Five Random Things, you know the drill

[mrissa]

1. All right, livejournalers: what does it mean if you dream that monkeys of various quite distinct types were gnawing on your hands all night? I need your theories!

2. I am heading off to Convivial this afternoon. I seem to have a manageable number of things to do in the meantime. I don't think this is going to be one of those conventions when I disappear from the face of the internet until Sunday, but on the other hand it'd be nice if I spent the time at it doing things other than reading lj and writing e-mail, so -- some sort of middle ground there, I guess.

3. As good as garden tomatoes are in season, sometimes they are just that bad out of it. Most of the grocery store tomatoes one gets that are really bad are more in the direction of, "Are you sure this is food instead of damp red styrofoam?" than in the direction of, "Ick ack what smells like that oh Lordy it's the tomato." (I had originally put the actual smell comparison in place of "that" in the last sentence. I went back and removed it. You may thank me. Vivid similes are a double-edged sword.)

4. I don't go around telling salespeople that I know exactly what their job is like because I sell stories, and that's selling things. I don't tell programmers that I know all about their work because I use a computer. I do not, in fact, accost the mailman to tell him I know all about his job because I put stamps on things. So please do not tell me that you "totally get" what writing fiction is all about because you have a cousin who writes grant proposals -- well -- she wrote one grant proposal, once. This does not make me feel warm and fuzzy and understood. It makes me feel like you are an idiot. Because you are, if you do this.

5. The more history I read, the more I believe that if you say, "Nobody in [large demographic group] was doing anything interesting then," you are wrong and speaking from ignorance. Primates get bored easily, and while some of them remain boring, a large enough cross-section of them will turn out people making up art forms and crafts, gadgets, discoveries, social/political/religious movements, etc. etc. etc. out of whatever little they have. So anyone claiming that the interesting stories in the fantasy world they're writing about are with one demographic group -- well, they have created something utterly unlike any human society. Take the most repressive society and the most repressed group in it, and I guarantee you they will have some kind of underground culture, secret signals, politics among themselves and between them and the larger group. They will be Up To Something. Because, y'know, monkeys: we're like that. You don't have to write about every group in every society -- you can't. Fiction is particular. But an awareness that there never was and likely never will be a human society with only one interesting demographic would be welcome in some fabulists. For heaven's sake, not only are the high nobility not the only interesting demographic in feudalism, actual feudalism relies upon the fact that they aren't!

I don't even really want to link to the discussion that got me thinking along these lines, because I think that the person whose work sparked the discussion is definitely and completely not making the "only one interesting demographic" mistake, and I very much do not want to associated it with that person's name even subconsciously.

Comments

[eposia.livejournal.com]

1. All right, livejournalers: what does it mean if you dream that monkeys of various quite distinct types were gnawing on your hands all night? I need your theories!

Were you able to identify any of these distinct monkey types? Details are important when fabricating dream theories!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Baboons, mandrills, macaques, tamarins, lorises. Some others I didn't know in as much detail, some I didn't get as good a look at.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

1. All right, livejournalers: what does it mean if you dream that monkeys of various quite distinct types were gnawing on your hands all night? I need your theories!

Maybe they wanted to tell you that they know what your job is like, because they bang on keyboards for infinite lengths of time and so do you? After all, none of the primates were doing anything interesting at the time, and primates get bored easily. Or maybe, since grocery store tomatoes are so hard and pink these days, maybe they thought your hands were some new heirloom variety. (Not to imply that your hands are damp pink styrofoam, of course.)

Actually, I think they were trying to tell you that you don't need to decide what novel to write next.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Excellent work! Extra points for completeness, too.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

1. $GC was being affectionate?

4. But grant proposals are (science) fiction. (Except for the budget part; that's fantasy.) [per Jordin Kare]

5. "Interesting" is subjective.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Re 4, I've told people that I don't write fiction; "Well, except for consulting proposals."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sure, "interesting" is subjective, but mostly when people assert that peasants or women or religious/ethnic minorities of various flavors weren't doing anything interesting in the period in question, I have found that they were wrong by their own definitions of interesting.

Hmm. You'd probably be one of the few people I'd believe if you made the assertion, "[large group] wasn't doing anything that interests me in [time period]."

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about gnawing monkeys, but I dreamed my house was full of walruses last night. Sadly, they were gone when I woke up.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you still have all buckets you had when you went to bed?

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I read your journal in part to see what the life of a fiction writer is like! I know what writing non-fiction is like, because I made a living as a daily reporter for six months in a small town. But fiction is a different kettle of fish from even creative non-fiction (feature stories). That's what I found out when I tried to write it. I found fiction to be very difficult, though I still try from time to time.

I dreamed last night I was escaping on a small private plane that I was flying. I do that sometimes, dream of escape.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Why didn't you stop by and pick me up so I could flee the monkeys?

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

Were you in a building? Because I was making a quick stopover in Africa or Tanzania or somewhere like that. I could land on an incredibly short length of ground, even on a dirt plateau, then get back up to liftoff speed with a short runway. It was definitely made for bush travel.

We could have outdistanced the monkeys, flying or not.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alas, I was in a building. I suppose that does explain it.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who has written both grant proposals and fiction, it's hard for me to imagine two kinds of writing that are less alike.

One of the small pieces of wisdom I seem to have accumulated over the years is to be very wary of insisting to other people that I understand what things are like for them. Because if you're trying to make someone feel warm and fuzzy and understood, "It seems to me that your situation might have some analogies to my own experience. Am I right?" is much more effective. (As a paraphrase. I don't generally phrase my social discourse in a register befitting a particularly pedantic Victorian. Oh, who am I kidding? Actually, I do.) Whereas, "I understand what your situation is like," seems to carry an undertone of, "I'm going to assert that I understand your position so that I don't actually have to talk about it or pretend to be interested in it."

As to the monkeys, I must confess that I haven't a clue.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Of course you do; this is one of the things we love about you.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

I think they must be the Impatient Plot Monkeys come to get you. I'd consult an exorcist, day planner or shaman immediately.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Heh. Didn't see this until after I'd posted mine. Clearly we must be right!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Great group of three!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

1. All right, livejournalers: what does it mean if you dream that monkeys of various quite distinct types were gnawing on your hands all night? I need your theories!

Clearly it means that your various novel ideas are all impatient to be written.

I mean, duh.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, they can't have me. Not yet. I am still making the most recent one shiny.