The ebook edition of my novel TÁIN is as of today available once more from Book View Café.
I’ll let author Michael Swanwick sum up the novel: “An extraordinary journey to the living heart of Myth—violent and visionary, elegiac and horrific, dreamlike, beautiful, and shocking by turns.”
Please enjoy.
-gf
My good friend the amazingly inventive Michael Swanwick joins us on the LIARS CLUB ODDCAST this week to discuss the craft of writing science fiction and fantasy, his fascination with his con artists Darger and Surplus (and with writing short fiction) and even a bit of musing on the works of George R. R. Martin. Don’t miss a great interview with this multiple-award-winning author!
-gf
Not all that long ago I posted about Circa notebooks on Facebook, and restrained myself from posting about related obsessions, notably pens and inks. Author Michael Swanwick responded with a demand for something about those other elements of the addiction. And so here is a little bit more on the subject.
This then is a little bit of the insanity of ink and pen obsession I attempted to stay away from the first time. Blame Michael Swanwick.
I write with a fountain pen. Hemingway and Robert Ludlum wrote with pencils. A lot of pencils. My longtime friend Joe Haldeman writes, likewise, with a pen and ink. In fact, at one time Joe and I were addicted to the Koh-i-noor Inkograph, a “fountain pen” version of a technical pen, the Rapidograph. (If that doesn’t date us, nothing will.) Once upon a time, on an IBM Selectric typewriter, I could type about 90 words a minute. Generally, this is more words than I can think in a minute (go ahead, try). So I tried a fountain pen because it forced me to slow way down and pay attention to the words. There is also an added tactility to this way of writing, and with fountain pens in particular, a ritual approach to it that is surely the equivalent of a Japanese tea ceremony. And writers, I have to tell you, can be very obsessive, and possessive, about their process.
It was delightful then to find out some years later that Joe and I had both gravitated to Noodler’s Legal Lapis ink. Noodler’s ink is a favorite of mine. At one point they were manufacturing inks for the Russian market, and you could get your hands on “Dostoevski” or “Pasternak” as color choices. (I never did score a “Bulgakov.”)
The photo shows a couple of notebooks, a huge bottle of ink, and a lovely Conklin pen filled with that ink, which is a rich black called (wait for it) “Heart of Darkness.” If you write with this ink, you might find yourself muttering, “The horror, the horror.”
