{"id":1625,"date":"2009-09-19T19:17:18","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T03:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2009-09-20T09:48:01","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T17:48:01","slug":"my-story-arc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/19\/my-story-arc\/","title":{"rendered":"My Story Arc"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think I already mentioned that I recently finished a rewrite of my memoir, Nested Scrolls: The Memoir of a Cyberpunk Philsopher.<\/em> Here\u2019s a bit from the very end of the book, and some photos I took recently around the SF Bay Area.<\/p>\n


\n[A back entrance to Three Mile Beach north of Santa Cruz.]<\/em><\/p>\n

When my father was on his last legs, he said, \u201cWhat was I so worried about all those years? What difference did any of it make?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Like many writers, I spend an inordinate amount of time fretting about the relative success of my works. But I also work at being grateful for what I have. After all, the vast majority of people don\u2019t get published at all. My books are printed and find a substantial audience; I get money and respect in return. I\u2019m lucky to have the ability to write.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n[Guy riding on a cart pulled by a kite, Ocean Beach, San Francisco]<\/em><\/p>\n

And, thanks to the chapter I wrote about society as a kind of computation in The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul, <\/em>I\u2019ve finally came to accept that writers\u2019 sales obey a scaling law that\u2019s technically known as an inverse power law distribution. You\u2019re not getting lackluster book advances because someone is actively screwing you. It\u2019s the scaling law.<\/p>\n

The scaling law applies across the board\u2014to the populations of cities, the number of hits on websites, the heights of mountains, the number of friends that people have, the areas of lakes, and the sales of books. There\u2019s no getting around it. Thus, if you\u2019re the hundredth-most popular writer, you earn a hundredth as much as the most popular one. Instead of a million dollars, you get ten thousand bucks. That\u2019s how nature is. It\u2019s not anyone\u2019s fault.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n[Pumpkin crop on Wilder Ranch farmland, north of Cruz.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Even if the financial rewards are modest, I revel in the craft of writing. I like being able to control these little realities where things work out the way I want. It\u2019s no accident that so many of my heroes leave the ordinary world for adventures in fabulous other lands. In just the same way, I move my mind from the day-to-day world into the fantastic worlds of my books. I make art because it feels good to do so.<\/p>\n

Writing is hard, and after each book is finished, I wonder if I\u2019ll be able to write another. But I keep coming back And I\u2019ve got painting as well\u2014another path to creative bliss.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been deep and intense, here inside this cosmic novel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n[With Jon Pearce by a yonic rock formation, near Strawberry Beach, north of Cruz at this Google Earth location.<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

When I started writing my memoir, Nested Scrolls<\/em>, I was wondering what my life has meant. But now I see that\u2019s not a question I\u2019m in a position to analyze. I\u2019m inside my story, not outside of it. What does a flower mean? A waterfall?<\/p>\n

This said, as a writer, I can <\/em>think about my life\u2019s structure, about the story arc. I see a few obvious themes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

I searched for ultimate reality, and I found contentment in creativity. I tried to scale the heights of science, and I found my calling in philosophy and in science fiction. I was a loner, I found love, I became a family man. I was a rebel and I became a helpful professor. And I never stopped seeing the world in my own special way.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a wonderful trip.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think I already mentioned that I recently finished a rewrite of my memoir, Nested Scrolls: The Memoir of a Cyberpunk Philsopher. Here\u2019s a bit from the very end of the book, and some photos I took recently around the SF Bay Area. [A back entrance to Three Mile Beach north of Santa Cruz.] When […]<\/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-1625","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\/1625","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=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1633,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions\/1633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}