Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright Page B
Authors: John C. Wright
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tedium will either break your brain or break open any writer’s block.
I am so totally not kidding: if you want to learn kung fu, you must learn to break bricks with your head. If you want to be a fiction writer, you must learn to stare at a blank page with nothing but your name on the top without flinching, without weeping, without getting up to get a beer to fortify your faltering courage.
How it is done? How does one fill in the horrid pallid blankness of the blank paper, as monstrous as the whiteness of the White Whale sought by Ahab? Good question. There is a craft to it, a certain mechanic.
Let us take an example of a hypothetical first chapter of a hypothetical book. Let us pretend the book is called
Old Men Shall Dream Dreams
.
CHAPTER ONE: THE NIGHTMARE OF NOTTING HILL
At first, I thought he was carrying the corpse of a child.
My professor of Applied Military Theology, Colonel MacNab, came walking slowly into my little room in southeast London, the little oblong box on his back, and a cold and grim look on his features. I stood up and pulled off my cap, and MacNab scowled. “Not to worry. 'Tis not human. We think. Clear a space and give us hand, there’s a good lad.”
It was dark except for the moon, and the streets below had been cleared of traffic. The only noise from outside was the clatter of an anti-aircraft gun being pulled by a team of horses up the lane toward the churchyard, and the swearing of the teamster.
I pushed the papers I was grading to one side, and the pint of bitter to another. This unfortunately put it within the Professor’s reach, and while I was hauling the small coffin off his shoulders to the table, he helped himself to a long swig at my drink, which I thought most unsanitary of him. “You have terrible taste in ale, lad!” he exclaimed, wiping his mustache on his sleeve and raising my mug for a second long pull. “When are you going to stop drinking this penny-shop swill? Did you make it in your bathtub?”
I drew the blackout curtains and lit a lamp from the fireplace. He bent to open the casket lid.
Whatever I was expecting, it was not this. I crept slowly closer, raising the lamp, and the yellow light spilled over the little body. It was no bigger than three feet, dressed in a bright green jacket, complete with folded cuffs with brass buttons, a waistcoat with knee breeches. It looked like a gentrified yeoman or squire from the last century.
The hair on its head was dark and curly, as was the thick hair on its bare feet. There was some stubble on its cheeks, enough to prove this was no child. The eyes had not been sewn shut, and one of them was open, showing a milky white slit behind, watching me sardonically. The body had been packed in little fragrant leaves, so there was no smell. The decomposition was not advanced: the skin was colorless and dark, and pulled back slightly from the lips.
“Was this what the German agents were trying to smuggle out of Notting Hill?” I asked MacNab. “A circus clown? Why did they bury him in costume?”
MacNab snorted, “Clown! The Oldfoots of Southfarthing are not a large clan, but their roots go back to the origins of the Shire. He is Odro son of Otho. Or so the letter we recovered in his vest pocket says. The fairytale languages department translated it.”
“Who is he?”
“An imaginary being. And not one the author had in the forefront of his mind. It comes from some background material he toyed with and never wrote down. At first I thought it was another Oompa-Loompa, but Dahl over at the Home Office says it comes from a world even more divorced from Mundane Earth than his. Look at how solid, even after death! This is the third complete manifestation. You recall how much trouble the second manifestation gave the Department.”
“Are you sure this is a manifestation? It looks so… normal. Not dangerous a bit. Are you sure this is not a midget?”
“A midget who can vanish through a hedgerow without stirring
I am so totally not kidding: if you want to learn kung fu, you must learn to break bricks with your head. If you want to be a fiction writer, you must learn to stare at a blank page with nothing but your name on the top without flinching, without weeping, without getting up to get a beer to fortify your faltering courage.
How it is done? How does one fill in the horrid pallid blankness of the blank paper, as monstrous as the whiteness of the White Whale sought by Ahab? Good question. There is a craft to it, a certain mechanic.
Let us take an example of a hypothetical first chapter of a hypothetical book. Let us pretend the book is called
Old Men Shall Dream Dreams
.
CHAPTER ONE: THE NIGHTMARE OF NOTTING HILL
At first, I thought he was carrying the corpse of a child.
My professor of Applied Military Theology, Colonel MacNab, came walking slowly into my little room in southeast London, the little oblong box on his back, and a cold and grim look on his features. I stood up and pulled off my cap, and MacNab scowled. “Not to worry. 'Tis not human. We think. Clear a space and give us hand, there’s a good lad.”
It was dark except for the moon, and the streets below had been cleared of traffic. The only noise from outside was the clatter of an anti-aircraft gun being pulled by a team of horses up the lane toward the churchyard, and the swearing of the teamster.
I pushed the papers I was grading to one side, and the pint of bitter to another. This unfortunately put it within the Professor’s reach, and while I was hauling the small coffin off his shoulders to the table, he helped himself to a long swig at my drink, which I thought most unsanitary of him. “You have terrible taste in ale, lad!” he exclaimed, wiping his mustache on his sleeve and raising my mug for a second long pull. “When are you going to stop drinking this penny-shop swill? Did you make it in your bathtub?”
I drew the blackout curtains and lit a lamp from the fireplace. He bent to open the casket lid.
Whatever I was expecting, it was not this. I crept slowly closer, raising the lamp, and the yellow light spilled over the little body. It was no bigger than three feet, dressed in a bright green jacket, complete with folded cuffs with brass buttons, a waistcoat with knee breeches. It looked like a gentrified yeoman or squire from the last century.
The hair on its head was dark and curly, as was the thick hair on its bare feet. There was some stubble on its cheeks, enough to prove this was no child. The eyes had not been sewn shut, and one of them was open, showing a milky white slit behind, watching me sardonically. The body had been packed in little fragrant leaves, so there was no smell. The decomposition was not advanced: the skin was colorless and dark, and pulled back slightly from the lips.
“Was this what the German agents were trying to smuggle out of Notting Hill?” I asked MacNab. “A circus clown? Why did they bury him in costume?”
MacNab snorted, “Clown! The Oldfoots of Southfarthing are not a large clan, but their roots go back to the origins of the Shire. He is Odro son of Otho. Or so the letter we recovered in his vest pocket says. The fairytale languages department translated it.”
“Who is he?”
“An imaginary being. And not one the author had in the forefront of his mind. It comes from some background material he toyed with and never wrote down. At first I thought it was another Oompa-Loompa, but Dahl over at the Home Office says it comes from a world even more divorced from Mundane Earth than his. Look at how solid, even after death! This is the third complete manifestation. You recall how much trouble the second manifestation gave the Department.”
“Are you sure this is a manifestation? It looks so… normal. Not dangerous a bit. Are you sure this is not a midget?”
“A midget who can vanish through a hedgerow without stirring
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