The Spoons That Are My Ears!

You may already know what ‘The Next Big Thing’ thing involves, but if you don’t I can tell you that it’s a bit like Pyramid Selling but with links instead of cash at stake. A nominated writer will answer a general set of interview questions about his or her writing, and then nominate up to five other writers who are supposed to answer the same questions and also nominate other writers in turn. Everyone who takes part is expected to link both to the writer who nominated them and also to the writers they have nominated.

The main idea is that a network of interviewed writers will grow into a vast tangled web of naked Ego in all its variety, full of flies who thought they were spiders. That’s the way I prefer to see it, anyway. I was nominated twice, so two strands of the web converge on me. I must therefore be a node or a junction or perhaps a knot.

I was nominated first by Bob Lock, a writer who is one of those hard SF fans I was always told existed out there somewhere. He likes his spaceships and robots, does Bob; he's a very generous man too. I was also nominated by Brendan Connell, who I regard as one of the best new writers of ‘weird fiction’ currently active in the world. So here are the questions:

(1) What is the working title of your next book?

I never work on just one book at a time. I usually work on half a dozen or more. I’m currently wrapping up a novella called The Further Fangs of Suet Pudding, which is a sequel to my forthcoming novel The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange (it also happens to be a sequel to an obscure wartime thriller by Adams Farr called The Fangs of Suet Pudding.) I am also in the process of putting together three new story collections, The Senile Pagodas, The Just Not So Stories and The Lunar Tickle. I have also resumed work on a novella I started many years ago called 500 Eyes; and early next year I plan to return to The Clown of the New Eternities, a big novel I’ve been working on since 1994. I also plan to start work soon on my OuLiPo novel, Comfy Rascals. Finishing these projects will eventually leave me in the clear to finish three other novels, Unevensong, Djinn Septic and Wuthering Depths before I embark on my one million word fantasy doorstep novel, The Utopian Chronicles.

(2) Where did the idea come from for the book(s)?

Ideas gush from my head all the time. My head is an ideas-fountain. I rarely go in search of ideas; they flow out of me. This was not always the case. When I was young and relatively new to the writing game I found ideas difficult to find and keep. I thought they were hard work. Now they are the fun part of the process. I consider myself to be an ideas-writer first and foremost, rather than any other kind of writer. I don’t need to know where my ideas come from, so I never really ask.

(3) What genre do(es) your book(s) fall under?

All my books are metafictional postmodernist absurdist comedies. And maybe they are philosophical fantasies and whimsical satires too. The word ‘postmodern’ is a dirty word in many quarters, but I suspect that’s because of the flapdoodle spouted by academics in the field of Cultural Studies or whatever it’s called. I know nothing about the academic side of it; I’ve never read anything by Merlot Pansy or Focault’s Leotards or whoever. I learned my postmodernism from funny, ironic and playful writers on the ground, Donald Barthelme in particular.

(4) What actors would you choose to play the parts of your characters in a movie rendition?

I try to write books that aren’t filmable. If I’m going to write filmable books I might as well just write film scripts. I strive to write the kind of fiction that can’t be replicated in other media, at least not easily. This is one of the reasons I’m so fond of metafictional tricks, wordplay and OuLiPo-style mathematical games with form. Literature should be a unique experience. Mimicking film forms is pointless. The real ‘characters’ in my stories aren’t really the human protagonists anyway; my characters are more likely to be ideas or abstractions.

(5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Which book are you referring to? The Further Fangs of Suet Pudding is about apeman good versus marshmallow evil; The Senile Pagodas is a tribute book to sundry authors I admire; The Just Not So Stories is lighthearted absurdism; The Lunar Tickle is absurdist lightheartedness; 500 Eyes is a picaresque tale in the style of Voltaire but odder; The Clown of the New Eternities is my long overdue ‘magnum opus’; Comfy Rascals is a showcase of OuLiPo techniques in novel form...I could go on but I won’t.

(6) Will your book(s) be self-published or represented by an agency?

I may send them to my agent, John Jarrold. Or I may not. I’ll make the decision individually for each one. The majority of my books aren’t money-makers and he’s mainly interested in books that rake in the cash, so there’s no point sending him something like Comfy Rascals, as it will be difficult to sell and not many people will read it. But to me, commercial success isn’t the true measure of whether a book is worthwhile or not.

(7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

First draft! First draft? I don’t do drafts. I don’t have time. Too many ideas bubbling up every day. If I linger too much on just one project I’ll end up with a massive backlog of ideas to embody. The ideas don’t stop coming, you see, and I have to use them up quickly to avoid brain overload. I have fitted a draft-excluder to my working methods. Nice and snug! There’s only one draft of my books, namely the final draft.

(8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

My favourite authors are Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, Flann O’Brien, Donald Barthelme, Jorge Luis Borges, Boris Vian, Milorad Pavić, John Sladek, and I like to think my work is comparable to theirs. But theirs is much better than mine, of course. Nonetheless we should always aim high in order to get closer to our target. This is essential.

(9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I inspire myself.

(10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Huh? The reader has to answer that question, not me. If I start speaking on behalf of the reader I might as well live their entire lives for them. I write the kinds of books I enjoy.

That’s it! So now it’s my turn to nominate other writers, and the writers I have chosen to nominate are:
Des Lewis, not only a legend in his own lifetime but a lifetime in his own legend.
Hannah F. Lawson, a deep-sea diver and the woman I used to live with, but not in the way you’re thinking.
Jason E. Rolfe, a young and upcoming maestro.

I have mentioned that I am editing the next issue of the fiction magazine Sein und Werden. The guidelines can be found in an earlier post below (October 5th). One big thing I have learned as a guest editor for this publication is this: most people who submit stories don't read guidelines. It's not so much that they don't read them properly; they don't read them at all. I asked for ironic, whimsical, absurdist comedies less than 1000 words, specifically stories with a European flavour (i.e. the work of Kafka, Calvino, Lem, Čapek, Nesvadba, Hašek, Babel, Vian, etc). But I received mostly conventional science fiction or fantasy stories averaging 3500 words in length.

A few noble writers did follow the guidelines and to them I am eternally grateful! However, I have accepted some of the stories that weren't what I was looking for, because they are rather good stories. So I have arranged the following deal with Rachel Kendall, boss of the publication: a free ebook will be produced in tandem with the print issue; and the ebook will be much longer and will feature all the stories I am sent that I like but which aren't absurdist comedies...

It seems that the next issue of Sein und Werden is in danger of losing the right to its title: The Ironic Fantastic! In order to get it back on track, I've decided to make the final third of the magazine a 'tribute section' to the great Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms. I want stories in the style of Kharms! And if you don't know what that means, check out this website for clues. Kharms' work might seem too brief, superficial, simplistic, on first reading, but it's not. It's about time, space, reality, perception... I wrote my own Kharms pastiche last year. If you want to help celebrate this unjustly neglected writer, please email your Kharms-style tales to: rhysaurus (at) hotmail.com. Thanks!

So much to blog about! I am very neglectful of my blog these days. Social media has taken over and made blogging redundant for the most part. Nonetheless, it is probably a good idea to occasionally keep my blog topped up, so to speak...

I will be concise and mention that my novella, My Rabbit's Shadow Looks like a Hand, which has only been a print book for the past year, is now also an ebook. It's also going to be translated into German and published in Germany, something I am very pleased about.

Conversely, my triptych of three tales known as The Mermaid Variations, which has only been an ebook for the past ten years, is now also a print book. It has already been translated, into Portuguese, and in fact these stories first appeared in that language, long ago.

My collection of linked short stories, The Postmodern Mariner, has been translated into Serbian and published in Serbia in a very nice edition indeed. More about this in a future blog.

I have had a lot of work published in a lot of places and I have signed contracts with several publishers for work to be published in the near future. One of these contracts is for a fantasy novel I finished writing a few years ago. I will provide more details soon, after the publisher gives me the go ahead. The novel is a fantasy, as I said above, but more of an absurdist magic realist thing than a typical fantasy, if that doesn't sound too pretentious, set in Africa, Brazil and the Sahara Desert, and very 1920s/30s in tone, a sort of mix of Don Quixote, Beau Geste and Philip José Farmer.

I also have signed a contract for a substantial collection with a notable publisher in the USA. In fact the deal is for three collections. The first one is out already and the others will follow soon. More details in my next blog post. The idea is to reach readers totally unfamiliar with my work who are unlikely to poke around in the obscure corners of the independent press where so many of my stories lurk. Considered together, the three collections will form a very big retrospective of my work.

But now I want to mention a recently-published anthology published here in India by Om Books called Monalisa No Longer Smiles. It includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry. I am delighted that my suite of poems based on Ancient Greek mythology entitled 'Sticky Myths' is presented here in its entirety. The book is extremely well-produced and more information about it can be found here. The idea is that this is going to be the first of a series of such anthologies showcasing the range and diversity of work that can be found in the online Borderless Journal. Edited by Mitali Chavravarty, Borderless Journal has been one of my favourite literary journals for the past few years and I always make it a priority to send my work there. Borderless has already published many of what I consider to be my best humorous poems. Supporting this anthology is a genuine pleasure for me.

One other thing, if you are fast you can catch a free download of my novella The Ghost Loser from any Amazon outlet.

Oh yes, and yesterday I finished writing a new novel called The Hippy Quixote :-)

I was supposed to give up writing short-stories last year, when I finally wrote my 1000th, but I kept going (as some people said I would).

I have a scientific and engineering background and yet I believe in non-specified energies. Some places and people seem to be focal points for these energies, which may or may not be real physical forces. But even if they are purely psychological, projections of my own mood, they are still real. That's all that matters to me. Another word for these energies is 'magic'.

There is a lady who lives in Skopje who brims with magic. Like the reflection of golden sunlight on the still waters of a deep lake, she radiates beauty, power and serenity. Her personality sparkles. She is warm, generous, sweet, mischievous, kind, exciting, intelligent, talented, magnificent.

It's a terrible thing to confess, but I am not in awe of many people in this world. I have met few people who have made me feel that I ought to be a lot more humble than I am. But they do exist and Brankica is one of them, the best and brightest.

Spending time with her in Macedonia was an experience that had an unexpected and profound effect on me. I will tell anyone who listens what a lovely lady she is, but she is much more than that. Her heart and soul are so big that they encompassed me the moment I approached her and in fact they encompass the world. Her compassion is truly moving.

And yet it is her strength that is most impressive to me. Her character is heroic and yet undemonstrative. I might have felt feeble and inadequate in her presence, but she inspired me, enthused me, left me convinced that here was the perfect exemplar of an indomitable human spirit.

We disagreed on how long we have known each other. I thought it was no more than eight years, but she insists it is more than ten. The two photos on this blog entry show her as she was in 2007 and how she is now.

Because I am fond of the process of Tuckerization, I have used her as a character in many stories, most notably and extensively in my (as yet unpublished) novel The Pilgrim's Regress. She will continue to appear as a character in many forthcoming works.

She also creates delightful art and she designed the cover for my collection of flash fiction Flash in the Pantheon, and I will be using her art to create the cover of my next book, Thirty Tributes to Calvino, which will be dedicated to her.

I've never been very good at social climbing. I've never been much good at real climbing either, for that matter, but I love it, even at my current low-level of ability. Yesterday I went to Three Cliffs Bay in Gower and climbed the eponymous cliffs from the beach. It might be a cliché, but when I'm climbing I'm genuinely "in the moment", living completely in the present, without the weight of the past or future on my mind. It's a sort of temporary eternity, if you credit Japanese mystics and Wittgenstein, and I do. The petty concerns of ground level are not only left behind but wiped away forever; they might shimmer back into existence later, but on the rockface itself they not only no longer exist, but never existed. That's a clumsy way of putting it; but that's how it feels. I dare say that climbers better than me (almost every other climber) could put it into better words than that.

Getting back into climbing after a pause of more than ten years is the best thing I have done for ages. The last big climbs I did were Giewont, Rysy and Gerlach in the Tatras back in 1999. I did a few easy routes in Sardinia the following year in the Gennargentu range. Then I stopped. I'm clumsy, heavy and lazy. Too bad for me! Anyway, none of this matters: I'm enjoying it again and it's getting me into shape faster than running or cycling. It is affecting my thinking in other ways too. When I played a lot of chess I started seeing potential chess moves everywhere; so that a shadow, a fallen leaf and a discarded glove lying on the ground might look to me like a chess problem. Now I'm seeing routes up the sides of buildings, walls, rooms full of furniture and climbing everything with my eyes. I'm also reading climbing books again. Expect climbing to appear in the next short stories I write! Incidentally, the funniest book I have ever read is a lampoon on accounts of mountaineering expeditions. The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W.E. Bowman is still my favourite comedy. Why doesn't someone adapt it for the radio? Maybe I should lobby someone at the BBC about this. Why not?