Evil Monkey, Christopher Priest, and the Arthur C. Clarke Awards

Evil Monkey:Did you see that Christopher Priest threw his feces all over the Arthur C. Clarke Award?!?Jeff:Yes. Don’t bother me. I’m working.Evil Monkey:No, no. You have to respond. You have to blog something.Jeff:I’M WORKING, GODDAMN YOU, MONKEY!Evil Monkey:I’m not leaving until we talk about this!Jeff:I KEEL YOU WITH MY MIND BULLETS!Evil Monkey:I SNUFF OUT YOUR MIND BULLETS WITH MAH BUTT MISSILES!Jeff:I give up. But what’s to talk about? I don't completely disagree with Priest on a general level about always striving for better, always analyzing awards processes and our own writing...but there's little discourse to be had here directly, because he poisoned the waters by dissing his panel-mate Billingham, dismissing Tepper with "it's about horses, man, and horses ain’t cool in my book" and calling for the judging panel to be disbanded. His Stross comment also seemed too personal. If he had merely stated his opinion of the nominated books, of which I have read only China's, then it would be different, I think...But also, as someone who has a leg in the mainstream and in genre, it's hard to muster up much energy one way or the other. Newsflash: Mediocre books make awards ballots all the time. I think the only mistake is to set your watch by them.Evil Monkey:And then Damien G. Walter set out a psychological profile of Priest! Priest is just a twisted Gollum gone insane from getting sooooo close to the Ring but never possessing it!Jeff:Yes, and then in John Scalzi’s very reasonable post he pointed out we don’t need to look for ulterior reasons. Which I tend to agree with. This idea that a writer can’t have a controversial opinion without it having to some nefarious underlying reason…well, oy. Then I guess all writers everywhere should shut up as suspect. You can be an curmudgeonly a-hole and still give a decent analytical opinion.Evil Monkey:Charles Stross is an internet puppy!Jeff:A long time ago, Marion Zimmer Bradley called me a wet-behind-the-ears puppy! I didn’t mind!Evil Monkey:Internet puppy! I want to be an internet puppy!Jeff:You are an internet monkey. It’s almost the same thing.Evil Monkey:So, will you now tell me what you really think?Jeff:I already said: I’m working!Evil Monkey:Not. Leaving. You. Alone.Jeff:Oh, all right. Fine. The idea that writers are so unself-aware that they are not already striving to do better is ridiculous. The idea that an awards jury should be disbanded for picking a few un-amazing novels, especially when you’re handicapped by the year you’re judging and what you’re sent…is ridiculous. Here are three more serious scenarios:---IF YOU ARE A JUDGE AND YOU SET ANOTHER JUDGE ON FIRE YOU SHOULD BE LET GO.---IF YOU ARE A JUDGE AND YOU SHOOT THE AUTHOR OF A BOOK THAT DOESN’T MAKE THE BALLOT, YOU SHOULD BE REMOVED.---IF YOU MEET WITH THE OTHER JUDGES AND TAKE OFF ALL YOUR CLOTHES AND PISS ON THE CONFERENCE TABLE, YOU SHOULD BE SACKED (UNLESS THIS WAS ALL AT THE OTHER JUDGES’ REQUEST).Evil Monkey:Um. Wow.Jeff:But I was heartened to see the responses from Scalzi--and Cat Valente’s. It’s nice to see there’re writers who can take the long view, not feel so invested in genre politics that this isn’t just a poke in the personal eye but the communal eye. To some extent, we should try to love our curmudgeons. They’re an endangered species. In fact, I am heartened by the sense of humor displayed over this in general...Evil Monkey:What will happen now?Jeff:Everybody will forget next week when I dress up in a pig costume, slather myself in lard, and attach myself to Lavie Tidhar with superglue while screaming “Bacon bits! Bacon bits!”Evil Monkey:But is it true, like Damien G. Walter says? That everyone’s part of some social Darwinistic writer-eat-writer vicious eco-system in which there are only two or three winners and the rest are all losers licking their wounds and living in a constant state of frenzied seething envy?Jeff:I don’t think it’s true, at least in the U.S. ecosystem. I mean, you can see it—you can see in the wild staring eye of a person going off on a rant at a convention, as a kind of localized wound, in a way that is instructional. But you don’t see it as much as you might expect. In part, too, because not everyone has the same goals with their writing. And some people don’t care that much about awards, or don’t use them as a barometer of their success in quite the same way as others. Believe it or not.Evil Monkey:So you don’t sit around being envious of other writers?Jeff:I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a twinge every once in awhile, like anyone in any field of endeavor, but in general, no. I am more likely to have angry imaginary arguments while driving in my car with something someone said on the internet. The closest I came to a state of prolonged envy would be before my first major publishing contracts. During that period, when it looked like I wouldn’t reach a wider audience, I couldn’t pick up Locus or look at its people and publishing section….aaaand, that’s about it for anything sustained.Evil Monkey:You’re not competitive, then.Jeff:I’m very competitive, but eventually you realize what’s within your control and what’s not. And you stop wasting physical or mental energy on what’s beyond your control...as much as you are able. You never get it totally right.Evil Monkey:So what’s under your control.Jeff:The work.