Thank you, Jonathan Carroll

[elfs]

So this writer guy, Jonathan Carroll, he comes into my bathtub while I'm holding Outside the Dog Museum and he grabs me by the throat and he says to me, "There are these things called adjectives and metaphors and there's this whole tradition of telling an entire story in a paragraph to leave the reader wanting more stories and not just more plot, and now you're going to go out there and you're going to write a story where your characters are conscious beings who give a damn about where they are and where they're going and every paragraph is going to be about something and not just some vaguely quirky setup with science-fiction furniture just to get two bodies into a position you can mechanically describe as sex, okay?"

Yes, sir. Right away, sir.

Comments

[qtplatypus.livejournal.com]

Not quite on topic of your post I recently read a magazine article that reminded me of something you wrote. One of your characters expressed the view that three things boost the feeling of belonging to a community. Sex, fighting side by side and eating together.

According to
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126945.300-how-to-control-your-herd-of-humans.html?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg20126945.300
moving in synchronous manner also builds closeness of people.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. Not terribly surprising, but it's nice to see scientific verification of the idea.

I read elsewhere that if you're allowed to hold something before an auction, you're much more likely to overbid on it. Apparently, having touched and held the object, your brain automatically begins to think of it as "yours" and you'll fight harder to get it.

We are such weird creatures.