{"id":1946,"date":"2010-10-20T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2010-10-19T18:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=1946"},"modified":"2010-10-20T21:34:27","modified_gmt":"2010-10-20T08:34:27","slug":"the-heir-of-night-guest-author-series-anne-hamilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/10\/20\/the-heir-of-night-guest-author-series-anne-hamilton\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Heir of Night” Guest Author Series: Anne Hamilton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anne Hamilton and I have been corresponding via email for a number of years, and I was delighted when, shortly after my first novel Thornspell<\/em><\/strong> (Knopf) was published in 2008, Anne’s book Many Coloured Realm<\/em><\/strong> was accepted for publication by Wombat Books<\/a>. Anne and I both attended Worldcon<\/strong> in Melbourne last month and so got to meet up in person, which was definitely an added bonus in attending the event. It is with great pleasure that I introduce Anne to you today, as an FSF Author Series<\/a> guest, with her particular take on the theme of “Why Fantasy SciFi Rocks My World.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>F-SF Guest Author Post: Anne Hamilton—\u2018We are myth.’<\/h2>\n

And where else but SFF do we get to explore myth and press its boundaries until it yields its secrets?<\/p>\n

The first time I heard it said that we are myth, I felt it was one of those profound statements that spoke an almost-inexpressible truth. My scientific rationalist side, however, was far from satisfied. It kept up a relentless mental circuit of the words, asking, \u2018But what does that mean?\u2019<\/p>\n

Over time, I\u2019ve had the chance to discover its inner depths for myself. For thirty years, I taught high school mathematics while trying to find a publisher for my book, Many-Coloured Realm<\/strong><\/em>. For 27 years, the manuscript \u2018almost\u2019 made it to publication several times. I had the unique opportunity to re-visit the manuscript over long periods of time \u2013 decades in which the teaching of algebra changed from imparting a symbolic language to the showing of patterns in number, decades in which I began to wonder about the very nature of inspiration.<\/p>\n

What is the difference between \u2018inspiration\u2019 and just a very good idea? There is a difference.<\/p>\n

Michael Morpurgo once said: \u2018It sounds pathetic but until I get the right name for my characters, I can hardly write a thing.\u2019\u00a0 I know that feeling. I\u2019ve spent months in books of names trying to find exactly the right name for a character. Sometimes I\u2019ve resorted to making up a name \u2013 only to find years later that the multiple meaning I \u2018made up\u2019 fits perfectly. Too perfectly.<\/p>\n

As Alan Garner wrote: \u2018The more I learn, the more I am convinced that there are no original stories. On several occasions I have \u2018invented\u2019 an incident, and then come across it in an obscure fragment of Hebridean lore, orally collected, and privately printed, a hundred years ago.\u2019<\/p>\n

I remember Isabel Carmody saying that fantasy as a genre had an undeserved reputation for being the same when, in fact, different authors simply picked very similar incidents from Jung\u2019s \u2018collective unconscious\u2019.<\/p>\n

I disagree. I\u2019ve never believed in the collective unconscious: we\u2019re far too individual for that. However, in the struggle to convert my mindset over to teaching algebra as pattern rather than symbol, I began to notice symbolic patterns in all sorts of unusual places, including story-telling.<\/p>\n

And because I\u2019d spent so long in those golden books of names, I realised that these symbols and patterns weren\u2019t random. Many stories appeared to be equations for a name. And not just any name. The author seemed to wrestle with who she is and engage in a fight to the death with the myth behind her own name.<\/p>\n

This is why SFF rocks my world: more of these types of stories are found there than in any other genre. Besides, what more cosmic struggle is possible than the search to define identity and meaning?<\/p>\n

When I was growing up, SFF was generally derided as \u2018escapist\u2019.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that \u2018realistic\u2019 fiction is far more deserving of that title. It\u2019s ephemeral and transient, rarely lasting to the end of a decade. It doesn\u2019t transcend its own culture or time or deal with anything beyond the superficial. However the best of SFF \u2013 fantasy, in particular \u2013 engages in a struggle with name and thus with identity and destiny. That\u2019s why I distinguish between \u2018inspiration\u2019 and a \u2018very good idea\u2019 by looking at how much an author has poured his true self into the work.<\/p>\n

I love reading SFF for this very reason. You never know which of them is going to turn out to be the scroll which holds a major secret of identity.\u00a0 You never know when an already-engrossing story is going to embody itself as a stranger reality than the author ever intended.<\/p>\n

About Anne Hamilton<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I used to love going to creative writing classes and scaring people. As soon as they realised I was a teacher, they\u2019d ask: \u2018Primary or English?\u2019 The moment I said, \u2018Maths,\u2019 people would produce a wan smile and back away.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s the reason my stories incorporate numerical literary style, a fusion of word and number last used extensively in renaissance and medieval poetry (although there\u2019s evidence DH Lawrence and AD Hope dusted it off occasionally).\u00a0 Actually, it\u2019s because a reviewer of a book about numerical design in some medieval poems sneered at the very idea that anyone would or could ever be stupid enough to create an arithmetic framework for their writing.<\/p>\n

What a challenge!\u00a0 I love mathematical metaphor. My recent novel Many-Coloured Realm<\/strong><\/em><\/a> is 111111 words long with a careful underlying design which reflects the theme. And, of course, I\u2019ve written this entry in numerical literary style too. Can\u2019t you tell?<\/p>\n

To find out more about Anne and Many Coloured Realm <\/strong><\/em>you can visit her website, here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Just for fun:<\/strong> I’ll give away a copy of Thornspell <\/em>to the first person who correctly identifies the numerical literary style in which Anne has written this entry. (And no, I don’t know the answer already!)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

To see—and read—the other authors who have posted so far in the Guest Series, click here<\/span><\/a>.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anne Hamilton and I have been corresponding via email for a number of years, and I was delighted when, shortly after my first novel Thornspell (Knopf) was published in 2008, Anne’s book Many Coloured Realm was accepted for publication by Wombat Books. Anne and I both attended Worldcon in Melbourne last month and so got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fsf-guest-author-series","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1946"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1958,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions\/1958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}