 'waftily'.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

the one who's not a graduate, the guy who never finished his degree - and being invited to be serious in print just brings it out full force. My opinions are suddenly worth nothing, my arguments are phony, I am myself a phony...

Stroke your book covers. Break out the reviews scrapbook. Open a bottle of champagne for the hell of it.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. You tempt me sorely. But - obviously - the books are no good, the reviewers lied, even the champagne will be flatter to deceive...

[time-freak.livejournal.com]

So what was the degree you never finished? Looks unlikely I'll ever finish mine lol.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Theology, at St Andrews. I should have six letters, count 'em six, after my name! (M Theol - Scotland is another country, they do things differently there...) And no, not driven by religious purposes: I wanted to learn Hebrew and Greek and Latin, and I wanted a course that would be uncompetitive entrancewise, because I knew my A levels wouldn't be great ('cos I was spending all my schooltime writing, obviously).

And it's stupid, thirty years on and engaged in a career where it really doesn't matter a damn - but it is still my one big regret, that I dropped out and didn't finish.

You're in good company because

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

Shakespeare didn't have a degree, either!

Re: You're in good company because

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Bill and I, we're educated pretty much to the same level: small Latin and less Greek. Tho' I do still remember the Greek for 'below decks', which pleases me mightily.

[xnamkrad.livejournal.com]

Ha - never finished my degree either, and it never stopped me. Mind you at times I do feel like I've been bluffing my way along. Still it's worked so far.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I always, always feel like I'm bluffing. Feel like it? Hah! I know it. And I've always had the degreelessness to blame. That articulate confidence that graduates carry around with 'em? I believe it, utterly. They ain't bluffing. They've got degrees, y'know...

[xnamkrad.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I know damn well that I've forgotten more practical knowledge than any of the new degree holders - so maybe they're the ones bluffing
- look at me, this piece of paper means I know stuff
- oh really? debug this software now
- huh???