I’ve been watching Californication, and I adore it. It has more spunk than any show I’ve seen in a long time, and dialogue to rival Whedon. Mostly.

Being a writer blows – it’s like having homework for the rest of your life.

Nice words… not that I agree, but hey, it’s a show about a writer. They have to pull that stuff out as surely as they have to have the entire cast tapping relentlessly into MacBooks (writers or not). What I do like, though, is Hank Moody’s response to what is pissing him off at the moment:

Just the fact that people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. You know, I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it’s really given us is Howard Dean’s aborted candidacy and twenty-four hour a day access to kiddie porn. People… they don’t write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking, they text; no punctuation, no grammar. LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it’s just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King’s English.

He’s as angry as me!

The show fits in well with my William Boyd kick, and mainstream writing period. Excellent.

Right, so now that the throat infection that looked like a half-eaten lasagne has gone, I’m starting to really dig this illness. Basically it means I’m always tired and sleep until midday at least (but, because I am me, it is not quite enough to beat my rabid insomnia until midnight). My spleen supposedly explodes if I do anything that looks like hard work, ergo the doctor has told me to stay at home a while. This gives me lots of time to read up on things I want to online, watch films, read books, and do whatever the hell I like at home. Yesterday I was persuaded to go for a walk to the beach by the Sisters Tuson (who are a bit like a South African version of the Brothers Grimm, except with less fairy tales, more cakes, and astounding singing rather than writing), and nearly died, thus proving that I am incapable of doing anything strenuous! I love it! We took stupid photos, too:

Today I slept until the afternoon, and only got up when my friend Joe rang ‘cos he was outside with his dog. They came in and had coffee in the sun on my patio, with the Charbonnel et Walker Milk Marc De Champagne Truffles that arrived in a huge great big box of gifts (!) from Lottie last week. We then went for burgers at the place on the corner of the road nearby and enjoyed the global warming February sunshine. I got back and had an email from work saying that people normally work half days when they come back from this disease, which made my day. I don’t think I’ll take them up on that unless I feel awful after the first day, but I may start an hour or two later to get the extra hours of sleep for a week or two. Really, I ought to start making money by selling my infected kisses. Once you get passed the awful throat illness and are able to eat (ravenously) again, it’s the best damn illness in the world! Perhaps the most amazing thing? It’s all entirely legitimate. Woohoo!

Further to yesterday’s spectacular William Boyd pimping, here’s a bit more from him. I came across an article he wrote on the short story, which you can read in full here, on The Guardian’s website. How can you go wrong using Chekhov to pimp the short story? Amongst many other things, Boyd reminds us that “… in the 1920s, F Scott Fitzgerald was paid $4,000 for a story by the Saturday Evening Post (a vast sum today – multiply by 10 to get some idea of a comparison)…”

Yes please, Saturday Evening Post!

I also like this definition of a style of short story that was more prominent before Chekhov (but is also certainly still around today):

1 The event-plot story This term was coined by the English writer William Gerhardie in 1924 in a short, fascinating book he wrote on Chekhov. Gerhardie uses this appellation to distinguish Chekhov’s stories from everything that preceded him. Up until Chekhov, all short stories, virtually without exception, were event-plot ones. In these stories the skeleton of plot is all important, the narrative is shaped, classically, to have a beginning, middle and end. The revolution that Chekhov set in train – and which reverberates still today – was not to abandon plot, but to make the plot of his stories like the plot of our lives: random, mysterious, run-of-the-mill, abrupt, chaotic, fiercely cruel, meaningless. The stereotype of the event-plot story is the “twist-in-the-tail” famously developed by O Henry but also used widely in genre stories – ghost stories (WW Jacobs, for example) and the detective story (Conan Doyle). I would say that today its contrivances make it look very dated, though Roald Dahl made something of a mark with a macabre variation on the theme, and it is also a staple of yarn-spinners such as Jeffrey Archer.

… and on a random not, Roald Dahl was also part of the British spy set-up in the United States before Pearl Harbour, which I mentioned yesterday.

Later, speaking on the Chekhovian short story, Boyd says the following:

What is the essence of the Chekhovian short story? Chekhov wrote to a friend that, “It was time writers, especially those who are artists, recognised that there is no making out anything in this world.” I would say that the Chekhovian point of view is to look at life in all its banality and all its tragic comedy and refuse to make a judgment. To refuse to condemn and refuse to celebrate. To record the actions of human beings as they are and to leave them to speak for themselves (insofar as they can) without manipulation, censure or praise. Hence his famous retort when he was asked to define life.

… and I wonder what he thought of Vonnegut, in light of that! All writings in this style are amongst my personal favourite, and this definitely defines the style that I’m trying to steer my writing in at the moment (ergo my lack of productivity as I decide which previous and immature scribblings are within reach of this goal, but that’s another topic entirely).

There are five more definitions (including one which speculative fiction writers may find themselves more familiar with, in some cases) in the full article, and he touches on more than I’ve got time to comment on here. Even when I’m sick as hell, and sitting around all day… I’ve got stories to cull, after all, and others to rewrite! The article ends with comments on the decline and potential revival of the short story market over the last twenty years, and is somewhat hopeful. It’d be good for all of us, I guess, if Boyd is correct.

Read the article, enjoy, and for God’s sake people, I left LiveJournal, I didn’t die… some more comments please! It’s lonely on WordPress…

“Why are thy songs so short?” a bird was once asked. “Is it because thou art so short of breath?”

The bird replied: “I have very many songs and I should like to sing them all.”< ?p>

Alphonse Daudet

Years ago, an English teacher pointed our class towards a particular work by William Boyd called Long Story Short, which is on a certain level the story of William (similar to the author?), his brother Frank, and his girlfriend Louella. On a more interesting level, however, it is about the author’s control over representation and truth. For example, Boyd speaks himself about twisting fiction. He does it in the manner of a nervous lie, always reversing to try and become a bit more believable, but yet still not quite true. It’s sublime:

Frank. Frank was the sort of older brother nobody needs. Tall, socially at ease, rich, good job (journalist on an up-market Sunday). Very attractive too. He had a polished superficial charm which, to my surprise, managed to take in one hell of a lot of people. But he was a smug self-satisfied bastard and we never really liked each other. he always needed to feel superior to me.

“Pleased to meet you,” Frank said to Louella, holding on to her hand for longer than William thought necessary.
“Hi,” said Louella. “William’s told me so much about you.”

Frank laughed. “Listen,” he said. “You don’t want to believe anything he says.”

He didn’t say that, in fact. But it’s typical of the sort of thing I can imagine him saying. Anyway I only did that just to show how easy it is – and how different. I can make Frank bald, add four inches to Louella’s bust, supply William with a flat in Belgravia. But it’s not going to solve anything. Because – to cut a long story short (quite a good title, yes?) – I really did love Louella (we’ll still call her that, if you don’t mind – saves possible embarrassment). I wanted to marry her. And that bastard Frank steadily and deliberately took her away from me.

More recently, I wandered into my old house to find that Jack had been sent Boyd’s A Good Man in Africa by a friend at Penguin. I asked him what he though, and the immediate response was “he’s fucking brilliant!” Similarly, as much as I often deride wikipedia for being the product of hundreds of monkeys with typewriters, I have to give them some credit for stating that “Boyd, who is of the same generation as Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan, has been, some people believe, “overlooked” as a novelist, largely because he has kept a low public profile. Although his novels have been short-listed for major prizes, he has never had quite the same publicity as his contemporaries, even though many consider his novels superior in technique and content.”

More recently I’ve stumbled across articles such as this one on World War II covert operations and this review of Downfall (a film about Hitler’s last days). Boyd shows that he’s clearly a more than apt at journalism and also no fool when it comes to some of the more complex periods of modern history.

Words cannot describe how much I recommend to anyone that they take a look at William Boyd’s work. There are three fantastic collections of short stories available; On the Yankee Station, The Destiny of Nathalie X and, most recently, Fascination. His most recent novel, Restless, is largely about a British spin and propaganda operation in the United States, trying to involve the country in the war prior to Pearl Harbour. Of all of those, and his other novels, however, I’d recommend Yankee. You can find it on Amazon here.

I can hardly hope to beat Mary Robinette Kowal’s recent tails of medical madness but, seeing as I am homebound with little to do, I guess you’ll be seeing a few more updates from me. I had to go back to the doctor today and say “excuse me honourable miss, but your medicine hasn’t fixed me. In fact, my throat has become a heaving pit of puss and my ear drums are about to explode. Also? An oil prospector has decided during the night to drill for black gold inside my head, and I’m already taking more than the recommended amounts of ibuprofen to little effect.”

Or words to that effect.

We (or… she?) came to the conclusion that I need tests for Glandular Fever in the morning. That’s great, huh? (for the ninety-odd percent of people reading this that are in the North America somewhere, that’s mononucleosis, the kissing gift that keeps on giving…) Not only can I eat nothing but Thai chicken soup and overcooked pasta, but I also can’t sleep or even concentrate for the plethora of prescribed pills that I’m shoving down my throat at as regular intervals. Hurrah!

So, when the day was looking bad, my work phone went off and Bridget’s name sparked up! I hadn’t spoken to her on the phone since we were in San Diego, and she’s doing the Chicago show right now, so I figured it was something important. Well, it wasn’t… but it was an ego-booster. She was ringing to tell me that the actress I knew from Los Angeles (who normally plays a character on a popular US show that, err, ends with a north-westerly US state’s name) had come up to her in Chicago, and said “Hi Bridget” then skipped straight to “hey is Chris here? He’s lovely… and cute!” Sucks that I’m in London, then. Haha.

On the subject of shows, here’s a nice article on what we build: NAIAS 2008