I don’t see many movies, but over my annual holiday month off—and with my writing career mostly stuck in waiting mode—I had time to see a few movies recently.  So I thought I’d comment on them.

Note that I said “comment” not “review.”  I don’t plan on reviewing movies on this blog, or much of anything else, truth be told, including politics.  I may comment on anything at any time, but that’s not the same.  The one thing I may formally review is books, but only books that I really love.  When I read a book I love, or at least like very much, I’ll mention it here; doesn’t matter if it was sent to me for a blurb or just something I picked up, it works pretty much the same way.  So, for those who send me books, be aware that I’m not an easy blurb or reviewer.  Quite the opposite.  I’ve found that I’m probably quite stingy when it comes to formal praise of others’ work to be used for marketing purposes.  I hope this doesn’t discourage anyone, because I do enjoy giving recommendations that I truly mean for whatever purpose might be beneficial.  Just understand that I don’t recommend many books, even books that most others feel are good or even great, and I don’t do negative or neutral reviews.  So if you approach me for a recommendation of some kind and don’t get it, please understand that I may not have had time to devote to reading it thoroughly, or I may not have loved it.  There are plenty of fine writers, many very successful, whose work would and has earned exactly the same response. 

So why even try?  Why approach an elitist curmudgeon with the puerile sensibilities of a mentally deficient hamster?  Because when I do give a recommendation I mean every single word, so it may be worth a go.

Films, on the other hand, I won’t review.  I’ll just tell you what I think.  So today I’ll tell you what I thought, in various levels of detail, about the movies The Blind Side, Avatar, and Sherlock Holmes. 

The Blind Side I liked a lot, even though it is a great example of my claim there is no such thing as non-fiction and that the statement “based on a true story” is ultimately irrelevant.  As someone once said—just who, I have no idea—”If the truth be told, I’d rather hear a story.”  It’s a good story, and so shouldn’t surprise people that it’s true but not factual.  In fact, I liked it so much that I won’t say anything other than go see it because I think you’ll like it.

On Avatar and Sherlock Holmes I will be somewhat more elaborate, which in this case isn’t good.

In the past few weeks I’ve seen a number of film critics and commentators recommending Avatar as one of the top films of the year, and I find this a bad, bad sign about the future of cinema.  Now, don’t misunderstand me: the film was visually stunning and the 3-D wasn’t gimmicky, which is an admirable move in the narrative form.  I enjoyed the movie mostly, though I won’t see it again and there were times when I found myself on the brink of boredom.  And while the story was decidedly cliched, predictable, and thematically didactic, it wasn’t any more so than most blockbusters, especially given recent history (the latest Transformers film, anyone?). 

You might tell from what I’ve said so far that I don’t greatly enjoy many movies, certainly not as many as I did before I started work as a professional storyteller.  But what I disliked the most about Avatar and its reception by many critics and the public is the clear foreshadowing that in future years I’m going to enjoy even fewer movies.  The Hollywood blockbuster, to which I have no ideological objection, is moving ever more toward excess glitz to cover anorexic story.  But that’s always been true, you  might say.  Yes—but recently more and more movies have been getting away with it. 

There’s always been a strong strain of visual puritanism among movie-makers, which often expresses in a fixation with technique even at the expense of rhetorical effect on the story.  Typically, these films have made the indie circuit where they’re watched by other filmmakers and no one else.  But now CGI has become so advanced that it’s capable of entertaining mass audiences purely on the level of distinction, so much so it can distract from or even hide the poor narrative structure beneath all the glamour.  Avatar used revolutionary production techniques to communicate what is, frankly, an unremarkable story—and in many quarters is being celebrated for this.  As a fan and writer of speculative fiction, this really, really worries me.  For years the best sci-fi and fantasy stories were avoided by Hollywood because of how difficult—sometimes impossible—it was to do the settings justice.  Recently we’ve seen technology unlock the door barring some of the greatest stories ever told from the visual medium.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a fine example of technology being implimented in service to great story.  But with the door now open too many filmmakers are mistaking their visual tools for their product, not as a means of production.  Avatar is the most spectacular average story ever filmed, and is certainly paving the way for many more gigantic expressions of mediocrity.  

If you think I’m being too harsh, consider that Avatar and Dances with Wolves are essentially the same story at the archetypal level.  Their structures are nearly identical, as are their themes.  Yet watch the two and there is no question which is a great story and which is not.  I’m disappointed because Avatar could have established a new standard for visual storytelling, broadening the possibilities of the medium; instead it took something very old standard and unremarkable, wrapped it in a massive, intricate, and glitzy bow, and called it revolutionary.  A revolution means doing something that hasn’t been done before, something truly new.  Avatar puts all its creative energies into packaging the common, old, and trite.  There’s nothing revolutionary in that. 

And you know, I think I liked Sherlock Holmes even less.  Partly this is because Holmes inexplicably became more Iron Man than super slueth (only without the suit); partly it was because the resulting action/mystery balance was, well, decidedly unbalanced; partly it was because I figured out the great “mystery” of the film about ten minutes in, and I hate that.  But the whole, complete, and total reason I didn’t much enjoy Sherlock Holmes is because it never understood what story it was actually telling.  I can’t say much without giving the story away, so I’ll leave it at this: the story is about Holmes vs Holmes, but the movie thinks it’s about the audience vs the filmmaker.  Really.  The entire movie is spent trying to manipulate the emotions of the viewer through uncertainty, and the manipulation is both intellectually and emotionally obvious.  The great crisis of the film is one of belief, and that belief is Holmes’s; his perspective should have been the perspective of the audience.  If that had been so, then the audience would have travelled the difficult path the movie wanted to take them down, because the character would have been their vehicle.  (If anyone’s interested, this is an example of abused point of view.)  Instead, the film feels schizophrenic and dishonest, trying to force the audience along a different path from the characters while claiming a joint journey.  In many ways, it’s a mess.  An entertaining mess sometimes (it does have Robert Downey Jr. in it, after all), but those moments of cohesion and pleasure are spaced out by all the instances where the film completely forgets its own story and goes places it had no business going by pathways better left untaken.  If you’re interested in an example of undisciplined and rhetorically mediocre storytelling in spite of strong moments of material, then Sherlock Holmes is something you should probably see.  If you’re just looking for a good time, read Doyle’s stories or watch Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett, because you can do much better than this movie.

L.T. Elliot wrote the following in response to my post about waiting:

I hate to sound preachy but have you thought of submitting elsewhere? A year’s a long time and unless you have some specific agreement with these individuals, I would consider sending out your MS to other venues. You’re a good writer, Clint. I wouldn’t wait to see if other fish take the bait.

First off, thank you very much for the compliment.  As for thoughts on submitting elsewhere, yes, I have considered it seriously.  What I’ve decided is to do my best to have my cake and eat it too.  I think the book is a terrific fit with this particular publisher, and that combined with a strong recommendation I received make me think that my chances with this house are about as good as they come in this industry.  For these reasons, I’ve wanted to respect their exclusivity for the time being—at least among publishers.

What I have done is submitted the book to agents.  That doesn’t count as a multiple submission, so no breaking the exclusivity I promised.  Meanwhile, if a really good agent falls for the book before a contract offer is extended, I’ll be able to discuss the next step with them.  If they believe that submitting to other houses is the best step, I’ll do that; if they want to approach the current publisher and seek a deal, I’ll do that.  If, on the other hand, the publisher does offer a deal first, I’ll contact my top agents and tell them that an offer is on the table and I’d be interested in exploring representation.  Either way, it works well for me.

So that’s the situation in more depth, L.T.  I don’t have all my eggs in one basket, exactly; rather, I’m trying to cook them two different but complimentary ways.  It’s just a fact of the business that even when you’ve got things on multiple burners—which all writers should, if they’re serious about publishing—you find yourself waiting a lot while the pots simmer.  Four of my top agents have had my package for a long time now, and the publisher’s had my book for an eternity.  None of it’s empirical evidence, but the trends are looking good.  It’s just one of those times when I have to let things finish cooking, no matter how hungry I am.

Perhaps I should say starving?  Famished?  Or maybe follow Shakespeare and use the classic “in a consumption.”  Well, take your pick, whichever screams to you more loudly, “I HATE WAITING!”

One year ago this week a little card arrived informing me that a publisher had received the manuscript I’d sent (upon request) the week before. I have not heard back since. This, as those in the publishing game know, is worthy of celebration and simultaneous cursing like a sailor recounting his latest and messiest divorce.

You learn to wait when you seek to publish. You may not wait well, but you wait. The only alternative is to make something happen yourself, and since you cannot make a publisher accept your book, you’re left with many less constructive alternatives, many of which tend toward the tragic and might get you on wanted lists and, eventually, the evening news. To avoid this, every writer cultivates a second style in addition to their writing style—a waiting style.

Some writers wait by refusing to wait; instead, they work. I try this one, but can’t manage to squeeze my life so devoid of empty seconds that obsessive thoughts have no room to blossom. I always manage to think of new ways that someone could reject the most brilliant book ever written in the history or alternate histories of this world or any sufficiently interesting variation.  (This is the way I think of all my books as they’re out as submissions.) 

Other writers go back to their work and continue to “revise.” In actuality, they’re mostly self-cannibalizing, churning in and over themselves and their work so incessantly that all vigor and color is gnawed away. It’s like sticking a Christmas stocking the washer over and over again hoping it will get just that much cleaner. Not only is this questionable in regard to efficacy, but after the two-hundredth washing that cheery red will remain in memory only. And as the publishing world often works according to its own special time (it’s called Continental Drift Standard), you’ll have plenty of time to churn that story over so excessively that no life or breath remains.  As styles of waiting go, this is about the worst.  Don’t do it.

Other writers I know chose the distraction route.  Whether sports or movies or diving into a book very unlike what they’ve written, they try to replace thoughts about rejection with other interests.  In theory, this should work great.  In my case, the practice has proved problematic.  Not only do such distractions work only momentarily on me, but they usually produce a measure of guilt that I didn’t use the time productively (see the first waiting strategy of diving into more work).  If you can apply this one, I envy you.

 While there are many more styles, I’ll mention only one other common type: the social waiter.  These writers attend writers meetings, critique groups, or simply pepper their colleagues with lamentation about how agonizing it is to wait for that next rejection letter, like a toddler playing peek-a-boo for the twentieth time who still manages to hope that this time, finally, ugly uncle Chester really will be gone when the hands disappear.  Other writers refer to this as commiseration; normal people call it making a pest of one’s self.

In my seven years or so of serious writing (about six of which were spent submitting for consideration of publication), I’ve learned a lot about my waiting style.  This past year of a publisher sitting on a requested manuscript has greatly refined my style which, according to my current understanding, is about as follows:  As I wait I work, first strategically, then busily, then grumpily, then desperately; then a stupor hits me and I wonder if I am mistaking busyness for achievement (an old whip crack of John Wooden); then I realize how much time has actually passed, and I glory in my inevitable achievement, which includes attributing the delay to the publisher buying time to gather an advance big enough for me to buy my own Hawaiian island; then I remember it’s more likely they’ve forgotten about me, misplaced the manuscript, or so covered it with coffee stains they can no longer remember who sent it; then I try to jump in my blender; when the spatial impossibilities of my effort finally hit me, I settle down, remember the hundred plus rejections I’ve already survived, and recall that they have not—as yet—been added to; then I remind myself I do not know the end from the beginning, that good things can and do happen, and that I sent out a truly good book; with that ballast for stability, I get back to work—which only occasionally I combine with pacing, gnashing of teeth, and periodic outbursts of alternating threats and prophesy, both delightful and dour.

That pretty much covers my past year.   May the next see my waiting style undergo much less refinement than it has this year.  

Oh, and if the publisher hasn’t gotten back to me by this time next year, expect to see me on some creatively tragic story on the evening news.

It looks like my first school visit tours for GDC are beginning to settle into place on my calendar. Most aren’t set yet, but I’ll be in the north and south Salt Lake area sometime in September, and in Layton on Sept. 9-10th. Each tour will include a Thursday signing at Barnes and Noble. I won’t put these up on my calendar until they’re finalized, but I thought I’d give a heads up—after all, I haven’t written anything in a week and needed something to say.

Here’s another something. I just passed the six month mark of a certain publisher considering a certain requested manuscript. When they buy it—yes, when!—I’ll let you know just what “certain” means.

And finally, I’ve been so busy I had to invent time to read, so I no longer spend half and hour or so puffing away on my elliptical every morning—instead, I spend half an hour puffing away on my elliptical every morning with a book in hand. It means all the stress of the machine is born by my bad knees but so far I’m managing to tough it out. The book of the moment is Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Just started two days ago, but so far? It’s a really fun read, which for me on Neil Gaiman is about an “egh, so-so” level comment. I’m not finding it on the same level as American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book, but then saying something isn’t on par with one of the hundred greatest novels of the last hundred years, a Newberry winner, and a should-have-been Newberry winner isn’t the most biting of criticism. I’m liking Anansi Boys better than Stardust, which was a fine book in its own right. Let you know if my feelings have changed when I finish.

As a single man, I do not believe in most anniversaries.  The five month variety, for example.  It is not just that I find them remarkably silly; I maintain they do not exist. 

Anniversary, according to Websters: “A day or occasion reoccurring on the same date each year as a past event.” 

That “every year” part is the sticker.  So, if we care to be a little literal about this, a five month anniversary makes as little sense as, say, a three week, seven hour, eleven minute and forty-three second anniversary.  (I find this breed of anniversary usually celebrates something like the moment someone texted someone else a message similar to the following: im still grounded and OMG ur a jerk but i luv you so txt me in 4th perd [insert whichever annoying emoticon you desire here].)  Just a hint: If you do decide to celebrate a five month anniversary, do so properly.  I believe the gift required by etiquette for this occasion is a used q-tip.  (How you use it is up to your discretion.)

All that being said, I admit that today is memorable for a duration of five months—it has been five months to the week (and day, as far as I can guess) since Shadow Mountain received a manuscript they requested from me.  When a publisher asks for a full manuscript, it can’t be bad news.  When their standard response time is six to eight weeks and you’ve made it into month six, it’s got to be good news.  So I consider this a memorable day. 

I do not consider it an anniversary.  Rather, I view it as an admirable example of endurance and survival.  Personally, submitting my work sometimes feels like being hung—as time passes I become increasingly breathless but when the climax comes it somehow rarely ends pleasantly.  So today I announce I am breathless but still struggling, and not being dead is worth celebrating (as is not being figuratively dead).       

So don’t mind the purple tint to my face if we happen to cross paths.  I’m holding on for six months and trusting that, this time, there will be a happy end to this hanging.