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Post by alisak on May 29, 2009 14:08:55 GMT
Hi Justina,
I'd like to ask you about the UK independent publishing scene. I've read some of your short stories in UK anthologies and I wondered how vibrant the scene was and how hard it is for new writers to make local sales?
Cheers Alisa Twelfth Planet Press
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Post by belinda on May 30, 2009 6:44:26 GMT
An extremely wise person once told me that 'tension is attention'.
Is inventing the awkward and tension filled moments your characters go through like planning revenge on someone you really don't like?
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Post by marianne on May 30, 2009 22:58:57 GMT
OK, there seems to have been a hiccough with Justina's visit. Will get back to you when I know something. Keep checking back. MDP
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Post by justina on May 31, 2009 8:34:11 GMT
Hi everyone, sorry I am so late. I got tangled up in my little kids' stuff and have had a total wipeout in terms of getting to the computer. Anyway, here I am, just when you thought it was safe. Thanks for all your questions and enthusiasm. Here are some replies: Marianne: You asked about the man reception... Mostly I've had a perfectly pleasant reception from the male SF community, readers and writers both. There was a time when it seemed very special to be about the only girl publishing SF in the UK, but now there's lots of us, thank goodness. I never really exploited the opportunity to milk that angle for publicity, because I felt uncomfortable about it myself. I don't like to think of me as a special case for being female, it seemed a bit like the joke about the talking dog (watch me misremember this joke) to which the punchline is - it's not that the dog talks well that's amazing, but that it does it at all. There can be a coolness to being a freak, but after having noticed the oddity there's nothing left to talk about unless you want to get into a long conversation about gendered neural systems and brain development: I like those conversations but I fear they also end up at the point where you just shrug and think, 'well, I guess my brain must be one of those that's female but with some male tendencies here and there'. Assuming SF to be dominated by the male brain type preference thingies (and I think we can all do that quite without fear of contradiction), I like to think I've swayed and pushed and pummelled those thingies off balance with my (oh god all right female like tendency) to see the SF stories from a woman's POV, in which what I notice as important includes a lot of social/emotional relationships and struggles, both internal and external. Sooo...some men have hated that 'pollution' of the 'pure, scientific, rational' (their words) glorious genre with all that stuff but this only betrays their total buying into the whole Western Empirical philosophy underpinning our culture (she said, attempting to claim a higher ground in a very annoying way) which sprang (probably) out of their natural biases. It's a tired, old, probably with us forever kind of a struggle to accept different perceptions of the same external reality. Anyway, I've had quite a good time of it and at least if they really fly off into the negative you can have a good argument
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Post by justina on May 31, 2009 8:44:23 GMT
Dear Lynne
You asked about Quantum Theory:
I read a few popular science books on this subject, and talked to a couple of actual scientists but that was the extent of my effort. I also read quite a few books written from the mystical angle, as part of my interest in Yoga and Eastern philosophy over the years.
I've always struggled hard to try and integrate scientific approaches to things with their 'internal' counterparts of human experience and most of these mystic books are trying to do the same thing, I think. There is a problem however, in that in the effort to prove the physical world's congruence with human intuitions about the nature of reality we can end up making all sorts of connections that aren't supported by evidence. The difficulty is that the two approaches - scientific rationalism/materialism and mysticism - apparently can't be smushed into one overall unifying appreciation because they exist in theoretical spaces that are mutually exclusive to each other (she said, scientifically). One is only permitted to talk of the observed states of events in the physical world, the other is an effort to internalise all the states of the physical world. Ironically, science is only an illusory escape into the world of absolute magnitudes as its divisions and definitions have all sprung from the mystical human need to imbue everything with meaning, to make things discrete and then to reunify their arrangement soo... It's all mystic in the end, to me, and at the silly end of quantum theory where it is almost impossibly difficult to speak meaningfully about what events are taking place without talking in maths, it illustrates this absolutely.
I love the mystic end of things myself. How about you?
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Post by justina on May 31, 2009 9:05:18 GMT
Hey, InnateMalk
So sorry I am late. It's a pleasure to be here with you all.
Thanks for the question about reality and how I mess about with ideas about it. I think that I've always been quite neurotic as a person, very introspective, and this has led me to try and search out Truth (note capitalisation) as a way of looking for something I can hang on to. I've spent many years of my youth waiting to discover how the world really works, and how people work and what things ought to be like in the vain hope that once I had these answers then I'd know what I should do with my life and in my relationships and I'd be able to make everything all right. Of course after all this horrible struggle to find certainty it became apparent that religions and science both offer a lot of certainty in their shopfronts but ultimately reveal only a massive and fundamental and eternal uncertainty at their core. Science just states this, though it suggests there are some reliable laws operating on macro scales. Religion dodges it a lot of the time with efforts to cling to some human-made law or other, or else it embraces it and espouses the development of compassion, which is about the best you can do in the circumstances, it seems to me. However, cultures have their preferred themes too, and I've mostly been exercised by the notion that ours is over dominated by male gendered perceptions of reality which go unquestioned most of the time as their assumptions and prejudices have become the filters through which most people have learned to see everything. Hence my efforts to try and make minor adjustments in my fiction and to experiment. Often this gets me misunderstood or disliked, I think, but I'm so glad that you like it.
As for the spur to my initial quest for certainty, that was started when my father died suddenly. I was eleven, and up to that point I'd been a fairly orthodox Christian with born again tendencies. I was a total true believer. I guess that explains the addiction to certainty.
all best wishes, Justina. and PS REALLY SORRY I AM SO LATE
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Post by justina on May 31, 2009 9:13:02 GMT
Hi Alisa
I don't know a great deal about the UK indie press but here goes:
The magazines that exist and flourish are few. Black Static would be one (used to be The Third Alternative) and Interzone was the other I'd point at. I think these markets are both open to newcomers, although they are very distinctive marketplaces so your work would have to fit their requirements. Once it does however, and is of a good quality, then I am sure there is a good chance of acceptance.
Anthology markets have tended to be request-only one-off publications here, either done around a theme or for a specific purpose, but again, I think these can be opened up if you can make contact with the editors to get the market news and make your pitch, or if you can get a referral from an author who has been 'summonsed'. Because anthologies are of book format they rely on having a certain number of big names to sell themselves but there are always a couple of slots for unknowns. This does make it tricky to get in, but not impossible. Again, the market requirements are usually highly specific, so you'd have to fit the bill. I don't know if any of the ones of recent years have been open market objects but I'm sure if they are that details can be found relatively easily on the web.
How vibrant is that scene? I think still pretty vibrant, but it struggles financially, and the opportunities are few in number. Still there though, so don't give up.
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Post by justina on May 31, 2009 9:26:16 GMT
Dear Belinda
Tension is attention.... I'm not sure what this means. I suppose that if there is tension it will grab your attention? Hm, I don't feel like I invent the horrible situations that can develop, they invent themselves as a result of the characters trying to get what they want and opposing each other. Usually they all have a few agendas on the go at once so it can get very complicated. However, I think that narrative tension (is this the specific kind you meant?) is driven on two things: conflicts and mysteries. To keep a reader's attention you have to devise one or both of these things and play it out in a rewarding manner. I think that genre writing tends more to overkill on these tensions, whereas a literary fiction can employ very little of them in the same space of story while it does other things.
Personally I most enjoy work where a writer can create realistic inter character tension with multiple conflicts (Jane Austen or Iain Banks) or in-character tensions caused by personal conflict with the self or else with the world in the case of a mystery. Go too far with this and you get a melodrama, don't go far enough and there's not enough stake for me to keep reading.
I hope that answers your question.
best, J
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Post by justina on May 31, 2009 9:30:04 GMT
Dear Everyone
Thanks to Marianne for inviting me and being so patient with me. Thank you all for popping in. I will keep checking back over the next few days if you still have anything you'd like to talk about.
best wishes, Justina.
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Post by JM on May 31, 2009 12:38:11 GMT
Great to know you are with us Justina, I was getting a little freaked out. My neuroticism starts making itself obvious when things don't go according to plan. You are so eloquent that it makes the waiting worth while.
I was going to ask if you had ever considered taking revenge against the male aspects in literature you suffered against while starting up in the business but I just remembered back to Silver Screen where you do make every male character suffer in some of the most imaginative ways possible. So there goes that question.
On that train of thought are there any other aspects of society that you strongly dislike that you would happily take apart or see taken apart in a novel? Or even some that you feel need stronger representation?
IM
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Post by justina on Jun 1, 2009 11:00:04 GMT
Hi again IM
I never consciously 'took revenge' on anyone in a book. If the male characters suffer it's not gratuitous and look at what the women go through! So I don't agree that I am on a vengeance kick against male 'elements' of SF or individuals. I might occasionally take the mickey out of them and point out their shortcomings. I'd rather (and I hope I am beginning to) explore more diverse ways of being in the world and put them to the fore.
With regard to your social question: I can't actually think of any social engineering project that hasn't been a hopeless disaster so I would steer well away from any attempts to make macro level effects on people's behaviour directly. I know that communist friends of mine feel that if we could only give everyone a fair opportunity a natural spirit of sharing and caring would surely follow but I don't think for a second that human nature tends that way. From my observation the richer people get, the less likely they are to involve themselves in genuinely healthy interactions helping their fellows and neighbours, and the more likely they are to hole up alone and chuck money at organisations in the hopes that everyone will leave them in peace with their stuff. And that's taking an optimistic view. The social isolation of growing wealth and commuting has already made us a vast population of tiny islands with depression and loneliness sky high. So I think if I could change something for the better I would put human welfare to the fore of society, instead of corporate and state welfare, which is what comes first now and to which we are slaved. HOW would I do that?? Like I said, it won't be any use if it comes like an order from above. the only way to achieve that is if each individual decides to take matters into their own hands and put their own health first, understanding that what makes them happy is not what all the corporate and state machineries are constantly trying to sell them. Most people in the west are reasonably well provided for in terms of basic needs but so far this hasn't helped them become any freer. Probably that's due to a lot of misguided religious notions about suffering and hard work equalling virtue or something like that, I'm not sure why. Anyway, I rather wish that would end.
How about you?
J
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Post by JM on Jun 1, 2009 14:41:41 GMT
I tend to think around the same lines Justina. Australia seems to be infested with little "socialist" groups trying to recruit others in order to annoy governmental types. In essense I don't have a problem with this but the fact that they are all moneyless university students who give up on the cause the moment they get a paying job makes me a little irate. But then I seem to be a little jaded when it comes to people who state they aren't just in it for themselves. From what I've seen those people just like to draw attention to themselves, and that is for those with both strong religion or political beliefs. Although that may just be the unhealthy dose of realism that seems to be a permanant fixture of my reality and my utter hatred for a certain religious party. I apologise if I come on a little strong.
I didn't mean to imply before that you were being petty in your attitude towards others. It just seemed to me that you were a little crueler to the male characters of SS than the female. -SPOILER WARNING- After all Anjuli does go through vast emotional trauma, and a couple of the other girls don't exactly get off free and easy. But the males do suffer quite ironicly. Roy believes he will be taking the next step in evolution and ends up part of something that is neither himself nor another being entirely, a situation which Jane avoided just in time. Og ends up emotionally altered and twisted inside of himself due to his own desires to be some kind of Nietzscherian superman. Mr Croft goes through his own little battle and I think in the end walks away with the spirit of Roy still tortuing him from within. His insecurities slowly tearing him apart. Compared to them the female characters get off rather lightly so I admit I jumped to conclusions.
Lets try something a little less intense for the moment shall we.
I would love to know about your writing process. How you get the ideas together, plotting out timelines...etc. Whether you assign yourself writing times and words per day. And what sort of difficulties do you face when creating a new concept for a novel?
IM
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Post by justina on Jun 3, 2009 12:09:22 GMT
Hi IM
I'll take the last part of your question first: I don't really have difficulties in concept creation. Ideas appear and then just gather speed and mass, a bit like snowballs. Occasionally I can get bogged down if I have two agendas in operation, for instance in a fantasy novel I am working on I have a society where women are top dogs. That was my start point. I didn't plan it out in detail, I thought I'd discover it as I went along. However, I did get stuck for a while when I thought that I ought to plan it out in detail and do all the 'political thinking' parts about how it would be shown in the book, and resolved or not, and ruined or not, and whether it was utopian or not etc etc. Finally after a struggle I realised that thinking about all that in advance like a kind of philosophy experiment made me feel like I wanted to run away and scream. So I immediately decided to stop trying to be A Big Thinker and just sit quietly and listen to the characters explain what was going on in their world, whatever it was, and just write that down. It's been a lot better since then. I discover this on every book, more or less *sigh*.
The same goes for all the other items you mention, like timelines, story arcs and so forth. They all emerge. It's as if the world and people I write about are already in existence and I'm just taking notes. Clearly the hard work is done in some part of my brain/mind that I am not directly conscious of and I only ruin things when I try to drag all of that processing into my waking mind which has about 0.0000001 of the power of the unconscious bit apparently. Nowadays I have to remind myself that the conscious bit is only good for making sentences and doing the spelling.
My daily difficulty is the same as many writers - procrastination due to pathetic fear of failure and general indiscipline. Once I start, I'm fine, but I allow myself many distractions. Sometimes these are necessary creative little adventures - reading books or seeing films or looking at stuff which is filling up empty little holes in the whole fabric of what I'm working on for example, but a lot of the time I fool around playing games for an hour when I ought to be working. Getting to the page is the hardest part.
A final comment on your insights into Silver Screen. I never really thought about it your way but I guess what you say is true. For me the men suffered as a result of their ambitions, because they were each in their own way prepared to go to any length to realise their artistic or personal vision. This is a very dangerous quality; if you succeed (and they all partially do) then it's heroic, and if you fail then it's a horrible tragedy of your own devising. It's more that they were all extremists rather than that they were men maybe, but I think perhaps I associate that phenomenon more with men. I saw an article in Psychologies magazine this week in which David Baddiel was poohpoohing all the cliches we are willing to accept about gender-differentiated behaviours and it would be a lie if I said I hadn't accepted and peddled a few of those in my time. But I still think there are differences and they do relate to gender on a higher than chance level. Possibly the span of humanity expresses all possibilities concerning gender variations on all levels however, so surely in there every exception will exist. Rambling now, so I'll shut up.
all best wishes to you.
Justina
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Post by JM on Jun 3, 2009 17:22:10 GMT
Thanks for all that Justina. In a few (rather long) posts you have given me more to work on than you can imagine. I try and write myself and now I'm thinking in a few different ways than I did before. Usually I have to look in my favorite books for insight, the human mind is a far greater refernce point.
I can't wait to get hold of your next book. I don't know if you are still answering questions but is it okay if at some point in the future I email you if some huge philosophical question about your work pops up?
IM
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Post by marianne on Jun 4, 2009 0:45:53 GMT
Hi All,
Justina is officially finished now, so no more questions at this stage. I'd like to thank her so much for taking time to come and talk to us. It was truly insightful and interesting.
Best wishes Justina and feel free to drop in any time. Your thread will stay here indefinitely.
bests MDP
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