An Editorial For Writers & Readers

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I was watching an interesting docu-series from Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters this week. I don’t remember the musician they interviewed, but someone said something that I think applies to Sword & Sorcery and genre fiction in general. Certainly to what we do at RAGE machine Books. He said something like, “Create the music you want to hear.” And I think this applies to the fiction you read as well. The stuff I write is what I would like to find more of outside of old Pulp magazines.

Now a couple of related Facebook comments. Don D’Ammassa, a guy who knows a thing or two about writing, complained a few months back that nobody writes’em like they used to. I felt a little offended by that, because I think I do. Whether that “used to do” is 1930s, or 1940s, or 1950s, or 1960s or 1970s doesn’t really matter. We are out there, Don. And there’s nothing like having an editor reject your stuff because “it’s too Pulpy”.

More importantly, a poster that I would like to keep anonymous, said that she was giving up on writing. Partly because there are too many needles in this stack of needles we call Amazon, and partly because they couldn’t sell enough to make it worthwhile. They felt completely demoralized and wondered why she should even try. (I know this feeling too well. It comes from associating success with money. It held me back a long time. Move away from that motivation. It closes doors. And remember, Emily Dickinson never made big bucks writing poetry, nor Franz Kafka fiction. While big money authors–too many to name–have fallen into obscurity and were forgotten as the ink dried. Fred Jackson comes to mind. Hugely successful writer of Romance for Argosy but now a footnote for being dissed by H. P. Lovecraft.)

And I go back to “Create the music you want to hear.” Now I can’t complain at any great length about not selling books, because the writers at RAGE machine: Jack Mackenzie, T. Neil Thomas and I do. Nobody is getting rich, but we know we have an audience. But my advice for any writer who is thinking of throwing in the towel, in this day and age when nobody can afford books because gas is $4 a galleon ($2 a litre here in Canada), is keep going. Keep writing those books you want to read. If you are in the game for money alone, you could do better playing the stock market or selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Some, mostly those with get-rich-quick videos on Youtube, have gamed the system but will anything they did be remembered? Pumping out low level crap for bucks is simply working a day job in another form.

I’ve been writing seriously since my early twenties (when I finally gave up on the dream of drawing comics, which is even harder than writing! I discovered I enjoyed the composing part of comics more intriguing than all that hard scratching.) The fifty years since then have seen changes, challenges, trends including sparkly vampires and zombies. Each and every one had a shelf life. What I write hasn’t really changed in all those decades. I hope I write it better now, but what I have to say as a writer remains. And it will remain after the price of gas goes back down to merely stupid. It will remain no matter if readers buy my books or not. This is partly because what goes around comes around. If Sword & Sorcery dims (after its most recent resurgence) then so be it. If Space Opera becomes the pariah it was in the 1960s, oh well, I’ll still be sending brave heroes out in ships to face the Void Eternal. If the Cthulhu Mythos … well, I think you know where this is going. It will be popular again in some form. (Even sparkly vamps.)

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror have always been my wheel house. Since the first Edgar Rice Burroughs novel I read, I was sold on a life spent in worlds unknown. (That kind of statement may be pretty ho-hum to many, but you have to remember I grew in rural Canada where life was hunting, fishing, hockey, snowmobiles, farming and all things practical. Nobody made a living writing, and certainly not that “Buck Rogers” stuff.) I did have the privilege of being a Bronze Age boy, and having new media to inspire me. Conan the Barbarian, Kolchak the Night-Stalker, Star Trek, Star Wars, these were new when I was a kid. My kids grew up in the 1990s in a home filled with wonders. They never knew my desert wilderness of the “rational rickets” as Robertson Davies called it.

So some advice, for those who never asked for it: Don’t give up. Think of this time of turmoil and starvation as a time to turn inward and examine what you really feel, believe, want to share. For me, that is going back and re-reading all those Marvel and DC Sword & Sorcery titles that I thought were so great back in 1973. Some still hold joy, while others, not so much. It can be good to challenge your long-held beliefs and try to see something afresh. We will rise from this hibernation to create new masterpieces.

Also: if you can’t afford to buy books, there are thousands of them for free online. Take any post in this blog, and you will find links to Pulps, books, comics and other delights, that you can download for free and enjoy until things improve. I would recommend the entire works of A. Merritt if you not familiar. Foundational, fun, Pulpy and sadly, not as many as you will soon hope for. Have fun looking for your new favorites.

Hang in there. As John Mills said in 1924: “Writing is a walking stick not a crutch.” Enjoy the journey.

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