{"id":1585,"date":"2009-09-05T11:47:02","date_gmt":"2009-09-05T19:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/05\/becoming-a-writer\/"},"modified":"2009-09-05T11:54:32","modified_gmt":"2009-09-05T19:54:32","slug":"becoming-a-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/05\/becoming-a-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming a Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s starting to look like I\u2019m going to find a publisher for my autobiography, currently titled, Nested Scrolls: The Memoir of a Cyberpunk Philosopher.<\/em> I\u2019ll give more details if and when I actually get an offer.<\/p>\n

But with encouragement in the air, I\u2019ve started doing a revision of Nested Scrolls<\/em>, starting with reading through it and patching things that seemed either too roughly phrased or too flat. I\u2019d been a little uneasy that the manuscript might be really weak\u2014given that I hadn\u2019t looked at it since last winter. I\u2019d been almost scared to reread it. But it\u2019s good, I dig it, there\u2019s some great stuff.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to write a couple more chapters for Nested Scrolls <\/em>now, bringing it up to the present, and maybe I\u2019ll blog a little of that material later on. Right now, here\u2019s some quotes from my chapter about when I was working as freelance writer in Lynchburg, Virginia, from 1982-1986. <\/p>\n


\n[Today’s photos are shots I took around the house and yard yesterday and today.]<\/em><\/p>\n

It was an exhilarating time, but stressful. Sometimes I\u2019d feel like a piano with its wires tightened to the point where the surrounding frame is about to snap. Exquisitely overwrought. Bursting with beautiful music.<\/p>\n

Every weekday I\u2019d go into that office to write. Nonfiction, stories, essays, novels\u2014I loved it all. At any given time, my current project would be like an immense sliding-blocks puzzle in my head. I\u2019d carry it around inside me all day and all night, fiddling with it, moving things around, working to improve the patterns.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n[Hungarian-style embroidered pillow, but with ants instead of flowers, by Isabel Rucker<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Even when I\u2019d spend time doing other things, the steady river would still be flowing. In my subconscious mind, I\u2019d continue trying things out, thinking ahead, feeling for the best idea. And when I\u2019d focus back in on the work, I\u2019d find that the river had changed a little.<\/p>\n

The characters in my fiction would get to be like imaginary friends\u2014I\u2019d laugh to myself about things they\u2019d said or done, puzzle over what they might do to improve their situations, and interrogate them to learn more about their pasts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The best was when the world around me would begin to merge with my writing. I\u2019d see or hear things that were just what I needed for the next chapter of my book. Conversely, I\u2019d write something and the next day something very similar would actually happen. I came to think of this as the world dancing with me. The intense mental discipline of writing was putting me into such a sensitive state that the soul of the world was beginning to play to me. I was hanging out with the Muse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

But with the Muse at my elbow, it wasn\u2019t like I had to sit at my desk alone all the time. Sometimes, if one of our three kids had a cold and couldn\u2019t go to school, I\u2019d take them to my downtown office with me. I remember Rudy coming along one day. He brought some plastic toy soldiers that he liked\u2014the green kind that come two hundred to a bag\u2014and his battery-operated Japanese robot. He put the soldiers in a circle around the robot and turned on the robot, and it was like seeing an SF flick right there. Later we walked down to a fast-food restaurant for lunch\u2014Hardee\u2019s\u2014I liked their fried chicken sandwich, although Rudy preferred their barbecue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

This particular Hardee\u2019s was entertaining because there\u2019d often be an odd man there wearing an orange knit cap\u2014he\u2019d be with his aged mother, and she\u2019d always be trying to calm him down. The day that Rudy came with me, the guy in the orange hat was excited about his hot drink, and yelling about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cCup of tea! Cup of tea! Cup of tea! Cup of tea!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

We loved it. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s starting to look like I\u2019m going to find a publisher for my autobiography, currently titled, Nested Scrolls: The Memoir of a Cyberpunk Philosopher. I\u2019ll give more details if and when I actually get an offer. But with encouragement in the air, I\u2019ve started doing a revision of Nested Scrolls, starting with reading through it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1586,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions\/1586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}