Piers Anthony Blogs About Writing Schedules

One of my readers, Mark Geatches, suggested that I set up a FAQ section for the convenience of readers, which should also spare me the inconvenience of answering similar questions repeatedly. I pondered, and finally decided to do that here. He suggested some questions, and I'm adding more, and will add others as they come up. But be warned; I seem to be incapable of giving a simple answer to a simple question.

How do I write? Do I have a schedule, or wait for inspiration? 

I have a rough schedule. I can't work set hours each day because I have other things to do, like making meals, washing dishes, and grocery shopping, my wife's health restricting her, and I have a reasonably rigorous exercise program that also takes time. But I try to be at my desk from 9AM to 1 PM, and from 2:30PM to 5 PM, and from 6 PM to 7:30 PM. That is, about eight hours a day. I seldom get that much, and of course everything else in the world seems to have better things for me to do than write. Hell, this blog is an example; the time spent on it comes directly out of my novel writing time. So does fan mail. So does reading. So does making love to my wife. Life gets constantly in the way. I'm a writaholic; there is writing, and there is everything else. The two sometimes seem to compete with each other, like day and night. So I may average about four hours a day of actual writing, seven days a week. I write efficiently, and I get a lot done. I have mastered the Muse, being able to summon inspiration at need. So I don't wait for inspiration, I make it wait on me.

Piers Anthony's Favorite Book

One of my readers, Mark Geatches, suggested that I set up a FAQ section for the convenience of readers, which should also spare me the inconvenience of answering similar questions repeatedly. I pondered, and finally decided to do that here. He suggested some questions, and I'm adding more, and will add others as they come up. But be warned; I seem to be incapable of giving a simple answer to a simple question.

What is my favorite book? 

That is one you probably never heard of, and might not approve of anyway. It is Rationale of the Dirty Joke, by G Legman, a huge compendium of dirty jokes, and a larger sequel No Laughing Matter. Together they come to more than 1,800 pages. The first was published in 1968 by Grove Press; it may not be easy to find today, though I hope electronic publication is catching up with these invaluable tomes. Here is why they are important: the author's thesis is that a person's true nature can be ascertained by analyzing his favorite dirty joke. I believe he is correct. Humor is a highly personal thing; what regales one person may leave another cold. A joke makes a person laugh, and that inevitably ties in with his fundamental beliefs and prejudice. If I encounter a person who laughs hilariously only at jokes that disparage black people or women or gays, I have a clue to the racism or sexism or homophobia he may not care to admit openly. But the book is considerably more exhaustive than that. He summarizes each joke in italics, then has a discussion of its nature and perhaps also its underlying meaning. There are thousands of jokes, and thousands of discussions. I learned things about mankind from this monumental work, and believe anyone would. There are fifteen major categories ranging from Animals to Marriage to Scatology, each with many subsections. Discussions are wide-ranging; I remember how he made the point that when it comes to pollution, it is shit that is clean (because it composts naturally), and the pure white powders that pollute (being unnatural and long lasting, like DDT). 

So okay, what is my own favorite dirty joke, that gives away my hidden nature? Would you believe, I did not find it in this compendium. So I wrote to the author, and he admitted he had not heard that one before. Score one for me. So what is that joke? It relates to the power of the word, because I am a writer and I do believe in the word. Here it is, in severe summary, with one key word expurgated in case anyone maiden aunt is reading this. A trucker came into a roadside cafe, and when waitress inquired what would he have he said “Gimme a cuppa coffee and a fudging donut.” She was upset by the vulgar word, as was the manager, and they had him hauled into court for obscenity. The judge heard their statements, then said to the trucker “What do you have to say for yourself?” The trucker said “Well, your Honer, it was a fudging bad day. The fudging alarm clock got me up too early, then the fudging truck wouldn't start, and when I finally got it rolling, boom! A fudging flat tire. Got that fixed but I was fudging late on my fudging schedule. Then I saw this nice fudging little cafe, so I said what the fudging hell, and I stopped there for breakfast. And this nice fudging waitress comes up and says what'll I fudging have? And I say “Gimme a cuppa coffee and a donut.” At that point the waitress jumped up and cried “That's a fudging lie!” and there was outrage in the audience. Whereupon the judge banged his gavel and said “Quiet! Quiet, or I'll clear the fudging courtroom!” So there you have it: when a word or a lie is repeated often enough, people start to use or believe it. Politicians know that, of course.

Piers Anthony on Gaming

I'm a workaholic, more properly writeaholic, living to write my fiction. But I do take brief breaks along the way. Such as by playing computer cards. The game I'm currently on is FreeCell, which I think is the best of them because it's playable; you can win every time of you do it right, but the doing is not necessarily easy. And that's the point of this blog: I see it as an analogy of life. On my Linux system the game has hints, and undo, and an indication whether the game remains viable. I use them all. When I play a card and the Winnable indication changes to No Longer Winnable or to Lost, I back off and try something else. Without that indication I would lose many games, because sometimes the mistake is not clear. What is obvious is not necessarily right. Sometimes I play a red 3 on the Foundation, which ascends from Ace to King, and that's an obvious move, but it's a loser. It seems I need to save that 3 to play a black 2 on, farther along. Okay, we don't have a Winnable indication in real life, so we can make obvious moves that turn out to be losers. Think how much better it would be if you had such a warning! The light turns red for cross traffic, green for the pedestrians, and you are about to step out and cross the street. But then a rogue car careers through in plain violation of the law and public safety, and takes you out. If you had had warning you would have waited and not done the obvious, and saved your life. This example is taken from the experience of Jenny, my paralyzed correspondent, who was taken out in just such an “accident” by a drunk driver. If she had had a little magic warning, maybe just an app on her watch that would flash red when she was about to go wrong, she would be in full health and motion today, instead of confined in a paralyzed body. Maybe if my daughter Penny had had such a warning she could have overruled her doctor and insisted on getting that patch on her shoulder cut out now, instead of waiting until it metastasized and killed her. If someone were about to put his money down on a house, a magic warning could stop him even if he didn't know that he was about to lose his job in the recession and the First National Scrooge Bank would foreclose. So many ways such a little warning could really help. But this is Mundania, where magic is frowned upon if not actually outlawed, and no such devices are on the market. So I guess the handy warnings and undo features will remain restricted to things like computer card games and we will have to continue to muddle through on our own. It's really too bad. But I do enjoy the games.

New Children's Book "Pandora Park" by Piers Anthony

 A traditional print editor approached me about writing a children's fantasy. I said I would consider it. She was about to be away from the office for a couple of weeks, but would contact me again when she returned. Meanwhile, I got to work on the children's novel, which turned out to be this one: a boy with idle time in the mall while his mother shops explores its central park and finds a path leading beyond the statue of Pandora, the girl who let everything out of the box. He follows it and discovers a magic land. Well, now. He chances on a scooter, the kind you push with your foot, that always coasts downhill, regardless of the direction it's going. I have exactly such a scooter, by no coincidence, minus that appealing magic. I use it to scoot out three quarters of a mile to fetch in our morning newspapers. We live on a tree farm and have a long drive through the forest. He finds a girl about his own age, who turns out to be from China; she found a different path into the park. So this is more than just a local phenomenon. It goes on from there. So what of the editor who asked for this? I never heard from her again. Editors can be like ghosts, fading out without notice after causing authors to waste time. Meanwhile, a teacher read the novel to her classes of that age, and they liked it. It was vetted to remove anything an adult might think was unfit for a child to read, such as a boy calling a female unicorn a horny nag. So it's not as spicy as it was, but should still be fun reading. Naturally the child-vetted novel did not find a publisher, while my other recent children's novel, Tortoise Reform, not vetted, did. Is it any wonder writers become cynical? If you remove anything that might annoy somebody somewhere, you can wind up with tasteless mush. But I think any child would enjoy such a park, and maybe in some big mall there's a path, if you can just find it.

New Children's Book by Legendary Fantasy Author Piers Anthony, Now e-Book Exclusively on Amazon.com

In Albany, New York, Mark hates getting dumped at the mall park while his mom shops. It’s so embarrassing! But Mark quickly changes his mind after he discovers a mysterious path leading to a magical forest. 

In Bejing, China, Kelsie finds a similar path, and somehow, she meets Mark in the same magical world!

Now the two friends must work together to unravel the origins of Pandora Park. This wild adventure crosses the globe and is packed with magical powers, dragons, talking unicorns, candy trees, on a roller coaster ride that never stops!


Only $4.99!


Follow this Link to Purchase Your Copy Today

3 Classic Piers Anthony Titles Now Available as e-Book, "Mute," "Chthon," and "Phthor."

Mute is science fantasy of mutation and psi: special mental powers. The protagonist, Knot, is a double mutant: he has a physical deformity, and the psi power to make others forget him. He’s satisfied with his life--until the lovely Finesse walks into his life to recruit him for a dangerous galactic mission. She is aided by two small animal mutants: a telepathic weasel and a clairvoyant crab. Knot tries to resist, aided by his psi, but the woman’s beauty and the animals’ powers doom him to a phenomenal adventure. The prior edition was cut; this is the complete version.

Chthon was Piers Anthony’s first published novel in 1967, written over the course of seven years. He started it when he was in the US Army, so it has a long prison sequence that is reminiscent of that experience, being dark and grim. It features Aton Five, a space man who commits the crime of falling in love with the dangerous alluring Minionette and is therefore condemned to death in the subterranean prison of Chthon. It uses flashbacks to show how he came to know the Minionette, and flashforwards to show how he dealt with her after his escape from prison. The author regards this as perhaps the most intricately structured novel the science fantasy genre has seen. It was a contender for awards, but not a winner.

Phthor is the sequel to Chthon, less intricately structured and less complicated in plot, but still quite dark and ugly in theme and detail. Rather than flashbacks and flashforwards, it has a Y outline, with the stem the initial story and the ends alternate futures, neither of which is acceptable to Aton’s son Arlo. Arlo has his own encounter with a Minionette, and naturally destruction is upon him and all with whom he associates. Write/editor Charles Platt was so impressed with the chthonic setting that he wrote two additional sequels, Plasm and Soma, which are even darker and grimmer.

Piers Anthony on Beauty

Beauty

There is a blessing I remember from my youth: “May you have the love of a beautiful woman.” I presume that is mainly for men, while women would be blessed with the love of handsome men. I can see the appeal; good looking folk are a universal turn-on. We see them constantly on TV and in the movies, because average viewers pay more attention to attractive people than they do to homely people. Especially men of any age with respect to young women. I'm the same; a pretty and shapely young woman commands my immediate attention. We are hard-wired to notice. But as I go shopping at the grocery store I see real women, and they range from ordinary to gross, mostly because of obesity. As a general rule, the older she is, the heavier she is. Some have to ride around in the powered carts the store provides, being too fat to make the rounds afoot. And I wonder: do none of them have the discipline to restrain their appetite and keep their weight in a healthy range? Very few, it seems. Yes, men fatten too, but not as much, and in any event men generally don't make their marks by their appearance, but by their accomplishments, so it's less important for them.

This plays out in other ways. Yes, it would be nice to have the love of a beautiful woman, and many of my stories involve ordinary men who encounter lovely woman. I write that way because I want to sell copies, and pretty women sell more than homely ones. It's the same phenomenon as the TV ads and programs populated by lovely folk. Sometimes I will have an ordinary woman who encounters a handsome man. Somebody has to be attractive, if a writer wants many readers. Readers may claim that other story values count, and they do, but other things being equal, pretty people count more. There was a nice study done a few years back, wherein it was found that in second marriages, the wealthier the man was, the less his wife weighed. Obviously what counts for the man is her appearance; what counts for the woman is his money. Should you ask a portly elder man and his slender wife about that, I suspect they will angrily deny it, but statistically it is true.

But there's another aspect. Why is it such a blessing to possess a physically beautiful woman? Why not a smart woman, or a rich woman, or a really nice woman? Yes, one woman could be all these things together, and she would be a treasure. But the blessing doesn't specify anything but beauty, and I'm pretty sure it means appearance rather than character. I suppose the equivalent blessing for a woman would be to have the love of a rich man, as seen above. But isn't it a sad commentary on our culture, indeed on our species, that this one quality, out of the myriad qualities women possess, should be the one that defines her worth? I am disgusted, but I still look at beautiful women.