Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Art for art’s sake

Not necessarily the 10cc song of the same title, but maybe… who knows? I stumbled today on a discussion in which one of the individuals involved claimed genre fiction can’t be as good as literary fiction, because if it’s good it can’t be genre fiction. I oversimplify, but that was basically the gist of the argument, with a twist – genre writing can’t be good because of the way in which it is produced, because of the authorial intent, if you will.

Now the obvious implication of this reasoning is, the moment I sit here and I say to myself , for instance,

now I’ll write me a ghost story

my story automatically looses the opportunity of being good, in a “literary fiction” sort of good. It’s flawed simply because I decided upon a certain form, and contents, that can be slotted into a genre. Mind you, it still exists the odd possibility that the story will turn out so good it will actually be literature, but it’s highly unlikely, and should it happen, it will be despite my intentions.

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Writing from experience

Reader, I did it! About two hours ago – at the time of publishing this – I sent a short story of mine to a literary magazine, my first literary fiction submission ever. Mainstream as hell, no flashing swords, no roaring rockets, no snarky adventurers in this one. Serious fiction, yessir.
There goes my pulp street cred.

The venue to which I have submitted my piece is so classy and literary and posh that they don’t pay the stories they publish, but in exposure – but I was happy to break my rule, never to give away my work for free, because, first, it was a 330-words piece that I wrote in thirty minutes (and edited in two hours, more about that later), second, I considered more a writing exercise than work, and third, because it is a story I want somebody to publish.

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To be or not to be

(nice title, what?)

One of those little details that tell you an awful lot about the differences between languages and cultures and worldviews is the fact that when dealing with jobs and occupations, English uses mostly (if not exclusively) the verb “to be” (as in, “I am a part time dog walker”) while Italian can use both “to be” and “to do” – “I am a part time dog walker” but also “I do the part time dog walker” (the correct English form would be the bulkier “I currently work as a part time dog walker”).

Where does this lead us?
Well, let’s start saying I am thinking of renaming a character in my current work in progress, from Sara to Pandora. That’s a big jump, uh?
Let’s backtrack for a moment…
( This is a speech I was supposed to give a few weeks ago in a library, then the thing fizzed – I hope you’ll enjoy it.)

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Odds and Ends #6

I’ve just posted the sixth selection of Odds and Ends for my Patrons in the Five Bucks Brigade. This week, dining like it was 4000 b.C., a way to prevent your cat from thrashing your books, a roleplaying game by Umberto Pignatelli, an Oscar-winning animation short, and the opportunity to defend the Frontier against Xur and the army of Ko-Dan.
Because it’s good to be my Patrons.