What separates the fantastical from the merely fictional? I was thinking about a comment that Ellen Kushner made when talking about her book Swordspoint. She said that went she wrote it she didn’t intend for it to be a fantasy novel, and that she wasn’t all that clear on why it was categorized as fantasy since there was no magic in it.

It took me some time to hit upon the answer to this. In fact, it wasn’t until my roommate and I started planning out a series of novels that, while they also didn’t contain any magic (nor did the world that they are set in), were clearly fantasy. It seems to me that there is this conception that for a book to be classified as a “fantasy novel” there has to be some sort of magical element in it.

I would like to propose that no, this is wrong.

Clearly if something does have magic in it, then it is fantasy. But not everything that doesn’t have that particular element to the story is simply going to be fictional. The dictionary in my computer (an application that is so incredibly useful) says, “the faculty or activity of imagining things, esp. things that are impossible or improbable.” Fantasy is something that takes place in a reality that is not our own. (It now becomes clear why Alternate Histories are thrown in with fantasy. Also, for the record, I will say that my computer’s dictionary also has this to say in the entry about fantasy: “a genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, esp. in a setting other than the real world.” As you might imagine, I don’t entirely agree, but I can’t change the thing.)

In my mind, the distinction is simple: “fantasy” is something that is set in a world that is imagined. It is in the very definition of the word “fantasy.” Fantasy is something that has to be imagined, because it simply is not real.

So, I am at World Fantasy Convention 2007 and I would attempt to write something about it or talk about it or even give a summary of what I am doing at it, but I am too busy to write everything down and too excited to do it justice.

Suffice to say that I have met many of my favorite authors and decided that, yeah, I’m in the right business. There’s nothing else I would rather be doing with my time, or with my life.

I’m reading the Branion series by Fiona Patton at the moment. The first book was on my shelf for several months, and I finally gave in. I needed something to read, and the 60-some odd books that I had (and still have) yet to read were sitting on my shelf glaring at me. I could just feel it. (I still can.) So, I picked up The Stone Prince.

It was lovely. That’s not the point of this post. Shortly before finishing the book, I went ahead and got my hands on the rest of the series. There were three other books, and though out of print (or simply widely unavailable), this is what abebooks.com is for. I finished the “first” book, and then started on the “second.”

The quotes are there because it took me all of two pages to realize that though The Painter Knight is supposed to be a sequel (it was written after The Stone Prince and I have always seen it called the sequel), it comes chronologically after the “first” book! And the “third” book comes chronologically before the “second.” Following along that concept, the “fourth” is even further back in Fiona Patton’s world’s history. (Understand that it took some fancy figuring to come to this conclusion, but what confirmed it was the list of kings (called Aristoks in this world) in the front of the “fourth” book.)

At first I was very confused, and a little bit annoyed. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to read what came before the book I had just enjoyed. I wanted to know what came next. Well, that passed. I mean, the writing of the second book (with no quotes to denote that it was written second) was just as good as the first, and I was perfectly happy with it as a book, just maybe not as a sequel.

But the more I thought about it, the more interesting it actually became, and the less annoyed I was about the prospects of reading these books. By the time the first books open there are some 800 years of history for this world that Fiona Patton has created. Which she obviously has a very clear picture of. And she manages to convey this in the book, I thought. There are mentions of previous Aristoks and how many of them there were, and wars that have been fought, and so on and so forth.

Now, this isn’t meant to be a review of the Branion series, after all, I’ve read one and only begun the next. What this post is about is the challenges that one must be faced with if one is going to write a series of books in a world that is rich with history, and one is going to make the books chronologically backwards to the order that one writes them. You would have to be very careful about how much information you divulged and be very careful to keep with your own continuity.

I’m thinking about this from the point of view of another writer and I am thinking of the sheer amount of information you would have to know about the world you were working with just to keep your own facts straight and prevent incontinuity. Frankly, it sounds like a lot of work and I would be somewhat impressed with someone who even tried. I would be very impressed if they succeeded.

That all said, I have no idea if Fiona Patton succeeds. I’m not far enough into the second book to make a call on that one. But I’m already a little impressed.

A good friend of mine has recently decided that he is going to beat the Writer’s Block out of me. (I realize that sounds strange. Please stay with me, I promise that I will explain.) He sat me down, and told me that I was not allowed to leave until I had either been writing for a half an hour or written a whole page, whichever came later.

And I did it, however hard it might have been and however I might have felt about what I actually managed to write. (Granted, I think that there may have been one useable paragraph in the whole thing, but hey, I did it. I’m not really proud, but it’s done.)

I even, just the other day, signed up for The Yuletide Challenge in the hope that it will push me back on the trail. (I signed up for things that I think I will really enjoy and have fun writing if I get, and that I think will challenge me. I think that was a good move.)

So, by tooth or by nail I will get myself back on track. Because I love writing. And I can’t stand not doing it.

I think I just need to bull through this. Seriously, how hard can it be to talk about Writer’s Block?

Here’s the deal: Until very recently (I might even say still, but that might just be semantics) I hadn’t written anything for about a year and a half. It was May 2006 that I wrote my last story. And then I just… hit a block. Who knows why. I don’t think it really matters.

Now, I know this happens to people. Sometimes a block can last a day. Maybe a week. Or a month. I’ve had that before. And I know that sometimes it can last years. (God forbid that should happen. *knocks on wood*) And I understand, from an intellectual standpoint, that something like this is bound to happen to everyone at some point. And honestly? I’m all right with that. I don’t terribly mind getting blocked, because I know it will break eventually. I love writing, it’s what I want to do, so I know that it can’t just go away forever. (Though, want some scary nightmares after ~9 months of Writer’s Block? The thought that I won’t ever write again is enough to make me cry.)

Some people say that it’s laziness. I don’t know that I believe that is the cause, but I think that definitely feeds into it. I will say that for me, it’s a complete lack of motivation and inspiration and creativity(-ation?). That pretty much explains exactly what Writer’s Block feels like to me. And, let me just say, it sucks. A lot. It’s like a big chunk of who I am simply isn’t there for me to call on anymore.

But, what drives me absolutely batty about having Writer’s Block is this: I genuinely LOVE writing. I love everything about it. I find joy and a sense of satisfaction from stringing the exact right words together in the exact right patterns to make beautiful sentences. I love making characters and being able to feel them in my head, clear as day. I love writing complicated plots, weaving the knots and the loops and the webs that my characters get into. I don’t think there’s a single thing about writing that I don’t enjoy (and that includes editing, no matter how much I might complain about it).

So not being able to do it? Really drives me bat-shit crazy. I understand that it might have to happen, and I can tolerate it, no matter how annoyed with it I may become, but I am still annoyed.

I want to go back to being able to do what I love doing. It is my hobby, my passion and, as it conveniently happens, my goal. I’d like to be able to do it again.

I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to write here for a while. And I’ve been trying to make a post about it for the last week and a half or thereabouts. I want to write about Writer’s Block. The problem is… I seem to be blocked.

That’s some heavy irony there. I’m blocked about Writer’s Block.

Well, I’ll manage it soon.

I realize that the title of this post is misleading and probably more interesting than the post itself. This is no fault of mine, I assure you, unless I can be blamed for not providing my readers with erotica, in which case sure, it’s my fault. Whatever.

The point of this post is to attest to the fact that, though most of the time it is the spazziest place on earth, sometimes my school can be nothing short of awesome. I prove this by offering my schedule for examination: “Tuesdays, 8-9:50pm – Silk Sheets: Writing Erotica.” I kid you not.

I cannot wait. If only because I want to listen to people read their stuff aloud.

Also, quite possibly, this will facilitate some very interesting pieces of writing from me. I’m excited about that too. One hopes that this will be the start of a semester of good smutty writing.

I finally finished a piece I started over a year ago. Apparently I only showed it to one person (one of my best friends, who was sitting next to me when I wrote the first draft) because when I let my friend read it, he said he hadn’t seen it before, and my roommate (a girl with whom I thought I had shared all my writing with) said the same. I could have sworn that I had had let more people read what I had of it.

Anyway.

And Seven Were Deadly
Rating: R (implied sex)
Summary: An angel walks the fine line between Fallen and not.
Warning: This story contains a homosexual relationship between two men (or angels, in this case). Please do not read if this does not interest you.

I had the best thought, not too long ago. As you might surmise (based on the subject of this post) the idea is: 24 hour bookstores. Think about it: if you desperately had a need for a book sometimes after normal closing hours, there would be a place you would be able to get it.

This would great for college students who procrastinate on their work and don’t buy the books they need right away, and avid readers and writers.

If this idea ever comes to fruition, I volunteer to work the night-shifts. I could absolutely be paid to work that night-shift.

Sometimes, after reading a really good book (or story) I get severely depressed. Of course I’ve thought a little about why, but I really threw that much brain power into it. Maybe I never really wanted to figure it out. But recently, during my stint in the private and personal level of hell known as Writer’s Block, it happens more often.

(Jaida might be interested to know that this has happened several times after reading something she wrote. Dani might be interested to know that it happened after things that she and Jaida have co-written. 4 out of the last 6 times I can remember this happening to me, it was after writing done by one or the both of them. Now, I’m not blaming them. I mean, the first condition for this particular type of depression setting in is that I have to really like the thing I just read.)

I just finished read Sarah Monette’s The Mirador. I truly adore this particular series of books. (As might be proven by the fact that I have taken a nickname of one of the characters as my online handle.) Upon finishing it, I realized that while I utterly adored the book, I was depressed that I had read it. Not that I had finished it, exactly, but because it was just. so. good. and–here’s the first point–I hadn’t written it, and–here’s the second point–I wasn’t possibly going to be able to write anything that good at any point in the future. So what I was really getting depressed over is the fact that the book exists.

(Some of this is my own insecurities. I realize this. I think it hits me harder when I haven’t written anything in a while and when it doesn’t look like the Writer’s Block is going to go away any time soon. Because not only am I not going to be able to write anything that good, I won’t be able to write, period.)

Taking a moment to think about this, it sounds pretty irrational to me. Or incomprehensible. But I’ve thought about this for a while now, and I think I have come to some sort of a conclusion.

Here’s what I’ve got: Jealousy. Plain and simply, really. I don’t not write because I don’t have any ideas. In fact, I have a lot of ideas filling up my brain. What I don’t have is the connection from brain to finger that would allow me to give those ideas a release. (Though, I’m not going to deny that part of the problem, a part that only sort of makes it worse, is laziness. Because writing is so hard for me right now, I don’t want to sit down and just do it. That’s where the laziness comes in.) Intellectually I know that I can write. I know that I can even–pardon the arrogance–write well.

I’m not entirely sure what the point I’m trying to make is, or if I’ve found a solution to whatever problem I was trying to find a solution to. There are less than two weeks before I go back to school. My only goal for this summer was to write, and I haven’t written a single thing. I have two weeks to fix this, if it’s even fixable.