Once I had a handle on the alternating chapter timeline structure, and that I had started on the last book of the sequence, I thought it was great.
fiction
The future, in fiction, is a metaphor.
“All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life—science, all the sciences, and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is a metaphor.
A metaphor for what?
If I could have said it non-metaphorically, I would not have written all these words, this novel…”
– Ursula K. Le Guin, 1976 Foreword to The Left Hand of Darkness (via Nearlya)
Crash
“We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind—mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality.”
One size does not fit all: Context matters greatly, for Conscientious Extended, July 2012.
“We all know that all photography is fiction: as a photographer you make choices, which influence the photograph enough for it to be more of a fiction than a fact. That’s photography for you. That’s just the way it is. But the photojournalist’s task, no actually the photojournalist’s duty is to minimize the amount of fiction that enters her/his photography. We are quite aware of the problem in the news context – this is, after all, the context where the problems with image manipulation come up regularly – so we expect photographs in this context to be as truthful as they can be. The problem with InstaHip in this particular context is it adds a huge amount of fiction to photography, simply by its aesthetic.”
—Joerge Colbert
— via fette
Breakfast
Story I wrote and submitted to STS:
The Ort materialized on the old wooden stool next to Daisy’s highchair as Sandra gave Daisy her breakfast. It’s saggy bulk made the old thing creak, it was the oldest piece of furniture they had.
Daisy chortled merrily to see the creature, and then she bagan spooning the porridge into her mouth. The Ort burped encouragingly, looked over at Sandra, then returned it’s attention to the feeding human infant.
The toddler and the creature giggled together, then Daisy took up banging the highchair table with her spoon and the Ort dripped residue onto the linoleum.
Sandra and Alan had become aware their child was communicating with an invisible entity as soon as she started talking. At first they believed it to be a passing phase, but when the Ort started assuming an actual physical form it began having a serious effect on their marriage.
Alan was convinced he was losing his mind, Sandra tried reassurring him, no, it was real, the thing was real and it was happening to them. Soon, Alan was demanding they call the authorities to have it “removed”, but predictably the Ort failed to appear at mealtimes if any third party was present, and the more calls they made, the more Sandra felt that they were risking having their only child taken away from them. So she insisted they stop the calls.
It was soon after this Alan left them. He maintained he had fallen in love with the receptionist at his new work and had decided to move on. Sandra wasn’t even sure they had a receptionist at his new work. She found the idea amusing.
It made life simpler not having him around anyhow. The Ort was much less agitated with Alan gone, and, consequently, the stink it gave off mellowed.
Sandra finished mixing Daisy’s drink, looking across she caught the Ort’s blank stare, it nodded at her encouragingly. She placed the drink in front of Daisy, the Ort farted it’s approval and Sandra turned to the sink.
“You Said Everything Would Be OK.”
I wrote this story and submitted it to STS:
She walked back to the station, the replays going through her head, feeling light, transcendental, avoiding morose.
Was there much to say? The weekend had run away with itself somewhat, the laughing, the vanity and the music. She could see people getting hurt, wrapped up in their own immaculate expectations, the internal maths not being fulfilled.
HJ had stormed off alone into the night, she had seen the rage crashing into his eyes like a tidal surge, where there has previously been quiet joy. He knew he was out of step, his feelings were not compatible with the time they were having, but he had no choice, something had turned away from him and he was obliged to react.
“You said…”, he said.
They kept tabs on him by text message, just to make sure he was safe.
She has suspected he might go that way when they hooked up, but had buried the suspicion, because it was such a good moment. Now the weight of a responsibility for another person’s emotion was pressing down on her. She bought some coffee, lit a cigarette and shook it loose.
The train would be here soon and she wasn’t interested spending the last few minutes in this town feeling bad for a possessive motherfucker.
She conjured up that beautiful dawn that came after. Standing with Sally as the orange and the red took hold of the city, skin prickling as they held each other in the morning light, whiskey warming their blood. The love they felt in that moment expanding into time.
The cigarette smoke swirled around the cardboard cup, patterns in front of her eyes.
She would leave now and return to the working life, this fantastical world an echo behind the routine. She felt blessed to have been part of that it, and thought about how often she would remember.
Stubbed out the cigarette.
Caught the train.
A Room of One’s Own
“Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.”
Paul Greer 