If you have wings, fly

Well, just a little over two weeks until I pull two of my books from distribution. Yeah, it's nuts, but it's what I want to do, and while I am lousy at predicting which poems or books will sell best or find what audience (I'm a writer, not a marketer) I do control this aspect. Don't worry...It doesn't mean the works within will perish from the universe. They'll be around.

Think of this, those of you "in the know" as my "Eroica" move. 'Nuff said.

I read through some of E.J.'s trivia. Some I didn't know. Some I'd forgotten. And some, I have to figure out when I told him this item or that item.

Busy day today, wrapping up this week's show...hope it isn't tooooooo boring. I remember on the old TV show "Doogie Howser M.D." - when he wanted out of his contract doing health spots for MTV, he just started doing boring, unhip reports. I don't think this week's show is that bad, but it will not be, I don't think, as engaging as some of the more musical shows we've been having lately.

The broad brush attacks on classical poetry by short-cut, small vocabulary poets as "obscure" may make sense, but just as I find it easy to dismiss any science-fiction novel with a wizard or a unicorn in it as the work of a writer who, rather than doing his or her homework, just makes things up - which means it isn't science fiction, it's fantasy - I dismiss any writer who has issue with the concept of mythological or historical allusions as merely someone whose dedication to their craft or literature, regardless of their level of innate talent, is hobbyist. Yes, there are those who get swallowed in their hobby, but just as there is a difference between a film maker and someone who dresses as a storm trooper for a Star Wars premiere...well, Theodore Sturgeon was right when he said that 99% of everything is crap.

Even C.S. Lewis indicated his view, in "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" that the vast majority of people, by choosing to react to their environment, rather than choosing a moral pathway of good or evil, were "failed experiments".

I have a book on my shelf that is a collection of the complete works of Percy Shelley, complete with annotations from his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (author of "Frankenstein"). For every "Ozymandias of Egypt" there are dozens of forgettable works. Some, because they are just that, some because they do not resonate with me, as a person. I shudder to think of the works he turned to his wife and said "Don't let anyone ever publish that piece, it sucks".

Although authors are generally not the best judges of their best work (as I have gradually found over the decades. I can't recall a writer I have spoken with who, when pressed to name the work they found the greatest joy in writing, named their most popular work). I was shocked by the public adoration for "The Goldenheart Cycles" when I first released them in 1996, but a friend of mine in LA pointed out that you can go into any music store in the world, pick any CD or album off the shelf, pick any track at random and somewhere in the world there is someone for whom that is their favourite song." Yikes!

As to the charges of being an "Obscurantist" (ironic the term you use for someone who is using large and arcane words is a large and arcane word). Do I use large words and sometimes even arcane words? You bet. Do I challenge my readers to dive into their history books, encyclopedias and dictionaries? Amen. But to make less of what I have learned, to leave out parts of my own knowledge and perception (and even coined words and wordplay) would be "dumbing down" my writing and presenting a false picture of who I am and what I am trying to communicate.

I always liked the scene in "Max Dugan Returns" where Donald Sutherland is pressed to name his favourite author and replies "Thackery, I like someone who makes you work for it." I like writers who make me work for it, and I like assuming my readers have IQs above room temperature. That doesn't mean I expect everyone to like or love or even "get" what I say. That would be foolish of me, indeed, foolish and presumptuous.

I remember a woman who was all over me (behind my back) for being a "know it all" because I liked to discuss things more heady than dust ruffles. But she also pushed for me to return to the university and advance my education further. Why? So I could hang a Ph.D. on the wall while I spoke of dust ruffles? I respect education and educated people for the efforts they have put out for their sheepskins, but I've met too many people who quit learning the minute they took off the mortarboard.

If you have wings, fly. Even in a world where there are some who don't like to look up.