Review, and gloomy stuff

[desperance]

There's a review of the Datlow/Link/Grant "Year's Best Fantasy and Horror" up at Tangent, which has nice things to say about my story "Going the Jerusalem Mile". If I don't often point you at reviews from here, it's not modesty, rather that I don't often see 'em; if people are talking about my work out there, it is beyond my fu to find them. (Of course, I choose to believe that there is in fact not so much a conspiracy as an apathy of silence; nobody cares. Sob.)

Talking of which, I have done a lot of walking in the rain today, to small effect; all it's really done is hammer into me that actually I expect to walk in the rain, to small effect. I expect, consistently, to fail. My vision of the future is and always has been of my sitting hunched in the corner of a rank bedsit, a hospital ward, maybe a prison cell, a large man utterly broken, hugging my knees and whispering "oh, dear" at intervals. Quite why I expect to be incarcerated I'm not clear, except for a general sense that my sins will find me out, either physically or otherwise; but the complete collapse of the mental framework, that construct that I call a world that I can function in, oh yes. It'll be triggered, I expect, by financial failure, a simple inability to earn a living any more; then they'll take my toys away from me, and I will just fall apart.

The constant postponing of this prognostication is as much a surprise to me as to everyone else. Its most common manifestation is that baffled anxiety with which I greet every sale: "My God, I fooled them again! How can this be? It'll never last..." Actually it always has lasted thus far, but I grow less confident with every year. I think the book trade and I are moving on divergent tracks, and I'm barely hanging on as it is; sooner or later something has to give, and it's almost certainly going to be my fingernails.

There, now. That's made you feel better, hasn't it? Sorry; I think it's the rain.

Comments

[coppervale.livejournal.com]

>>>Talking of which, I have done a lot of walking in the rain today, to small effect; all it's really done is hammer into me that actually I expect to walk in the rain, to small effect. I expect, consistently, to fail. My vision of the future is and always has been of my sitting hunched in the corner of a rank bedsit, a hospital ward, maybe a prison cell, a large man utterly broken, hugging my knees and whispering "oh, dear" at intervals. Quite why I expect to be incarcerated I'm not clear, except for a general sense that my sins will find me out, either physically or otherwise; but the complete collapse of the mental framework, that construct that I call a world that I can function in, oh yes. It'll be triggered, I expect, by financial failure, a simple inability to earn a living any more; then they'll take my toys away from me, and I will just fall apart.<<<


I actually got this out of the way in 1994. I'm planning a book that involves the whole experience, and expect much wealth and fame to come from it.

Not kidding. On either point.

Dude. You have work in a "Year's Best F&H"

DUDE.

It's cumulative. Build, even if it's on that single brick. And keep adding bricks. That's how it works.

More later.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

It will never happen. Should you even come close to such a fate, we--by which I mean myself and my cohorts--will suddenly descend on you and whisk you and your cats away to safety.

Leave No Writer Behind, that's our motto.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

Of course, I should point out that we would not necessarily be whisking you away to a life of luxury. (Or who knows, maybe we will be.) I've just decided never to let any of my friends face poverty in isolation if I can possibly help it.

You can face poverty with us. It's still poverty, only funny.:)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's possible, of course, that the future with us is that rank bedsit, that artist-infested garret, in which desperance confidently expects to find himself huddled. It will be our misdemeanours that occasion those "oh, dear"s...

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

I refuse to accept that. But if it is, I promise to kick everyone out so they can go on to a brighter future.:)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Also, very nice review - and damn near unquotable, which is frustrating.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

My God, I fooled them again! How can this be? It'll never last...

A lament & prophecy I've read from quite a few writers, who all seem to think that they're frauds and will one day be revealed as such.

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

A. I don't believe you'll ever end up like that; you're too talented, and there are still enough people making decision with a bit of wits about them to realize it;

B. If you ever fell on hard times, you and Barry (or Barry successor) can always live with me. Not necessarily always the lap of luxury, but a safe space with working kitchen and lots of books and cats.

Garrets'R'Us

[(Anonymous)]

The only reason I haven't starved to death long ago is the lovely Sarah. You won't starve either, because you have lovely us!

Simon M

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

Gosh, that's pretty much how I feel.

Except the part about being a man.

But here: *hug*

[desperance.livejournal.com]

*hugs back*