The Personifid Invasion is set to release in October. I've never read R.E. Bartlett before, but I'm going to give this author a shot.
Writers spend a lot of time justifying their own existence, mostly to themselves.* A lot of work goes into defending art, and the art of writing, in particular, demonstrating the practical benefits of writing, and the importance that reading holds for the culture.
Many high-faluting** words later, and the writer is in no better standing.
As it should be.
Because writing isn't important. It isn't a signficant contribution to society, regardless of the 15-second soundbite paid to its importance once a year during the Academy Award ceremony.
And that's how I like it. Whether we are firing off an opinionated missive, or finalizing a draft of the Great Armenian Novel,*** I think the most important goal an author can have is to be the least in the Kingdom.
May your writing bear fruit that nourishes. But be happy to finish in last place. That's where the best work happens.
*Mostly because no one else is listening to them.
**Yes, how random of me to rescue the "-in'" suffix from colloquial purgatory while living in place the bastardization of the "highflight" root from which "highfalutin'" stems. I'm a messy rescuer.
***Because, really there hasn't been a huge number of great works out of Armenia since Tmpgaperti Aroume, and everybody and his dog has written the Great American one.
My favorite modern weird book on the planet, Demon: A Memoir, just got nominated for a major award.
Okay, not that major award. A different one. One that, should an author win it, comes with a thingy that goes on the bookcovers of re-issues, a lot more attention in bookstores and, if I'm not mistaken, a compass in the stock.
Wait, that's Christmas Story again.
But, hey, this really is a Christmas story, because sometimes the good guys win at the end, sometimes no one sees you in the bunny costume, sometimes you do get the Red Ryder bb gun and sometimes, just sometimes, the publishing industry realizes it has something really great on its hands.
Congratulations to all the Christy nominees, including Tosca Lee, but special congratulations to the nominating committee for recognizing what a literary triumph Demon really is.
Soli Deo gloria.
Via Toscology
I'm amazed how this announcement of an idea by an author has stirred such conversation.
La Shawn Barber chimes in.
Sue Dent flips out spectacularly over at the Lost Genre Guild again. This time, about Anne Rice.
Man, every time humans start to bore me to tears, here comes Sue with a kleenex and ninja moves.
I never realized that Rice's rather dramatic conversion (on the literary side - on the personal/biographical side it was more progressive) did not have a massive impact on reading Christians at the time.
Funny, I first read Interview with A Vampire in my God-hating days, but still appreciated her work after He brought me to heel in brutal liberty. Then, years after my somewhat abrupt conversion, Rice came back around to the Jesus gypsy wagon.
I just assumed that one of the foremost supernatural writers of the day turning to her Lord, and, therefore, turning countless eyes toward Him was probably the Christian writing story of the decade. Apparently, Sue would beg to differ. It seems that all the important Christ-following outlets barely note the dramatic shift.
But then she starts listing as important Christ-following outlets as the CBA and ECPA and ASPCA and some other letters that confuse me/sound vaguely like late-seventies power synthesizer-driven rock groups. Then I get hungry for alphabet soup.
Just to be clear: Rice has not committed to a final Lestat-confronting-the-Redeemer book. She has only admitted that it would be possible, and that the concept intrigues her.
Have I now confounded you? Go to Anne's site to get the details. I'm going back to sleep. But, first, I need to satisfy my hankering for some ELO:
Darn you Sue Dent! Darn you to heck!
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise and heard things too sacred to be put into words, things that a person is not permitted to speak. On behalf of such an individual I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except about my weaknesses.
Paul writes this to the Corinthians, almost as an aside.
"Oh, by the way, I know this guy who went to heaven. So, how's life going? Did you see the big game?"
This is a great example of introducing the supernatural to a story. Paul isn't writing fiction, but relaying a history, of course, but the principle he employs applies to storytelling.
Heaven is separate, real, experiential and unique, and Paul nails all four qualities in a short passage. Third heaven is a state wherein the witness was "caught up" (separate), either in the body or out of it (real), heard things too sacred for words (experiential), and whose experience was worthy of boasting (unique.)
Readers of the supernatural who have no real interest in spiritual things will be drawn to the realness and the experience, but have little thirst for separateness or uniqueness. Both Stephen King and Neil Gaiman are masters of the first two qualities. Their strange gods/heroes will have dirt under their nails, and can navigate a fistfight or a brothel with all too humen acumen. They have little use for separateness, for a uniqueness that might be considered pure or holy.
On the other hand, writers like Peretti have a hammer lock on the more subtle qualities. They get separateness. The understand uniqueness. Their strange gods/heroes may lack in a physical reality, but they are endowed with a special sort of clarity - a defined, clean isolation that should be unique to mythic figures.
Then, you've got the rare few who are able to bring forth all four effects into one good character. When a writer can do this, he (or she, although, I've got to admit, all you humans look the same to me) has achieved a glorious thing.
Shelley does it with Frankenstein's monster. C.S. Lewis accomplishes it several times, as does O'Connor (Lewis' best example can be found in the Unman Weston in Perelandra, and I'll just take a stab at O'Connor's iconic Misfit). Lee does it in Demon: A Memoir with Lucian and his ilk. Rice strangely achieves this in Interview with A Vampire and then "over-realizes" Lestat in the Vampire Lestat. Stoker does it with Count Dracula in the abstract.
Somehow, all four cylinders have to hit in rhythm. St. Paul does it here with ease. I haven't done it yet.
CBA authors and pretenders to the throne: ever wonder exactly which word it was that got your manuscript sent back for revisions?
Wonder no more: Seven angels, three kids, one family has a behind the scenes look at the infamous CBA word committee.
[And to The Writer's Cafe Press, my hat is tipping your direction. I assure you it is an accident.]
I come a bit late to an interesting discussion that the aliens of bohemian persuasion (or vice versa, I'm never sure which) have perpetrated against the planet:
Is the mad artist a stereotype borne of a bygone romanticism, or does art benefit because of an artists' insanity?
The answer, to me, seems quite plain, and if I were to sum it up in one word, that word would be:
Octathorpe.
The invaluable Lost Genre Guild has a post up about the monolithic acronymns in Christ-centered bookselling: the ABA, the CBA and the ECPA. In Secular vs. Christian? Sue Dent and Cynthia MacKinnon try to expose the breadth of publishing options open to Christian writers of the strange.
I seem to recall a journal posting by Ted Dekker about the emerging culture and how the line between secular and Christian is arbitrary. Christians both engage and contribute to the culture, or at least they should. Can one understand the culture without falling into sin? Can one address the culture without cloistering?
Yes. If you can let go of rumor and assumption and embrace Christ alone, you can.
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