RETURNING TO A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

This monthly blog post is very late in the day for many reasons. Squirrels. We’ll blame the squirrels. They can’t answer back. Shifty characters. Blame squirrels. That works out for all parties concerned. I was beyond busy in the first week of the month. Luckily, months have spare weeks built into them for safety’s sake.
   The plan, a week later? Blog about a truly atrocious movie. That occupied my thoughts in the second week of the month. Which movie? The film played dress-up, pretending to be the thing it so desperately wanted to be. No, I won’t trouble you by firing up the kinematograph here. Or anywhere.
   I realised, without setting anything down, that I’d go into hellish detail to write of the movie with anything approaching accuracy. Accuracy seemed important, at the time. I can’t imagine why, now. An opinion, peppered with facts, is still just an opinion. Manage your energy well.
   Would I really watch the damned thing again, taking notes as I suffered? No. I abandoned that plan and spent the energy on worthwhile viewing instead. This took me into the third week of the month, and a nefarious scheme to scribble about a truly boring television show.
   What was I thinking? Hell, what were they thinking?!
   Sadly, I worked up a few pages on that folly. I don’t always blog at least 1,500 words. On the other hand, I don’t always limit myself to around that figure. On this televisual opinion, I passed the 1,500-mark and then stopped dead.
   Damn. I’d truly go over the show once more, to confirm a few things, right? Unavoidable? Was this worth the effort? I concluded the endeavour was not worth my continued effort. Task? Avoidable. That’s how I shattered week three on the blogging front.
   And so…
   I steered myself in the direction of mentioning something I liked. Why not blog about Ursula and her creation of Earthsea? Okay. Sounds good. Do it. I turned to my copy of…
   But wait a bit. There is no copy of…
   Check again. I’ve read the books. Have I read the books? There aren’t any here. I borrowed them.
   They were novels. Weren’t they? I had to confirm a vague something or other. Research into Earthsea was a lot easier on me than research into a blasted heath of a movie or a nothingness of a TV show that I hoped would start even as the end credits rolled.
   Ursula K. Le Guin.
   What to say of her? If born the daughter of Henry the Eighth, Ursula would’ve been listed on the announcements as a prince. And no one would go against Ursula for referring to herself as a most excellent prince.
   BILL: Dude, Ursula is a most excellent prince.
   TED: Bodacious.
   But Prince Ursula wouldn’t have given us Atuan or Earthsea or any of her other creations back in the Tudor day. She’d have busied herself with seeing off the Spanish and having people executed.
   We don’t know how many people Ursula executed. But we do know she wasn’t Henry’s daughter. And she wrote stories. Lived them. Breathed them in. Exhaled them on blank pages, magically filling with words as her lungs moved…
   There’s no one quite like Ursula. This is a shame. Her great talent lay in absolutely failing to stay young. I recommend this course of action. Fail at this task for as long as is inhumanly possible. Ursula was slightly ahead of the game. She managed to die before Covid went chasing everyone.
   Timing isn’t everything, but it’s close enough for government work. And a damned sight cheaper. If Ursula survived to see Covid plunder the world in a way no Viking ever could, she’d likely have kept a short diary of her approaching demise.
   If a hacking cough of a death chases me, I like to think of my famous last words as Famous last words.
   She wrote many things. Check them out. I went to check them out and checked again. Must have borrowed them. They were novels, right? No. Ursula produced short stories in the later part of the cycle. The books about Earthsea are divided into two trilogies. Looks as though I only tackled four out of six volumes.
   I suspect a compilation tome was at work, there.
   Ursula walked the same school halls as P.K. Dick. He’s another writer I’ve read, and…no, he isn’t on my shelves. Speaking of him, I’ve seen my share of movie adaptations of his tales. If I misremember rightly, or wrongly, I’ve heard a radio adaptation, too.
   We don’t go near Ursula with talk of adaptations. She was raging at the decidedly bland TV desecration of her work. I left the keyboard behind to examine the fossilised relic of a trailer for said show.
   URSULA K. LE GUIN MARLON BRANDO: Look how they massacred my boy.
   The timing of the TV adaptation carried the stench of many a Tolkien cash-in. Well. Damn. The Lord of the Rings worked its magic at the box office, and a great darkness was rising in the land of adaptation.
   Speaking of Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising was adapted, rather atrociously, as a movie called The Seeker. This, too, followed in the wake of Tolkien’s movie success. A great blight fell upon popular culture as one century turned into another.
   I left the keyboard behind to examine the fossilised relic of a trailer for said film.
   SUSAN COOPER MARLON BRANDO: Look how they massacred my boy.
   Ursula’s books, and the Susan Cooper volume, didn’t see justice when turned into moving images. On the other hand, if you were Christopher Tolkien staring at Peter Jackson’s Mordor Tourist Board information films, you, too, would reach for a bottle of the Brando.
   CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN MARLON BRANDO: Look how they massacred my boy.
   The K. in Le Guin’s name is the same K. as in P.K. Dick’s: both stand for KETAMINE. In later life, they would frequent sewers converted to nightclubs under the rainy streets of a whore-ish Berlin. There, Dick would indulge in the drug. Le Guin generated the same level of outlandish storytelling without recourse to the horse tranquiliser.
   I am interrupted in my endeavours. Instead of being called from the tyranny of typing to accept a parcel of books, I am summoned to the news that my parcel of books will arrive at or around sunset tonight.
   It’s a gloomy summer’s day in the Grand Duchy of Scotlandia, and I suspect true sunset will arrive a shade early if the greying of the clouds intensifies. All clouds and no rain. Like waiting for a tooth to be pulled during an appendectomy.
   I’ve been interrupted by parcel news. The parcel will arrive in the next 31 minutes. It’s nice to be told this 29 minutes into the parcel delivery window. I must listen out for an ineffectual knock as I clatter away at the keyboard.
   As I typed that, I was interrupted by an ineffectual knock. The parcel, lurking on my doorstep, refused to be scanned by the delivery system. Ursula, making her presence known. I can’t believe it took seven e-mails to deliver that to me.
   The six books in the parcel are A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea, and The Other Wind.
   I could, churlishly, skip the first few and tackle the ones I haven’t read. No. I am here, in this blog post, to revisit Ursula’s work. This raises the question of stories you return to. Earthsea and Narnia, yes. Middle Earth, no. My preference.
   Narnia also benefited by and lost from the resurgence in Tolkien’s fortunes. I cast the weariest eye over the near-criminal output of Walden Media, with the pillaging of Jules Verne’s fiction coming in for a dastardly mention. Dastardly enough to be accompanied by a cartoon dog named Muttley.
   The best version of a writer’s story is almost always the writer’s story. Movies often compress the action. Occasionally, they flatten it. Would any production crew ever earn Ursula’s blessing? Or even go looking for it?
   Earning the original creator’s blessing does not guarantee a good movie or TV show. I am struggling to sear the trailers from my mind. Earthsea envisioned as a TV show comes across as a low-rent nod in the direction of a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle. Xena wore it better.
   And The Seeker is certainly a thing. The problem with adaptations is that they are adaptations. Here’s an enduring rule. If adaptations are bad, they do not destroy the original works. I can go to my shelves and read The Dark is Rising or…once the parcel arrives…any of Ursula’s stories concerned with magical island life, a school for wizards, and a maze.
   Ursula does amaze. To the people who say how can you read books we answer how can you NOT read books…
   That most excellent prince Ursula K. Le Guin is a writer who will get you reading. And keep you reading. Where’s the harm in that?
   Ursula is readable. This is a terrible crime against literature, I know. But the way was signposted long ago. If it’s good literature, it’s not science fiction/fantasy. They steal it in the night, while everyone is looking. Well, they will park under the lamp.

REVISITING FICTION WHEN A SERIES IS DEAD AND GONE: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

That series was over.
   And I waved it fare-thee-well in the long-ago of back-in-the-day. Then it occurred to me that I should make sure the series was dead. It wasn't.
   Walter Mosley's detective series featuring Easy Rawlins started its publication history with Devil in a Blue Dress. If you haven't read any of the books, don't start with that one.
   Begin with Gone Fishin', which charts the misadventures of Easy and his friend Mouse in the long-ago of back-in-the-day.
   I am revisiting the series and starting with the fishing expedition.

*

And I'll have to buy more books. (No more books. The shelves can't take them. But perhaps the space above the bookshelves can be pressed into service. Again.)

   Mosley declared a finish to the series a little over a decade ago in the far-off planetoid that was 2007.

   And I thought that was the end of the run. Years flew by, and Mosley gave us another trilogy since the demise of his series.

   Instead of picking up from the revival, I thought I might as well trudge back to the very start and read the whole show.

   So I have good reason to revisit fiction when a series is dead and gone. It's not dead yet.

*

I read books more than once: occupational requirement of being a scribbler. Which book have I read the most? I don't know. But I'll hazard a guess.

   If a series is done historically - the author died in 1900, say - then I could work my way through a series once.

   But if the author still has a pulse and the urge to pen a tale, then I'll do a fair bit of revisiting.

   I'll read the first book. Then I'll discover a sequel. And read the first book again.

   If the third book takes an age to materialise, I'll read the first two again again before carrying on with the business of absorbing tales.

   Non-fiction books bear returning to, just to brush up on a subject or to compare alongside a new book on that subject.

   I must invoke the Jules Verne Rule. When reading Verne, chances are you are reading the most atrocious "translations" of Verne. Once I discovered a top translator in the name of Butcher, I had to revisit Verne. Though...

   You can't revisit decent translations of Verne if you've read slop before. I had to revisit Verne for the first time ever. (Let's put that on the movie poster.)

   The same applies to books you thought you'd read. You read them again for the first time ever.

   I haven't had to revisit a book with the last page ripped out. Not yet.

   Some books are interrupted. I can pick those up again from where I left off, even if an indecent amount of time passed in the great meanwhile. The choice is to continue from the very next word or to revisit the start of the book. And an easy choice it is. The longer the great meanwhile, the more likely it is I'll start afresh.

*

Perhaps a series is taken over by living hands, after the intellectual property is plucked from the cold dead digits of the creator. Is reading the new stuff in a series really revisiting the work?

   The new writer, presumably, revisited the work in order to build on the foundations of what came before. But there is no legal guarantee of this. Nor should there be.

*

Revisiting Easy Rawlins set me thinking about revisiting all sorts of books and in all kinds of ways. Proper revisits. Improper revisits. Clandestine trips. Detours. Muddy ground leading to muddier waters.

   That's a lot of contemplation. But there lies an occupational hazard, lurking on the stacks: books set you to thinking. And that's as it should be.

   If I'm not around for an age, I've gone fishin'. Not literally: literaturely.

   

REALLY ARCHIVING THIS TIME: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

There was a Windows 8? Fuckin'ell.

*

I jest. Who else jested? The people who came up with Windows 8.

*

Windows 7 was the pass-key to Windows 10.
   In the end, upgrading an operating system took just under an hour. It was pain-free. I had more aggravation the last time I went to the dentist. And that was nothing much to speak of, either.

*

But putting my archives in order first...

*

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

*

In winter's depths, I create the final annual archive. There's a lot of saving and copying that goes on across the year. But there's a final archive set in cement and dropped off a rum-running boat into the river of time.
   ONE FOLDER TO RULE THEM ALL.
   This year, I prepared that final archive early. And in winter's depths I'll create the year's final final archive.
   Fuck.
   I went through the year-thus-far's files and consolidated a whole bunch of folders. Even though I improve archiving yearly, I still end up with too many duplicate files.
   Not talking about copies stored in other locations for safety. I mean within the archive itself.
   But this time, with the threat of a dead operating system ahead of me, I really truly archived. Sure, I make sure. But I had to be certain that I was sure of being sure. And doubly-sure of that.

*

The time-limit on upgrading to Windows 10 was a year. There was another time-limit. Today. A free security deal runs out today. So I might as well upgrade the whole system today and have a new tomorrow to look forward to, er, tomorrow.
   I ditched around 20,000 needlessly-duplicated files in the end. That's 20,000 FILES UNDER THE SEAS. 
   Do I care about all the fun new things a new operating system can do for me? Of course not. I want the fucker to allow me to do all the old things. That's the important part.
   Can I open a file to write in? Yes. Can I write in that file? Yes. Can I save that file? Yes. Can I print or otherwise share that file if I want to? Yes. Job fucking done.

*

But the real job here is to have copies of your files. Always have them. Know how to secure them. Keep them safe. Hope you can retrieve them. If not, go to the copies of copies you made.
   In truth, there's no such thing as a needlessly-copied file. Create data. Don't lose it.

*

And what's the one thing you should all be grateful for?

   This...

   Microsoft is not a Scottish company. If it were, all your voice-recognition software would be attuned to Caledonian accents. And you'd be right royally fucked.

*

Keep writing, folks. And keep saving and copying and securing what you are writing.

   
   

BOOK SNOBS.

That term conjures an image of the fur-clad Duchess of Literati sneering at ill-mannered urchins from the safety of her mink-lined Rolls-Royce Silver Spoon. What is a book snob? One who reads only the BEST. No.

   The term was used by fellow-scribblers to worry over the grim prospect of never again reading stories for the sheer fun of it, Jeeves. Becoming a writer may destroy you as a reader, if you let yourself fall into that trap. I’d walked that clifftop path before. What to say of it? Everything has its behind-the-scenes viewpoint.

   If you are a police officer, you will glare at the travesty that is the cop movie. Medical dramas placing emphasis on the heroism of overworked doctors are bound to leave nurses feeling cold. Stories about vampires will, inevitably, piss werewolves right off.

   And writers? Don’t get me started. Oh, if you insist. Crank the starting-handle on the front of that Rolls-Royce Silver Spoon, Jeeves. The Duchess of Literati wants to go for a spin. She has her quota of ill-mannered urchins to mow down, after all.

   My fellow-scribblers bemoaned the occupational hazard a writer must inevitably deal with. This is the business of READING. At some point, readers decide to become writers. A few of those writers actually manage the transition after penning five or six novels.

   How harsh a reader do you become, in reading as a writer? Do you read for enjoyment? Are you prepared to read a story just to see how it was constructed? Do you find a book so badly-written that you simply abandon it?

   Where, along the way, do you transform into a book snob, mowing down lesser books from the back seat of your Rolls-Royce Silver Spoon? (All 0.75 regular readers of this blog will glean that the spoon in question must be non-runcible.) The difficulty for the writer, in reading, is one of being a back-seat driver. You want the story to go in a particular way, but you aren’t the one at the wheel.

   I said that I’d walked that clifftop path before. Luckily, I didn’t fall. I didn’t find myself reading a book for pleasure only to discover, shock-horror, that I was merely reading to study technique. Why not? Was I capable of disengaging the writing brain and using the reading brain to get from start to fart?

   Not exactly. I pulled stories to bits, to see how they worked. And I enjoyed doing that. I decided to read certain authors to see how particular stories were constructed. If I enjoyed the fiction along the way, great. That’s the point I’m getting at. Enjoy reading, even if you are reading as a writer.

   This was the case with the detective novels of Raymond Chandler and the Bond books by Ian Fleming. I read them to see how they were done. Sat down and planned it. I’ll buy these books, and look at particular authors. And I’ll learn. My time in the company of Sherlock Holmes was spent absorbing structure. But it was with one eye on fun, just as the other eye dealt with the mechanical side.

   Reading books and seeing faults in them from a new stance just because you’ve labelled yourself a writer…is a losing game. A clifftop path with a sudden halt. Don’t get too tangled in that pursuit of the BEST in fiction. Oh, I read GREAT stuff. But I also read GRATING stuff. I think you really have to go slumming, same as I did. You have to be prepared to read books that you suspect you may put down and give up on.

   It’s a RARE book I’ve done that with. Once I start a book, I’m meant to go through with it to the bitter end. And sometimes that end has been world-class bitter with a patent pending. I’m struggling to think of the books I gave up on. One, two, three, four. I’ll struggle some more. How many? Not many. Perhaps no more than half a dozen in a reading lifetime…oh, the crap I forced myself to read. And the crap I wrote. The books I should have given up on…let me count the ways. Ah, no time.

   See the positive side of reading. Let your stance as an author enrich your enjoyment of the experience. Better that, than to let your writerliness taint your views. Yes, you’ve read some stinkers. But the ones you finish are the ones you finish. Those finished books, good, bad, indifferent, taught you much I’m sure. I’d hope you came away from reading having enjoyed reading.

   You may demand great fiction, but you won’t always get it. I’ve read great books with appalling typos in them. That didn’t destroy my reading experience. Flip that over. Wonderful typesetting couldn’t disguise a crap book. Who decides whether a book is crap or not? Each reader. Individually. Inside each tiny mind. Thus endeth the lesson.

   So, writerly ladies, gents, and all those caught between or far outwith, are you book snobs? Writers, reading and coughing up blood simply for being writers? I think you are just trying critical hats on for size in an attempt to flog yourselves over your own worst imperfections. Nothing to do with the stuff you are reading. Everything to do with the stuff you are writing.

   Remember, those imperfections of yours may actually be key indicators of your wonderful writing style. Tread carefully. Don’t squash your own unique telling-points. Here are a few books to consider. They are not bad books. Quite the reverse.

   Does it matter to me that the characters in Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth should probably die off from lack of supplies with all the to-ing and fro-ing underground? No. It doesn’t matter to me at all. No book snobbery there.

   What is Dracula’s rationale for avoiding the major population centre of Berlin? It’s closer than his destination of London, and he has a greater grasp of the language in Germany. Why not set up his undead empire as a Berliner? He heads for London. Does this destroy the book’s plot? Certainly not.

   Dare we mention the books that JUST HAPPEN TO TURN UP in front of Frankenstein’s monster? Really, Mary? No, seriously. REALLY, Mary? The monster must be educated, so here’s Paradise Lost. WTF?! I glossed over this. Almost became a writing snob, but I reined the mare in. The clifftop path I walked that day was signposted. So I came back down, unscathed. (I like what Mary Shelley did with that book. She’s a fucking superstar. I gladly say that of the author of the next piece…)

   Okay. I have a slight problem with Jane Eyre, in that she just happens to fall in with her relatives after wandering in the wilds. But the family situation is explained. There is foreshadowing. Even so, it does come across as a thumping geographical coincidence.

   My shameless bias in Charlotte’s favour excuses this literary excess, as Mary Shelley’s excess is similarly excused – but only just. I look askance at the connection, bundled up in a sub-plot concerning inheritance, and move on. The walk along the cliffs is not for me, for there is much enjoyment to be had from Frankenstein and Jane Eyre. (Suddenly, I have a deviant literary mash-up in mind. Dr Phibes, the screens!)

   The Hound of the Baskervilles…plays a very strange game of pitting the occult against Sherlock Holmes. Is there really a huge spectral hound out there on the moors, Sir Arthur? Er…

   In Kipling’s case, style intrudes. Both editions of The Jungle Book contain a story not set in the jungle. Snow and ice intervene. Should we return the books as not representative of content under the Sale of Goods Act…

   The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L. Sayers, houses a wholly improbable cause of death within its mysterious pages. Yet that sits perfectly well within the self-contained atmosphere of the story. And that’s a few books in on the series featuring her aristocratic detective. She went out of her way to contrive many an arcane scene in her books, did Dorothy.

   Does that matter? Have His Carcase has one of the most outlandish plot-devices going for it. The scramble to secure evidence from a corpse before the sea washes clues away. Mad writing. But it works. Because, as readers, we want it to. As writers, we should want it to, too.

   Find me a book you can’t find fault with, and I’ll find fault with it. Not out of spite. This is just the way things are. A book isn’t a wheel, or a meal. You’ll know a broken wheel, or an awful meal. A book is harder to place. Flip that over. A book is harder to excuse.

   Your terrific book may not be mine. So, I say again. Find me a book you can’t find fault with, and I’ll find fault with it. With that in mind, I warn of the path to the shaky cliff. Don’t go out of your way to climb to that high spot, with its winds buffeting you.

   If you can’t read a book without finding faults, you are reading every book you’ve ever read. Buck up. Enjoy what you read. That is the point of reading. Worry about being a writer when you are WRITING. The Duchess of Literati crashed her Silver Spoon up her own backside. Don’t join her in that pursuit.

NEXT BLOG: OPERATION JOCK MACBASTARD.