Unfortunately, I didn't have time to post on friday, as it was the night of the full moon, and I had to attend the Satyanarayan Puja. Also I kinda forgot to read any of the Iliad last week. It happens. Also, as you can tell, I'm shifting from Monday-Friday to Tuesday-Friday, because it's Monday, and I already have slightly more impositions upon my time than are permissible by law. Moving on!
I recently came across some of my old works when I was young and full of life and my hair hadn't yet been bleached white by years of fear at my own dwindling soul-essence and hatred for baggy pants. And oh, by the hoary hoasts of hoggarth, I could not burn those things fast enough.
The thing is, way back in the day, I was stupid and foolish and all full of myself, as opposed to the present, where I merely have a healthy and unclouded view of my own superiority. But one of the few things I find myself unable to do, either then or now, is to write unprepared, but back then I tried anyway.
Back when I was young and just getting started out, all the writers I really wanted to read were in the pulp mags. They were like... like the comic funnybooks, but for literate people. And I was just entranced by them, I wanted to be one of them so badly, to get my name out among the world. H.P. Lovecraft was in pulp, I understand you kids liked him. Tarzan, Conan, Sherlock Holmes, all of them got their start in the pulp mags. Even Dune was a pulp story and that's actual literature, with research and themes stuff. And every one of the best speculative fiction authors got started in the pulps: Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, L. Ron Hubbard...
It may not be the best thing to say, but I was very influenced by L. Ron Hubbard. The young Hubbard, before all the... well, my lawyers and the strange men in the van that's been parked outside my house for the past two weeks have advised me to refrain from some of the more inflammatory comments. I'm sure Guy Fawkes will be making a statement rather similar to my previously expressed opinions at some point in the foreseeable future, this will be a total coincidence.
Anyway, the thing is that pulp mags tended heavily towards the "just get it banged out in a month, people are going to buy this rag no matter what," school of writing, and that meant all the pulp authors had to be great at writing quality work extremely fast. But what L. Ron would do is he'd take a roll of butcher paper, feed it into his typewriter and then he'd just start writing until he was done, and then he'd just cut it into pages and mail it to his publishers. And then he founded a religion.
I tried to do the same thing, but, as I was a broke person of an unrevealed age, I could only afford a roll of toilet paper. It was difficult to get content into the margins, but it was much easier to get it paginated. And, as my prospective publishers demonstrated, the paper was appropriate for the quality of the writing. Worst self-addressed stamped envelope I ever sent... The religion didn't work out well either.
But the thing is that some people just can't do that kind of writing. I'm certainly not. And J.R.R. Tolkien was never in pulp, he spent years, even decades writing his novels, and that's not even counting the languages he "invented." Hmph... like those weren't the secret letters of the fairy-kings, he's deceived the world for far too long. But we can skin that adorable kitten later. The point is that there's no right way. I wish I could talk more about how to write this way, but after my first few failures I deliberately developed a drinking problem in order to wipe those memories from my mind. But next time, I'll tell you what does work for me.
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