Reading!

Reading a lot this week.

So far:

GUNSIGHTS by Elmore Leonard.

THE ASSAULTS OF CHAOS by S.T. Joshi.

SFWA GRAND MASTERS: Volume 1, edited by Fred Pohl.

New novel from S.T. Joshi.

And the Award Goes to...

I used to be a member of HWA (Horror Writers Association). The same anagram, ironically, for the reason for the title of this blog: Hemlock wooly adelgid (the invasive insect that's driving our native hemlock trees to extinction). I found HWA (the one in all caps), at the time, to be a very helpful writers association and I enjoyed my initial membership. These days, I can't recall when I first joined or for how long I was a member. But I was there for a number of years.

One thing that HWA does is sponsor an award. It's called the Bram Stoker Award. I never paid a lot of attention to it, except that every year I would get a ballot to cast votes for the various works placed on those ballots. Best novel. Best short story. Best first novel. Best screenplay. You know how it goes.

Eventually, it seemed that the sole reason for the organization became the issuing of these awards. I began to lose interest in the group and let my membership lapse. It's been a long, long time since I was a member.

One of my friends actually won one of these awards. I won't name him, since I don't know how he'd feel about that. But he began to call the annual prizes doled out by HWA the "Stroker Awards". It was, he felt, a huge circle jerk. In fact, I'd have to agree with him. For what I saw happening was that every year I'd witness writers campaigning for their works. First they'd pepper the Internet chat rooms with propaganda for their stories and novels--generally after getting close friends who were also members to cast a few nominations of their works (and for whom they'd also cast votes--quid pro quo aka circle jerk). From there, it would get worse. After the most popular writers had their works solidly nominated and on the ballots, I would begin to get slammed with notes and letters asking me to cast my ballot for their novel, short story, article, what-have-you.

This seemed exceptionally venal to me. It reeked of a kind of narcissism that frankly sickens me. One year, a particularly untalented fellow peppered me almost constantly with pleas to vote for his stuff. He was, apparently, well-liked at writers gatherings and conventions where he'd attend (despite the fact that he couldn't write worth a good goddamn). I assume he had an outgoing personality and what was once called the "gift for gab". But he couldn't write worth shit, and I always felt sorry for him. Of course he won at least one of these things. At that point, the awards, and the group administering them, really became, at best, disputable for me.

This is why I finally dropped my membership in HWA and never even considered joining SFWA or MWA or any of the other WAs that might be out there. I just don't like seeing the egotistical bullshit falling like stench-rain over my life.

Are there positive aspects to these organizations? I'm sure there are. I think some of them have arms that work hard to protect writers' rights. It might be the closest thing to a union that we are likely to see for fiction writers. And that aspect of it is a good thing. But these seem to be, overall, subdued to a secondary status to the politics of issuing these stupid awards.

And the little cliques of butt-buddies and ass-kissers who tend to dominate these groups? Well, they can stick it. Unless that aspect of these organizations is wiped out or reined in, they're not going to do much of anyone any good.

The super-cool Bram Stoker Award. A little haunted house created by, I think, Tim Kirk. Has a tiny (blatantly vaginal) door (complete with clitoris) that you can open up to reveal a brass plaque inside engraved with the award-winner's name and for what he/she won the award (sniff-sniff). This is what my pal (who won one) called "The Stroker Award". Referring, of course, to the incestuous cabal to which one must generally be a part to nab one of these meaningless bits of propaganda. (Saving, of course, that Tim Kirk's design kicks High Holy ass.)

Where Did You Go?

When I was starting out as a writer, I used to attend a lot of genre writers conventions. Weird little gatherings for weird little folk who wrote weird little tales. After some time, I realized that I didn't care for 99% of the folk who came to these things.

The awards ceremonies were sometimes fun, but the political circle jerks that led up to the issuing of these awards sickened me. Year after year I would receive letters and phone calls and (after computers became commonplace) emails lobbying me for my support for this writer or that novel or this short story. It made me sick. Year after year I would see undeserving work winning awards that meant absolutely nothing, save that some writer had a lot of friends whom he had swabbed so effectively.

It's no wonder I stopped going to these "conventions". As I got older and began to see the natural world dissolving around me, I decided that what I really needed to do was get back out into the outdoors a lot more often to experience the wild places that I loved before they were all paved over or cut down or just generally wiped off the map in an orgy of human destruction. So, I stopped going to writers conventions and started spending a lot more time traveling to places where I could swim in clean waters, climb to roadless summits, and walk in virgin forests. These places are becoming more rare with each passing second. Every time we blink we lose a forest somewhere.

Sometimes I bump into some writer I used to know (usually online) and they ask me where I've been and why I don't come to this or that gathering anymore. I try to be polite, usually, but mainly I'm honest and tell them that I reached a point where I couldn't stand to be there anymore. These same folk don't know what to say when I tell them what I've been doing instead of standing around watching a bunch of disingenuous fops pretend that they're somehow important. They don't understand how I can expend the calories to hike to the top of a mountain. It's beyond their ken.

Instead of attending those writers gatherings, I go hiking. I climb mountains. I watch wild animals, who are far more interesting and far more worthwhile in the scheme of things than some pandering wanna-Stoker asswipe. One thing that I like to do when I'm in a particular area of the country is to climb that area's highest point. Sometimes the hike is very easy, and sometimes it's a long and difficult undertaking. There are even clubs that do this, much like there are gathering places for passionless writers.

I'm heading up to New England later this year. I want to climb some mountains in Maine, principally, but I also was thinking of hitting some other areas. One thing that I find disturbing in the East is that most states have rammed roads to their highest points, spoiling them almost beyond repair with automobile access and parking lots and summit construction. Case in point being Mount Washington and Clingman's Dome and Brasstown Bald and Mount Mitchell...well, I could go on.

But I was pleasantly surprised to see that, for reasons that are temporary, there is no automobile access to the summit of Mount Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusettes. Unfortunately, the foot-travel only access is temporary. But enjoy it while you can, folk. I may take the time to do so, just so that I can see what it's like to stand there without having to worry about the constant arrival of endless numbers of lazy Americans driving to a place where access should be strictly on foot.

Ah, if only the road closure was made permanent. If only you worthless car-driving assholes were forced to walk up.

Alas!

Learn to hike, you lazy bastards!