As good as my wordI wrote:I give fair warning, I am not going to take notes. I want to watch him -- see every nuance of expression and motion, not be missing whole paragraphs because I'm trying to control my handwriting.
, I don’t have any kind of organized report on the Portland meeting. I do remember, because that was before he stuck his face around the corner to check the room, being shocked that they had only set up seating for 40 ! That was silly on the face of it. Sure enough, by starting time, there were added chairs plus standers all along the back.He asked us all whether we wanted a reading or a Q&A session, there wasn’t time for both. He added winningly that he preferred the Q&A session. That way, he explained, when there were only enough questions to fill 15 minutes, he could wind up the session early and be gone. He said it as a child would revealing its cleverness, and we all laughed with him. He has that knack of revealing himself in a way that we can all recognize ourselves in what he says.
WHICH, he pointed out while answering one of the questions, is the key to writing with impact. I know I’m not using the words he did, but this is what I’ve been saying forever anyway, so my words can make SRD’s point: Writing makes an impact when the reader can see his deeper self revealed in it. SRD’s special ability to do this (or Tolkien’s, for that matter) is one of the things that make them great.
Of course SRD didn’t get to sneak out early, because of course there were plenty of questions, more than there was time for. Most of them were the same questions he has been answering on the Gradual Interview, that we all know the answers to, so I didn’t make any attempt to remember them.
There was one moment where the thrill simply took me over. That was when SRD was talking about how two of his ideas came together to make one of his stories -- I think it was the Gap. He has referred before to Patricia McKillip’s metaphor of inspiration as “being touched by the tail of the comet”. As he described it, it was so obvious he was reliving the experience of the comet that I was swept along in the same sensation. I hope I never forget it. One could repair a life with that kind of feeling.
Khaliban, here is your moment:
Almost two years ago Khaliban gave as his opinion that the short story The Kings of Tarshish Shall Bring Gifts in REEVE THE JUST is a description of the creative process. This has intrigued me ever since, and I knew Kasten was intrigued by it too. Plus it had the advantage of not being asked at every Q&A session he will give this year. So my question for SRD was whether he would agree that Kings of Tarshish is a description of the creative process.
His answer was, “Of course it’s the creative process,” as if the rest of us were slightly dim not to have realized it. He went on to give a brief synopsis of the story of a young man who was driven to, essentially, suicide, because he insisted on seeing his dreams as something outside himself instead of part of himself.
At least he didn’t tell me he wanted to strangle me for asking that question, as he did one woman. He did answer her question politely and animatedly, after an initial pause while he looked aside and made faces.
After answering her question, that’s when he told her he wanted to strangle her. I get the impression that when he gives a talk he pretty much pulls his train of thought to the top of the hill, revs it up, and lets it go. If you get the chance to hear him talk, do not pass it up. He has such a great time giving his talk, he's so animated – almost to "hamming it up" point, he is clever, insightful, free-ranging, with the occasional moment of such inspired wording that time stops – or at least it did for me.
