Call it a gift, but our own dearest Ed Pahule has been triggering a fair number of lengthy articles on my part, in the past couple of days. And, even worse, he’s triggered an entire spate of reading obsession, but that’s a topic for another day.
Ed and I are pen pals, I guess that’s the term. We both got excited at the idea of sending letters back and forth. I love the idea enough that I have two: Ed, and Tori. I have written them each a letter, and I adored doing it. It was the first time I’d written letters to anyone in a lot, lot of years, and it was a terrific experience. I likened it to my ages spent drinking far too much Mountain Dew, before I ‘got clean,’ (chortle if you will, that stuff will kill you) and then discovering tea. It was caffeinated, without the highs and lows! It had flavors and varities and communities and it’s enjoyable and it gives back what you put into it! It’s more fun than popping a tab and drinking.
Writing a letter was the same way. I really, really enjoyed writing letters. They came out a little long, because you don’t want to send out a two-sentence physical letter. I don’t, anyway. With the inclusion of G-Mail and its conversations in my life, my e-mails have gotten shorter and shorter over the years .Writing a letter was a blessed rediscovery of communicating at length, and I adored it.
But what Ed said that really got me thinking was, he talked about the letters of people like Robert E. Howard, who wrote volumes back and forth with H.P. Lovecraft. Howard Lovecraft was a painfully shy person, but wrote tons and tons of letters. They have been published variously, and are fascinating. Likewise, one of my favorite books is called “Yours, Isaac,” and is a collection of various letters Isaac Asimov wrote to fans, friends, other writers, publishers, etc, over the year. It’s a thrilling book. Furthermore, there is the book “Letters to Jenny,” by Piers Anthony, which is interesting for a lot of entirely different reasons, many of them very sad.
Letter books. Legacies. They are some of my favorite things to read, like biographies (and autobiographies, viz. Isaac Asimov’s). Granted, they aren’t something that has necessarily entirely vanished, with the advent of the internet age that I’m told repeatedly We Are All Fortunate To Live In. For example, there is Adventures in the Dream Trade, which is a miscellany of Neil Gaiman’s material and includes a portion of his blog in the back, the portion that was written exclusively as an American Gods journal. This is really an entirely different thing, but it’s a bit of an evolution.
I’m young enough and I’ve still got (IhopeIhopeIhope) a fair number of years to spend dillying around manuscripts and pottering around stories, but as a writer who spends every second he can thinking and poking and thinking some more, I do think about my legacy. Not very often, mind. It’s not an easy thing to think of, because it’s a subject that is filled with ego, and I am desperately paranoid of coming off egotistical, at any point.
So, Ed’s comment has stuck in my head, as I’m writing handwritten pages of my novels. And it’s stuck in my head as I write letters to people. It does cross my mind as I’m whining about my novel, “this will go into the About Writing section, won’t it…?” and mostly, I chuckle.
The question, at the end, is: What do you want to be really and truly remembered for?
December 17, 2007 at 9:07 pm
(and if the majority of this article comes off as nearly incoherent streams of babble, I apologize. It’s been that sort of week.)
December 17, 2007 at 9:30 pm
You must be babbling, since the week just began today. And you’d better mean that when you say you’re enjoying penpaling around, ’cause I’m buying stationary this week.
I’ve thought about this for some time now, at least several years. Ever since I began posting fiction on the interwebbies, I started to wonder if this would be my writing legacy. Would these stories out live me? Would my name be passed down from reader to reader? Are people downloading my work and passing it around, sharing them with others?
When I first started blogging, I had second, third and fourth thoughts about it. I figured blogging wasn’t anything more than an ego running around shouting at the top of its lungs and pointing at itself. Which it is, basically. But then I made a decision.
Some day, I’m going to be known. One of these days, come hell or high water, I’m going to be a published author with a following. And when that happens, maybe – just maybe – my readers, my fans, will read my blogs, my ramblings, and see a pattern in them. They’ll see the development and growth of a writer. They’ll see the ups and downs, the highs and the melodramatic lows. And they’ll realize writers are humans after all, just like them. And maybe – just maybe – that will give some aspiring yet fearful writer out there just the boost they need to take the plunge.
I’d love to leave behind a legacy of novels, of entertainment that spanned generations. A legacy of a writer, struggling, working, learning and making it in this big, nasty world.
And I think I’ve just posted a comment longer than your original post
December 17, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I just hope to leave behind material that entertains people. Not necessarily make them think, or to touch them, or to provoke Great Deep Thoughts, though those are nice to think about. Just another barrier against the endless night.
Whether they ever know who I am is, in the long run, immaterial.
Mind you, I still want the fan clubs.
December 18, 2007 at 7:42 am
I could have been more specific in my post. Questions such as:
1) If you have a body of letters (I go back and forth on whether or not e-mails count. Mostly, not) would you want them published?
2) Your unfinished works? Published in the style of Douglas Adams’ “The Salmon of Doubt,” where it’s released and unhindered? Or published in the sense of, er, um, some dead author who’s book someone else finishes and they release? (So long as it’s not Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert, that goes without saying)
3) Biography, or autobiography, or memoir? Which would you prefer?
Etc. Etc.
December 18, 2007 at 9:31 am
I haven’t received your letter yet, Pete, though we haven’t been up to the post office since last week.
To answer your questions, if someone wants to publish my leftovers, sure. Otherwise, I hope someone in the family thinks they are valuable enough to keep. And if someone wants to write about my life, well, I don’t really mind which way. I’m a dork like that.
December 18, 2007 at 9:56 am
1) If we’re talking posthumously, yes. I don’t think emails count for much, unless they weed through and find exceptional ones.
2) Yes, I would love my unfinished or previously unpublished works put out. Not something that another writer finishes, just a compilation, including hand written notes and editing marks done my me.
3) Memoir. Oh wait, those are written by people who knew you. That might not be such a good idea. Maybe a Biography. But again, who’s going to write that – it’ll be pretty dry and dull if someone only has facts, with no personal insights. Autobiography – that’s kinda like a blog, yes? Okay, I’d go for . . . None of the above. Except #1 and #2.
December 18, 2007 at 9:59 am
I don’t know what’s wrong with wordpress the last few days, but I can’t log-in, it keeps timing out. Very frustrating.
I doubt if any letters I’ve written even exist except for the ones my mom might have kept while I was in the Navy. I’m sure everyone else I wrote to has thrown them out, so they won’t be resurfacing to embarrass me after I become famous.
Pete, we aren’t officially pen pals until I write in return.
And as far as my unfinished works? I don’t keep outlines and profiles and notes on what the novel will be about and where it’s going. I only have a few chapters written with no indication of what happens next. I doubt anyone could “competently” ghost write an ending to any of my unfinished works.
December 18, 2007 at 10:10 am
I don’t count a lot of e-mails, because they are less an interesting letter in their own regard and more a part of an ongoing discussion. It would be like only publishing one half of an Instant Messaging conversation. Now, an e-mail conversation where all parts are published might be interesting, depending on the topic.
Like Kristine says, weeded through for the exceptional ones (written at length, making clear points, etc.) makes sense for me.
Blogs work, sort of, and that’s why I referenced the chunk of Neil Gaiman’s blog that was published. It’s as interesting a read as the Isaac Asimov letters I also mentioned. Depending on the blog and the discussion, I think that could work very well published. I’ll be curious to see if we start seeing more of those (and, furthermore, if they actually turn out to be interesting or not. As with all things, it’ll depend.)
Ed, Tori, your letters went out the same day. I don’t remember which day. Very long week(s).
On my end, with regards to my poorly expounded questions.
1) I like the idea of having a body of letters on subjects which are published. Letters being defined as physical letters, e-mails of exception, and blog posts of interest.
2) Given the amount of wreckage I generate, publishing my unfinished stuff might be interesting, when I finally kick off. We’ll see. I don’t like the idea of another author stepping in to finish what I wrote (they wouldn’t know what I MEANT, they only know where I was GOING), but they can publish what I wrote and leave it at that.
A further thought on this is, if you bought various Jim Henson packages the past few years (my wife bought Fraggle Rock’s first two seasons), you got facimilies of his notepads, full of scribbles, incomprehensible and otherwise. I adore it. It’s fascinating. I would love to see that done more.
3) I have always liked the idea of writing an autobiography. I am embarassed by the idea of someone writing a biography about me, so I don’t know about that. But if someone wanted to, I wouldn’t say no. I would just shuffle my feet and go hide away in my office.
December 18, 2007 at 10:14 am
1) Whatever
2) Whatever
3) Whatever
I’m not terribly picky. For #3, I am writing up small snippets of my life for a rather segmented memoir someday, but that probably doesn’t really count (any more than Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek does). Someone else can write up my biography if they care to; I don’t particularly relish my life.
December 18, 2007 at 10:28 am
I’ll say this (just once, then deny ever having said it) Several years ago, on a lark, I wrote something extremely X-rated. Thankfully, it was electronically written and then destroyed. But, much to my chagrin, it was emailed to someone I now no longer speak to.
Granted, I’m sure it’s been deleted and forgotten, but that’s another reason all this legacy stuff should be posthumously. Let my nieces and nephew suffer the embarassment !
December 18, 2007 at 10:39 am
Look for Kristine’s X-Rated piece “How Dumbledore And Hagrid Found True Happiness,” coming to Castle Debacle soon!
Some of it should be done posthumously. On the other hand, I think things like biographies and autobiographies (duh) should be done while you’re alive.
I have always thought that every writer should have to contribute at least one nonfiction book. Douglas Adams gave me the life-changing “Last Chance To See,” and Stephen King gave me the wonderful “On Writing.” I think every writer, fiction or otherwise, should offer up a nonfiction book on something or another. I think they’re a delight to read.
December 18, 2007 at 11:01 am
So long as I can blather on as I desire, I’ll right you a nonfiction bit. Right now I’m full of all sorts of things to talk about. I feel my letter back to you will be filled with all sorts of things and possibly very long in length, Pete.
(I’m in a rather good mood today, which is better than I have been feeling.)
Of course, my husband usually gets the mail, so I can only imagine what he’s going to say when he sees I have a letter from someone of the male persuasion. He tends to get a tad jealous at all the odd places. Nevermind that you are happily married (I hope!) with a little one.
December 18, 2007 at 11:01 am
Someday, my non-fiction guide to life and how to survive it will be: Hope Springs Eternal, But Fate Will Always Piddle On Your Shoe.
The cover art is a well-dressed guy standing in front of a lovely fountain in front of the steps to a big agency’s offices. He’s holding a manuscript in one hand and a note inviting him to bring his presentation to the offices at 1:15 to a pitch session. He’s trying to work up the courage to walk into that building.
He doesn’t notice the Chihuahua pissing on his pant leg.
(given much thought to this? No, why do you ask?)
December 18, 2007 at 11:03 am
Emails, well, first they’d have to find them, right? I mean, yeah, they can find my home email account, its right there on the machine, but in the past I’ve had hotmail, yahoo, and my current care2 accounts. Once I die those will all just evaporate after 90 days for lack of usage.
My biography would be very boring. My autobiography would be somewhat interesting. I know things about me only I know and I intend to keep it that way.
December 18, 2007 at 11:09 am
Tori, write me at as great a length as you like. I would have written a longer letter to you, but I ran out of things to say in the First Letter. Always tricky, those.
I like the idea of an autobiography, more than biography. Especially if it’s a writer with a strong voice. I wish Douglas Adams (I keep coming back to him) had done a proper autobiography. Isaac Asimov’s three volumes were a delight to read.
Ed, I think that was my general train of thought behind letters over e-mails, in this instance. E-mails of exception and note may get saved anyway, outside of the e-mail account, but they aren’t necessarily of either exception or note until years after the fact (did the publisher read Tolkien’s letters and think “I must save these and give them to his son, Christopher, and the world will adore them?” Well, I doubt it) and so they could vanish.
Of course, so could letters. But as I stand right at this moment, letters seem more permenant.
December 18, 2007 at 11:22 am
And one day I will know the difference between write and right, with the ability to distinguish where proper use applies for each.
I keep a lot of things people have sent to me over the years. I have many of the notes my husband used to write to me during high school. Personal things from people in your life cannot be replaced. Letters, items. They all leave behind the personal connections you make with others, which is the essence of life. At least in my perspective.
December 18, 2007 at 11:22 am
There was a time, long ago, the summer before my Senior year of High School – my sister went to Yellowstone National Park to work through the summer, and she and I – being buddies – sent each other long handwritten letters weekly. There were no PC’s then (dinosaurs did not roam the earth, though) and we didn’t have a typewriter at home. We had the greatest time, even used stationary and that cool yet ridiculous wax letter sealing trick.
I went on a de-clutter jag last summer and threw them all out (they’d been sitting happily in a box under my bed for all these years). I wish I still had those.
December 18, 2007 at 11:31 am
As I mentioned in an incoherent fashion, in my above article, I am enjoying the freedom of letters and my ability to do things like you mention: sealing wax! No cabbages or kings, but I bet I can work those in shortly.
I realized as I writing them that I could write sideways. I could doodle on the page. I could make teabags (Fun Pete Fact: When mixing teas, I also have fabric and string and can make teabags) and mail them in the envelope. I could mail articles. If I’d been able to find uncrumpled pages I wasn’t using, I was going to write my last two letters on the blank backs of old manuscript draft pages. I like that idea still. There’s things to do! And I like that it takes me time to write it. I have to sit down and write the letters. I am enjoying it immensely. (Krisitine, if you write me, I will happily write back).
I keep toying with the idea, in my luddite fashion, of turning my e-mail into a For Writing Business Only account and putting up a page on CarrPeeDiem that says “if you want to chat with me, write me a letter. I’ll respond.” I haven’t done it, obviously, but the thought crossses my mind.
There is a permenance to the internet, too, but it’s a different sort of thing. For example, it takes me all of five minutes of Googling to find several hundred thousand words worth of stories I’ve written and posted on the internet (at least forty stories, all at least 10-15,000 words long). Some really clever Googling, and I can find some of the very first stories I wrote and posted, when I first found the internet. (They are all awful. All of them.) So, there can be a permenance to the internet.
On the other hand, just yesterday, I went to log into a very old Hotmail account of mine, where I had saved a copy of a short story — having e-maild it to myself, as is my custom — and because my hotmail account is so very old, it was empty. No story. It has vanished into the ether. It probably wasn’t very good, and I don’t mourn it. I remember the idea. I can re-write it better. But the thought remains: if, in a hundred and sixty years, I finally die, no scholar will be able to find my hotmail account and my letters in there. And they won’t even know to look for either of my two Yahoo! accounts because, aside from this comment right here, I have never mentioned them. Will they be able to find my extremely long articles on video games? No. Because they are on a private forum accessed by only me and one other person.
So the internet is permenant, except when it is totally impermenant.
Letters don’t vanish after thirty days, a year, six years. On the other hand, my house could burn itself down to cinders. So letters are no more permenant or impermenant, I suppose.
December 18, 2007 at 11:32 am
(and now I have just written at greater coherency and length in a comment than I did in my original article. What-ho.)
December 18, 2007 at 11:44 am
Go easy on the tea experimentation when you write the letters, Pete….
December 18, 2007 at 11:46 am
You only say that because you haven’t tried some of them. Silly.
I wound up not sending anyone anything in my letters — in terms of extras like tea — because I didn’t want to set a precedent that anyone would feel obligated to continue. We’ll see, in the future. Tea will be inevitable, I’m afraid. It’s my hobby.
I cannot decide if we are wandering far afield of the original topic, though I am inclined not to think so.
December 18, 2007 at 11:54 am
I am going to write you, actually, I’ve been working on it just today – as a way to practice using George. You’re going to hear the premise for my next novel Ether, like it or not.
If I find your missing short story out there, in Ether, I’ll send it to you
December 18, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Good! Write me hither, and thus shall I delight in reading & replying.
If you sent me the story, I will probably go “Ye gods, what unadulterated crap,” and be forever dismayed. I think it’s best that the story lives only in the back of my mind as a distant memory, where it nearly sounds like a decent story.
…
The other advantage to the nonfiction works of certain authors is, it makes them accessible. It’s been through intelligent and enjoyable interviews of certain authors that I have come to appreciate them and, from there, have gone on to enjoy their works. I discovered John Irving through interviews. Doris Lessing. I rediscovered John Steinbeck through an interview in the Paris Review, which has a spectacular archive of interviews done with all manner of famous and amazing authors. Charles Dickens, I came back to and discovered I appreciated by reading the only-slightly-useful biography by Peter Ackroyd (honest, it says more about Ackroyd than Dickens). And so on.
I think this may be a defense for authors writing non-fiction more than auctorial legacy, but there you go.
December 18, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I’m sending you something back with my letter. It’s that book I mentioned at the beginning of TGTD. It’s a birthday present, and I have more than enough copies. Holly Lisle sent several, with the idea of getting them out to others, so it fits. You can pass it on when you are done.
December 18, 2007 at 12:02 pm
That should be:
You can pass it on when you are done, if you feel the need. If not, keep it. I’ve had a hard time rereading it for some reason. Even though it stuck with me for days after I finished it. Good story, and Tor has done some stupid things regarding her stories for this world she introduces.
December 18, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Passing on books. What a fabulous idea. As wonderful an idea — and perhaps less alarming — than receiving in the mail an envelope with a handwritten letter and a ziploc bag, inside of which is a small bundle of fabric with dried leaves in it that you are meant to put in boiling water and drink.
Point being, I will happily read. Letters are a delight right now. Maybe because it’s a new toy, but I don’t think so. At the moment, it’s a Very Old Toy that I’m enjoying rediscovering (so much of what I have begun to do with myself and my writing and my thinking since November 1st, has been rediscovering and reclarifying. That probably says something, but I am unsure what).
Another enjoyable thing about lettes — since we have wandered far afield of the original discussion, I may as well follow ever on — is that they were both written in the company of my wife. Now, that’s not unique to letters. I can sit and write an e-mail while sitting next to my wife too. Especially since most the computers in the house are laptops. But that’s not the point. The point was, she was on this laptop, playing games and checking e-mails, and I was sitting next to her at the table with sheets of paper stacked neatly beside me, writing letters to people at whatever length I thought was ideal for a first letter (I tried not to make them too long. I wanted to ensure a difference between “letter” and “manifesto,” at least for now). But there was something quiet, calm, still about sitting there and handwriting a letter. Occasionally, I stopped to talk to her. Or I got up and did something. Or I wandered off and came back. I liked that too. Not unique to letters, certainly, but it was noticed with letters and subsequently appreciated.
December 18, 2007 at 12:18 pm
It’s all tied together, Pete. Letters are on of those things that can leave a legacy. Perhaps much better than some empty Hotmail account, and provided a fire does not devour them. I have way too thoughts inside my little (or not) head to be tied to any one subject today, anyway.
The letter writing sounds lovely, and I’m striving to achieve that sort of peace in my house. It seems we may yet be on our way to a better time.
December 18, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I need to sit down and write a letter, if not tonight, very soon. But I also need to find a protective envelope to send a certain DVD in, which, as I explained, isn’t a true DVD, but just information copied from the DVD to another DVD. None of my DVD making programs recognized the original DVD file format so it was the only way. Hope your computer can read it. Hmm. And I’ll have to put my letter in an envelope so you can keep it.
I like the idea of writing letters on the backs of old drafts of stories. Not sure I’m going to do that, I need lined paper or I travel all around the page.
(My wife said she didn’t care if I got letters from Muse or other women, but she said it in that way that seemed to indicate that she would in fact care very much. Or at least she’d be keeping close tabs on it.)
December 18, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Both my letters were done on lined paper, not because I travel around the page — I don’t anymore, I’ve worked hard at that, and am proud of it — but because I tend to put a lot of words on a page when it’s unlined (around 800 a side) and thought that was unfair to anyone trying to read it.
I briefly toyed, Ed, with writing you a sultry love letter, then wondered if it would alarm your wife no end, and so I didn’t. Whether I will maintain such resolve in the future, we shall see.
I have not mentioned, but keep thinking of, David Sim, the creator of the terrific comic series “Cerberus,” which ran for a LOT of issues, all of which he did, and has ended. He does not have an e-mail. He has a fax, and he has a phone, and he does letters. Awhile back, he did a thing with Neil Gaiman’s blog readers where if you read about it on Neil’s blog and then wrote David Sim a real honest-to-god letter, he would write you bakc and send you a free signed issue of Cerberus. You just had to tell him why you wanted it. I thought that was utterly cool. And I still do.
December 18, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I think I would have been alarmed! My wife, who works with many gay men, might have found it much more amusing than I ever would have.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
And did you frame your autographed copy of Cerberus?
December 18, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I think I would have been alarmed! My wife, who works with many gay men, might have found it much more amusing than I ever would have.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
And did you frame your autographed copy of Cerberus?
December 18, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Oddly enough, because of today’s topic I was surprised at the morning radio DJ’s on my ride in to work this morning. The one was saying he had to do something he hadn’t done in 10 years, and that was write a letter. He’s doing that sponsoring of a child in Africa thing wherein they ask you to write your sponsored child letters. He finally got around to it, and was saying how he’d been told by the organization that 90% of the sponsors NEVER write letters to these children.
Naturally I was under this odd assumption that he meant he sat down with pen and paper and wrote a personal letter – no, he used his PC and printed it. The other DJ was remarking with sarcasm how perfect his penmanship was.
Then that made me think – that’s not a letter, that’s an email that takes longer to arrive because the recipient has no computer. A letter – a real letter – is handwritten.
December 18, 2007 at 1:03 pm
A personal letter is handwritten, yes, I completely agree.
Business letters, scathing letters, letters to the editor are typed.
December 18, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Absolutely, they should be handwritten. I think it’s more fun, it’s more personable, it’s just more interesting. I would rather have a Charlie Brown style letter, with all the shaky handwriting and smudges and ink blotches than a nicely typed letter. That’s what my bills look like. As warm and loving as a thrown knife.
Terry Pratchett makes a lot of fine arguments, amidst his genius, in “Going Postal.”