For RathBandu: Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison is a slippery old fuck, a wordsmith, and one of the best writers you will ever read. His stuff runs from the horrific to the majestic, and the entire gamut in between.

He writes primarily short stories, although he is credited in his credits for writing over 70 books as well. I feel he has done this MOSTLY under psuedonyms (Arthur Byron Cover, for one that I have uncovered) and harbor the secret belief that he is Donald Westlake/Richard Stark, because of one line in a Parker book that felt so Harlan it was like I could see him grinning over the page.

As far as where you should start? Five years ago it would have been too hard to say, and then they published "The Essential Ellison". It is HUGE. Get the hardback if you can ($30 at Borders or Barnes and Nobles), the paperback if you must ($19.95). That has got everything from his first stories when he was a kid, like 11 or so, all the way up to what he terms "The Classics", four of his greatest works, and it runs the spectrum in between from greater and lesser writings. The whole book ends with two essays, one titled "The Thick Red Moment", about America's fascination with violence, and "Driving In The Spikes", an essay about the proper methods of taking revenge.

Anyhoo. I cannot strongly enough recommend 'The Essential Ellison', although after that pick up the trade paperbacks of 'Angry Candy' and 'Slippage'. Between the two of those are some of his best work ever, and it is his work of recent years. Age and heart problems have not slowed this man down.

In 'Angry Candy' read 'Paladin of the Lost Hour', and in 'Slippage' read 'Mephisto in Onyx' and 'The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore' and lastly 'Scartaris, June 28th'.

But above all, pick up The Essential Ellison and read 'A Boy and His Dog'. It is, possibly, the best short story ever.

Glad you liked it. Heh. Brutal, beautiful, lyrical stuff, ain't it?

Yes, he was. And I thought that the Terminator story basis was 'Soldier', not 'Demon with a Glass Hand'.

And yeah, he walked away from that with $300,000, and was happy.

Well come up with that QUICK, Blo, because if you don't read those pronto, Xymog and I are going to ream you, but not in that pleasant way.

Thanks be to God, another heathen has been born!

Err, okay, maybe that needs a rephrasing...

One hopes, one hopes.

Now, cease all other activity until you have read "A Boy and His Dog". Then get back to us the changed man that you will doubtless be.

*sniff* I'm so proud of my boy chenzzo! *sniff*

<wipes away solitary tear>

I don't even remember what's in the book.

Read "The Beast Who Shouted Love At The Heart of the World". Then trip out.

I think he only has the one book: The Beast That Shouted Pants At The Heart Of The World, because I sent it to him.

He does not. There are a number of reasons for this (as there are for everything, duh), and some of them are A)he no longer has to do stuff to be publicized, B)he's frickin' old and feeble and these things tax him, C)fandom ain't what it used to be: The greatest portion of his fan base was in their early twenties circa 1968-1972, making them now in their forties and fifties, and most people in that age bracket, if still interested at all, would rather exchange a minute's worth of words over a book signing than stare in awe as he types in a bookstore window. Those that are TRUE fanboys and are in their forties or fifties are either 1: to wierd to meet, even in a public place, or 2: not to be trusted as there is a HUGE debate in the sci-fi/fantasy publishing world that has split them down the middle, and that is whether or not Harlan's delayed (almost fifteen years now, I believe) book 'The Last Dangerous Visions' is outright snobbish theft on his part or whether he should be allowed his reasons.

That book has unpublished stories in it by some of the grandmasters of the genre, and some of these guys are dead. Thing is, the rights on this thing are all fucked-up so that Harlan, legally, has the rights of FIRST PUBLICATION on the stories he has already bought, therefore, even if the family of some of these writers HAVE the stories, they can't see print UNTIL Harlan prints 'The Last Dangerous Visions'. Makes me wonder how dated it is at this point, or whether we'll ever see it.

Still, while I can see this just being a Harlan snit, and DO feel sorry for those whose art is involved (i.e.trapped), Harlan was the one who "gelled" writing for me, the one who made it all come together: He said, "To be a writer, you have to write. Not like it's your job, and not like it's your love. You have to write like it's your holy chore, you have to write like you are compelled from above and within and without and with everything that you are. You have to write BAD stories, you have to write COWBOY stories, you have to write period pieces and opinion essays and speeches, and plays, and stuff you wouldn't show your mother and don't wanna see YOURSELF, but you can't stop. If you can stop, ever, if you can stop writing, or thinking about writing, or planning what you'll be writing as soon as you get in the hot seat, if you can stop that for even TEN MINUTES, you're not a writer. You're a person who can type pretty."

BAM! I've been like that since I wrote my first short story for school at fifteen.

King had a good addition to that with: If you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write.

Both King and Ellison (and me, for that matter) are huge believers in knowing your craft through "the other guy". And that means reading it all. Interviews, articles, speeches to colleges (there's a good one by DeLint that you can get to from Vachss' web-site), to rotary clubs. Stories, good ones, bad ones, HORRIBLE AWFUL MAKE YOUR EYES BLEED STORIES (these are typically written by acquaintances who want you to "go over it for them" or "mark it up", and will not understand ANY criticism, constructive or outright. Refusal to accept the task is almost always your only hope...unless, of course, I am the one asking you to read...heh.), and occasionally, the treasures that you find among the crap.

You have to read good stories with bad premises (Stinger by McCammon), bad stories with GOOD premises (Koontz, almost anything, and Swan Song: again by McCammon), stories that seem good at first and at the end leave you unsatisfied, and you wonder what happened to turn it into crap (Waiting by Frank M. Robinson, and that Charles Grant End-Of-The-World trilogy or quadrology or whatever that had hope yet sucked), stories that you would not read if you were not a writer (exploitation books from the sixties, the seventies, all about drugs and nookie and killing and such), or God Forbid, Ayn Rand novels (or worse, ARTICLES or MEMOIRS! The woman frightens me from beyond the grave), Charles Grodin's autobiography ("It would be so nice if you weren't here") which is MUCH better than the man or any acting he's done and surprisingly worth a read...you have to read all of this, NAY, you even have to read what I am writing RIGHT NOW, because if it is OF the craft (a book, a story, a script, a comic book) or it is ABOUT the craft (this post) then it has to go down your neuron-chute for digestion.

The good thing is, if you're worth your salt as a writer, if you HAVE what it takes or if you WILL HAVE what it takes, that digestion process is pretty effective. It WILL keep what you need to nourish your writing self and it WILL shit out the tripe that is bullshit, or lies, or distraction.

And in the end, you get better. And better, and better, and better. And then one day you FEEL IT. And you know that you're gonna make it, that you're gonna do this, for money, for the rest of your days.

I'm waiting for that, or, rather, I'm stretching towards it.

I wish me luck. I hope you do to.

I dunno, but that 10 minute thing, that's a little trick we call "PARAPHRASING".

So, take that as you will.