Again, Dangerous Visions Part 11

Nothing happened.

It was hard to open his eyes, but finally he managed to. They just stood there: a lot of them, ten or twenty. They carried those spears they had for hunting, little toy-looking things but the iron blades were sharp, they could cut right through your guts. He shut his eyes and just kept lying there.

And nothing happened.

His heart quieted down, and it seemed like he could think better. Something stirred down inside him, something almost like laughter. By G.o.d they couldn't get him down! If his own men betrayed him, and human intelligence couldn't do any more for him, then he used their own trick against them-played dead like this, and triggered this instinct reflex that kept them from killing anybody who took that position. They just stood around him, muttering at each other. They couldn't hurt him They couldn't hurt him. It was as if he was a G.o.d.

"Davidson."

He had to open his eyes again. The resin-flare carried by one of the creechies still burned, but it had grown pale, and the forest was dim grey now, not pitch-black. How had that happened? Only five or ten minutes had gone by. It was still hard to see but it wasn't night any more. He could see the leaves and branches, the forest. He could see the face looking down at him. It had no color in this toneless twilight of dawn. The scarred features looked like a man's. The eyes were like dark holes.

"Let me get up," Davidson said suddenly in a loud, hoa.r.s.e voice. He was shaking with cold from lying on the wet ground. He could not lie there with Selver looking down at him.

Selver was emptyhanded, but a lot of the little devils around him had not only spears but revolvers. Stolen from his stockpile at camp. He struggled to his feet. His clothes clung icy to his shoulders and the backs of his legs, and he could not stop shaking.

"Get it over with," he said. "Hurry-up-quick!"

Selver just looked at him. At least now he had to look up, way up, to meet Davidson's eyes.

"Do you wish me to kill you now?" he inquired. He had learned that way of talking from Lyubov, of course; even his voice, it could have been Lyubov talking. It was uncanny.

"It's my choice, is it?"

"Well, you have lain all night in the way that means you wished us to let you live; now do you want to die?"

The pain in his head and stomach, and his hatred for this horrible little freak that talked like Lyubov and that had got him at its mercy, the pain and the hatred combined and set his belly churning, so he retched and was nearly sick. He shook with cold and nausea. He tried to hold on to courage. He suddenly stepped forward a pace and spat in Selver's face.

There was a little pause, and then Selver, with a kind of dancing movement, spat back. And laughed. And made no move to kill Davidson. Davidson wiped the cold spittle off his lips.

"Look, Captain Davidson," the creechie said in that quiet little voice that made Davidson go dizzy and sick, "we're both G.o.ds, you and I. You're an insane one, and I'm not sure whether I'm sane or not. But we are G.o.ds. There will never be another meeting in the forest like this meeting now between us. We bring each other such gifts as G.o.ds bring. You gave me a gift, the killing of one's kind, murder. Now, as well as I can, I give you my people's gift, which is not killing. I think we each find each other's gift heavy to carry. However, you must carry it alone. Your people at Eshsen tell me that if I bring you there, they have to make a judgment on you and kill you, it's their law to do so. So, wishing to give you life, I can't take you with the other prisoners to Eshsen; and I can't leave you to wander in the forest, for you do too much harm. So you'll be treated like one of us when we go mad. You'll be taken to Rendlep where n.o.body lives any more, and left there."

Davidson stared at the creechie, could not take his eyes off it. It was as if it had some hypnotic power over him. He couldn't stand this. n.o.body had any power over him. n.o.body could hurt him. "I should have broken your neck right away, that day you tried to jump me," he said, his voice still hoa.r.s.e and thick.

"It might have been best," Selver answered. "But Lyubov prevented you. As he now prevents me from killing you.-All the killing is done now. And the cutting of trees. There aren't trees to cut on Rendlep. That's the place you call Dump Island. Your people left no trees there, so you can't make a boat and sail from it. Nothing much grows there any more, so we shall have to bring you food and wood to burn. There's nothing to kill on Rendlep. No trees, no people. There were trees and people, but now there are only the dreams of them. It seems to me a fitting place for you to live, since you must live. You might learn how to dream there, but more likely you will follow your madness through to its proper end, at last."

"Kill me now and quit your d.a.m.ned gloating."

"Kill you?" Selver said, and his eyes looking up at Davidson seemed to shine, very clear and terrible, in the twilight of the forest. "I can't kill you, Davidson. You're a G.o.d. You must do it yourself."

He turned and walked away, light and quick, vanishing among the grey trees within a few steps.

A noose slipped over Davidson's head and tightened a little on his throat. Small spears approached his back and sides. They did not try to hurt him. He could run away, make a break for it, they didn't dare kill him. The blades were polished, leaf-shaped, sharp as razors. The noose tugged gently at his neck. He followed where they led him.

Selver had not seen Lyubov for a long time. That dream had gone with him to Rieshwel. It had been with him when he spoke the last time to Davidson. Then it had gone, and perhaps it slept now in the grave of Lyubov's death at Eshsen, for it never came to Selver in the town of Broter where he now lived.

But when the great ship returned, and he went to Eshsen, Lyubov met him there. He was silent and tenuous, very sad, so that the old carking grief awoke in Selver.

Lyubov stayed with him, a shadow in the mind, even when he met the yumens from the ship. These were people of power; they were very different from all yumens he had known, except his friend, but they were much stronger men than Lyubov had been.

His yumen speech had gone rusty, and at first he mostly let them talk. When he was fairly certain what kind of people they were, he brought forward the heavy box he had carried from Broter. "Inside this there is Lyubov's work," he said, groping for the words. "He knew more about us than the others do. He learned my language and the Men's Tongue; we wrote all that down. He understood somewhat how we live and dream. The others do not. I'll give you the work, if you'll take it to the place he wished."

The tall, white-skinned one, Lepennon, looked happy, and thanked Selver, telling him that the papers would indeed be taken where Lyubov wished, and would be highly valued. That pleased Selver. But it had been painful to him to speak his friend's name aloud, for Lyubov's face was still bitterly sad when he turned to it in his mind. He withdrew a little from the yumens, and watched them. Dongh and Gosse and others of Eshsen were there along with the five from the ship. The new ones looked clean and polished as new iron. The old ones had let the hair grow on their faces, so that they looked a little like huge, black-furred Athsheans. They still wore clothes, but the clothes were old and not kept clean. They were not thin, except for the Old Man, who had been ill ever since the Night of Eshsen; but they all looked a little like men who are lost or mad.

This meeting was at the edge of the forest, in that zone where by tacit agreement neither the forest people nor the yumens had built dwellings or camped for these past years. Selver and his companions settled down in the shade of a big ash-tree that stood out away from the forest eaves. Its berries were only small green knots against the twigs as yet, its leaves were long and soft, labile, summer-green. The light beneath the great tree was soft, complex with shadows.

The yumens consulted and came and went, and at last one came over to the ash-tree. It was the hard one from the ship, the Commander. He squatted down on his heels near Selver, not asking permission but not with any evident intention of rudeness. He said, "Can we talk a little?"

"Certainly."

"You know that we'll be taking all the Terrans away with us. We brought a second ship with us to carry them. Your world will no longer be used as a colony."

"This was the message I heard at Broter, when you came three days ago."

"I wanted to be sure that you understand that this is a permanent arrangement. We're not coming back. Your world has been placed under the League Ban. What that means in your terms is this: I can promise you that no one will come here to cut the trees or take your lands, so long as the League lasts."

"None of you will ever come back," Selver said, statement or question.

"Not for five generations. None. Then perhaps a few men, ten or twenty, no more than twenty, might come to talk to your people, and study your world, as some of the men here were doing."

"The scientists, the Speshes," Selver said. He brooded. "You decide matters all at once, your people," he said, again between statement and question.

"How do you mean?" The Commander looked wary.

"Well, you say that none of you shall cut the trees of Athshe: and all of you stop. And yet you live in many places. Now if a headwoman in Karach gave an order, it would not be obeyed by the people of the next village, and surely not by all the people in the world at once...."

"No, because you haven't one government over all. But we do-now-and I a.s.sure you its orders are obeyed. By all of us at once. But, as a matter of fact, it seems to me from the story we've been told by the colonists here, that when you you gave an order, Selver, it was obeyed by everybody on every island here at once. How did you manage that?" gave an order, Selver, it was obeyed by everybody on every island here at once. How did you manage that?"

"At that time I was a G.o.d," Selver said, expressionless.

After the Commander had left him, the long white one came sauntering over and asked if he might sit down in the shade of the tree. He had tact, this one, and was extremely clever. Selver was uneasy with him. Like Lyubov, this one would be gentle; he would understand, and yet would himself be utterly beyond understanding. For the kindest of them was as far out of touch, as unreachable, as the cruellest. That was why the presence of Lyubov in his mind remained painful to him, while the dreams in which he saw and touched his dead wife Thele were precious and full of peace.

"When I was here before," Lepennon said, "I met this man, Raj Lyubov. I had very little chance to speak with him, but I remember what he said; and I've had time to read some of his studies of your people, since. His work, as you say. It's largely because of that work of his that Athshe is now free of the Terran Colony. This freedom had become the direction of Lyubov's life, I think. You, being his friend, will see that his death did not stop him from arriving at his goal, from finishing his journey."

Selver sat still. Uneasiness turned to fear in his mind. This one spoke like a Great Dreamer.

He made no response at all.

"Will you tell me one thing, Selver. If the question doesn't offend you. There will be no more questions after it.... There were the killings: at Smith Camp, then at this place, Eshsen, then finally at New Java Camp where Davidson led the rebel group. That was all. No more since then.... Is that true? Have there been no more killings?"

"I did not kill Davidson."

"That does not matter," Lepennon said, misunderstanding; Selver meant that Davidson was not dead, but Lepennon took him to mean that someone else had killed Davidson. Relieved to see that the yumen could err, Selver did not correct him.

"There has been no more killing, then?"

"None. They will tell you," Selver said, nodding towards the Colonel and Gosse.

"Among your own people, I mean. Athsheans killing Athsheans."

Selver was silent.

He looked up at Lepennon, at the strange face, white as the mask of the Ash Spirit, that changed as it met his gaze.

"Sometimes a G.o.d comes," Selver said. "He brings a new way to do a thing, or a new thing to be done. A new kind of singing, or a new kind of death. He brings this across the bridge between the dream-time and the world-time. When he has done this, it is done. You cannot take things that exist in the world and try to drive them back into the dream, to hold them inside the dream with walls and pretenses. That is insanity. What is, is. There is no use pretending, now, that we do not know how to kill one another."

Lepennon laid his long hand on Selver's hand, so quickly and gently that Selver accepted the touch as if the hand were not a stranger's. The green-gold shadows of the ash leaves flickered over them.

"But you must not pretend to have reasons to kill one another. Murder has no reason," Lepennon said, his face as anxious and sad as Lyubov's face. "We shall go. Within two days we shall be gone. All of us. Forever. Then the forests of Athshe will be as they were before."

Lyubov came out of the shadows of Selver's mind and said, "I shall be here."

"Lyubov will be here," Selver said. "And Davidson will be here. Both of them. Maybe after I die people will be as they were before I was born, and before you came. But I do not think they will."

Afterword.

Writing is usually hard work for me, and enjoyable; this story was easy to write, and disagreeable. It left me no choice. Writing it was a little like taking dictation from a boss with ulcers. What I wanted to write about was the forest and the dream; that is, I wanted to describe a certain ecology from within, and to play with some of Hadfield's and Dement's ideas about the function of dreaming-sleep and the uses of dream. But the boss wanted to talk about the destruction of ecological balance and the rejection of emotional balance. He didn't want to play. He wanted to moralize. I am not very fond of moralistic tales, for they often lack charity. I hope this one does not. I can only say-having been forced to endure the experience-that it is even more painful to be Don Davidson than it is to be Raj Lyubov.

Introduction to FOR VALUE RECEIVED.

andy offutt tells me this story was turned down by myriad publishers because they were afraid of it. That may be true, I don't know. It seemed to me the instant I read it, one of the cleverest ways to screw up The System ever invented. For those of us who daily grapple with the monstrousness of The System, stories such as andy's come as reaffirmation of our silent, increasingly more dangerous and difficult mission: the tossing of spanners into the machinery of The Corporate State, what Reich calls in The Greening of America The Greening of America, "a mindless juggernaut, destroying the environment, obliterating human values, and a.s.suming domination over the lives and minds of its subjects. To the injustices and exploitation of the nineteenth century, the Corporate State has added depersonalization, meaninglessness, and repression, until it has threatened to destroy all meaning and all life."

I've written elsewhere, and at great length about the ways in which the mindless juggernaut debases and manhandles us, and I've even written of the few legitimate and legal steps I've taken to slow its crushing inertia. The illegal and illegitimate steps I've taken will go to my grave with me, probably very soon if I keep at them.

But overpaying one's telephone bill by something just under a dollar (so it costs them many more dollars to clear it on their computers) and remitting one's telephone bill in the return envelope without without postage...writing to the giant food companies telling them you found a dead fly or a c.o.c.kroach in their breakfast food, so they send you a case of the c.r.a.p just to appease you...conscientious objecting or joining the Peace Corps to screw the war machine out of another warm body...suing the automobile manufacturers when their cars fall to pieces, or suing in general because they pollute the air...these, and the thousands of other ripoffs, both legal and illegal...these are manna in the desert to those of us who see the s...o...b..ll roll of the Corporate State flattening individuality and reason and humanity in these Dark Days of our civilization's decline. postage...writing to the giant food companies telling them you found a dead fly or a c.o.c.kroach in their breakfast food, so they send you a case of the c.r.a.p just to appease you...conscientious objecting or joining the Peace Corps to screw the war machine out of another warm body...suing the automobile manufacturers when their cars fall to pieces, or suing in general because they pollute the air...these, and the thousands of other ripoffs, both legal and illegal...these are manna in the desert to those of us who see the s...o...b..ll roll of the Corporate State flattening individuality and reason and humanity in these Dark Days of our civilization's decline.

So andy offutt offers another one here. A lovely and original one.

Which sort of says it about andy offutt.

You've noticed his name always appears in lower-case, no initial-caps. How about that. It's the way andrew j. offutt signs his letters and heads his stationery, and bylines his stories and in general continues to annoy people. He's annoyed me ever since 1954 when his short story, "And Gone Tomorrow," won first place in a College SF Contest sponsored by If: Worlds of Science Fiction If: Worlds of Science Fiction. I'd entered that contest myself, being in an impoverished state (Ohio) at the time, working my way through Ohio State Impoverished cadging off my mother, waiting table, writing term papers (on which I guaranteed a "B" or better) and shoplifting to obtain the little luxuries like books and records. When the contest was won by an "A. J. Offutt" I thought, flash in the pan; stupid sonofab.i.t.c.h'll never write another word flash in the pan; stupid sonofab.i.t.c.h'll never write another word.

Didn't hear from the clown again till 1959 when "Blacksword" appeared in Galaxy Galaxy. But by that time I'd been writing professionally for three years, I was out of the Army, and I could afford to be charitable. Still didn't know or care much about anything named Offutt (in those days the name was capped).

Who he was, and where he came from is contained in this revealing and semi-literate biography, presented here without comment by your editor, who is still working on the grudge from 1954...

"The first thing we did was move from Louisville to this farm, where i grew up with a couple of c.o.o.nhounds, 35 or so Holstein cattle, a bull with manners like a NYC editor, some horses, lots of tobacco and hay (fever for me), and a cat named Papa who went c.o.o.n-hunting with Dad. (Racc.o.o.ns. We i mean us Kentuckians don't consider ourselves Southerners. Ohioans do. Tennesseeans consider us damyanks. What are you going to do? We supplied the leaders to BOTH sides of that G.o.dawful war.) "I had a d.a.m.ned unhappy childhood during which i attended a 1-room, 8-grade schoolhouse for 4 years; waited at the mailbox every day after we sent off the Sears order; reigned as the most unathletic kid in the county (i got chosen next to last when we played ball; the little fat girl was chosen last, bless her, i was always sent to right field. That's where the b.a.l.l.s don't come); was very short until i was 17 or worse, when i grew 8 inches in 10 months; committed the unpardonable sincrime of being awfully smart, as well as Catholic in a community devoted to stupidity and where the KKK had ridden only 23 years earlier-against Catholics! (The community was too small to afford Jews or Blacks, who keep Catholics safe in big cities.) "We were also pore.

"At 17 i took a lot of tests and skipped my senior year of high school to enter the U. of Louisville on a Ford Foundation Scholarship. I graduated at 20. In the meanwhile i did a lot of stuff like playing bridge and poker and cutting lots of cla.s.ses and being a virgin and president of my fraternity and the Newman Club and on the student council and editor of the Air Farce ROTC paper and Mng Editor of the school weekly. Uncle andy's Advice column was a popular feature, honest to Abby! I also had lots of jobs; 3 in my senior year, simultaneously. In '54 or '55 i entered IF's College SF Contest and won because Ellison had dropped out of college to become Symington's aide, or something. My story 'And Gone To morrow,' laid in 2054, predicted trial marriages (would you believe it started happening a little earlier, like 90 years?) and other earthshaking stuff. I also said that there was no perfect government, but that a dictatorship comes closest. I still believe that, but prefer freedom and so write things that try to show how my favorite form of government could be better. You know, the one America used to have. I took no business courses, so i went to work with Proctor & Gamble until i outgrew it. I went into the life and health insurance business and by Fall of '68 i had agencies in three towns. Fortunately i was able to outgrow that, too. Oh, at around age 28 i also outgrew the Roman Church; Vardis Fisher helped a lot.

"I was always a slow starter. My second story was published in 1959, in Galaxy Galaxy. (Despite the fact that it was mostly written on my honeymoon, my wife is still with me.) It was called 'Blacksword' and was about a man named that, not a weapon. Another one called 'Population Implosion' was picked for Ace's WORLD'S BEST in '68, and you can now read it in j.a.panese if you've a mind to. There were other stories. My stories usually involve satire and resistance to Authority and attacks on Established Faiths (AMA, ABA, USA, ETC), which i guess indicates i must have had funny feelings about my c.o.o.nhunten daddy who ran the house as if he were the Sheriff of Nottingham.

"I love to talk first and write second, and i do both because i have to. I've sold a lot of novels, under several names; i'm John Cleve, usually, when i write about goodole s.e.x (which maybe i like better than writing and eating, come to think). I like to drink, too, and prefer Maker's Mark and soda with lemon in season and gin 'n' tonic in the other season. I put lemon in everything i drink except beer and the gallon or so of sacchariny coffee i store away daily.

"Ours is an enormous old white elephant of a house with a living room the size of the standard FHA/VA house of the '50's. It is on 3 acres on a high hill in Haldeman, 8 miles from Morehead (which is about 8 miles from Salt Lick and 15 from Flemingsburg, so you'll know). We call the place Funny Farm because there's a wife i'm crazy about and four offutt-spring i endeavor to tolerate and a c.o.o.nhound named Pompeius Magnus who prays to me every night because black-and-tans are like that (c.o.o.n-hounds, not Irish, of which my wife is one). (We don't raise anything except h.e.l.l and kids.) I fully expect to have to defend the d.a.m.ned place from you lebensrauming sc.u.m from NYC and places like that, anyday soon. I fully expect LA to solve its own problem, and i will miss Atlanteans Kirby and Ellison and Geis and a few others."

offutt is the author of any number of novels, about sixty totaled. He's even managed to sell about forty of them. When I sat down to write this introduction, however, I found that offutt had cleverly avoided giving me the t.i.tles of any of them, and since only one (as of this writing) has appeared under his name-Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards-and a pretty fair country novel it is, too-I got on the phone and called him in Morehead, Kentucky, or wherever the h.e.l.l he is. He was rather annoyed.

I see no reason why a man should be annoyed that you call him at 12:30 a.m. Los Angeles time, that is. In Kentucky it was 3:30 in the morning, and his wife, Jodie, answered the phone, so I said, "Happy Mother's Day," thinking that might placate her. I must say, for all that, andy offutt is crummy company at 3:30 in the morning. All he does is grumble.

But I managed to get some t.i.tles out of him. He was very reluctant. He felt my including the t.i.tles of his "erotic" novels was a cheapjack trick of yellow journalism. Not so. I happen to think the contemporary "erotica" scene has produced some very heady writing (if you'll pardon the term) and some very interesting writers. Like David Meltzer and Michael Perkins and Hank Stine...and John Cleve, who is andrew j. offutt.

So he gave me a few t.i.tles. Barbarana, The Seductress, Mongol!, Black Man's Harem, The Devoured Barbarana, The Seductress, Mongol!, Black Man's Harem, The Devoured and something he says should be written like so: and something he says should be written like so: the great 24 hour THING the great 24 hour THING.

He's also got some more sf novels coming out under his own name-The Castle Keeps from Berkley and from Berkley and Messenger of Zhuvastou Messenger of Zhuvastou from the same place, and Dell is publishing from the same place, and Dell is publishing Ardor on Aros Ardor on Aros. As you can see, offutt writes a lot, and he writes a lot of "erotica." (When I I was writing that stuff, we called it "stiffeners," but then, was writing that stuff, we called it "stiffeners," but then, we we weren't Artists.) weren't Artists.) Which brings me to the second large chunk of comment out of offutt himself. I include it here, recognizing that the introduction will be almost as long as the story it introduces, because it offers some very amusing and perceptive insights into the way a professional professional works. works.

Look: A,DV is something of a living ent.i.ty. It is not merely a batch of stories cobbled up by a faceless dude trying to fill in the lag-time between his own books, with another group of faceless dudes submitting at random and hoping to make a buck. It is a great wild bunch of us sitting about and rapping till well into the wee hours, and when one of us gets it on in a sufficiently fascinating manner, we like to let him ramble on. So for all of you out there who think writing is this or that or the other thing, who have writing blocks and want to know what the mind of the writer is like, here's offutt on his habits behind the typewriter. I think you'll find it highly readable. Take it, andy: "i have defined a writer as the happiest man alive, because he gets paid for doing his thing, his hobby, i wrote a novel when i was nine (cowboys, what else?), and stories right along, and a novel when i was 13 or so (Edgar Rice Burroughs, what else?), i wrote three novels while in college (pretending to be taking notes during dull lectures). Two of them still read pretty well. i graduated at 20.

"Cut to 1967. i had published a few short stories, solo and in unlikely collaborations; had put in several years with Proctor & Gamble until i out-grew that; had put in a year in the life insurance business and then had gone into that same business for myself; had begun managing. Suddenly, after saying No about seven times, i finally said yes and took up the management of three insurance agencies in three different cities. Ripping up and down the highways. Holding meetings here and there. Playing Executive in motels (that's a fun game too, and most players never outgrow it). i was a member in good standing of the crisis-of-the-day club. i was exhausting myself, mentally and physically. Too, i knew what my twice-daily Alka-Seltzering for that fluttery gut was in all likelihood leading to. Yet with the exhaustion came extreme mental stimulation.

"On weekends i was in sore need of relaxation.

"i relaxed in front of the Selectric. (i like the best machinery, too; the Mercedes and the Selectric are, although the Underwood P-48 and the SCM-250 i had for a year each were Bhad Nhews.) In six months of such heavyweight management, capped-and made bearable by-Sat.u.r.day-and-Sunday writing, i created three short stories and 5 novels. They started selling. i closed the out-of-Morehead agencies. Four months later i made certain other arrangements, and took a back seat in andrew offutt a.s.sociates andrew offutt a.s.sociates (unltd). (unltd).

"Finally, in August 1970, i left the insurance business altogether. i did some designs, spent a lot of money, and had an office built in here at home, Funny Farm.

"i had been in the life/hospitalization insurance business seven years. In the final 20 months i managed, selling nothing because i did not try to (that's true capitalism). In that same period i sold sixteen 50,000-word novels. Settings, times, subject matter, 'type' and even styles-I did a Victorian, for instance-varied.

"Since August 1967 i've sold just under two million words. In 1969 10 novels sold, over a half-million words. In 1970 12 novels, four of which, finally, were sf with my own name on them, and a couple of shorts and an underground-newspaper article. (Well, all right: Screw.) "Until very recently, all my work was done on weekends, on the IBM. i would start at about 1:30 PM, sometimes a little earlier, on Sat.u.r.days. And write until dinner call: between 6:30 and 7:30. Interruptions were (1) frequent bellows for more coffee; (2) bathroom; (3) lunch: cheese and a little wine. Sunday's schedule was the same, without lunchbreak. i wrote at a secretary's metal typing table, at the top of the steps in the hallway of this huge old house.

"During the week there were other things to do: research, editing first-drafts and proofreading submission drafts. Sure, there are spurts; one Monday night in October i had an idea, and hand-outlined a novel while watching the NBC movie. Next day i typed that outline. Following night i read/changed/expanded that, while watching election returns. Wednesday i typed that: that: a long outline of 6500 or so words. Thursday i typed the first chapter, but had to stop to go make a speech. Friday-Sat.u.r.day-Sunday-Monday i wrote on it, and finished it Tuesday. That novel's writing was a happening, to me, and i enjoyed rereading it because it was created so fast i hardly noticed what it was about! a long outline of 6500 or so words. Thursday i typed the first chapter, but had to stop to go make a speech. Friday-Sat.u.r.day-Sunday-Monday i wrote on it, and finished it Tuesday. That novel's writing was a happening, to me, and i enjoyed rereading it because it was created so fast i hardly noticed what it was about!

"Last summer, June 1970, i experienced my first Block, that ancient writer's devil i'd heard about. Stupid; it was MY fault. The novel was 2/3 outlined, see, with the ending decided (although it got changed when i reached it), and the previous weekend had seen completion of a chapter, a section, and the outline. Simultaneously. Very neat. Very stupid. That's the WORST place to stop. Stupid. i HANDED myself a block. It's a book i feel deeply about, too; it came a little less easily than some. It's the pretty-immediate future, as i see it, and regional (i live in Appalachia and most people who write about Kentucky ruralites don't know what the holy h.e.l.l they are typing about), drawing strongly, aside from personal observations/notes/thinking, from three books: (The) Territorial Imperative, Naked Ape (The) Territorial Imperative, Naked Ape, and Environmental Handbook Environmental Handbook.

"Anyhow, i blocked. When i came back to it the following weekend, for the first time in my life i could NOT pick up and get going.

"i fought. My brain fought back. i bathroomed three times, washed a pair of corfam boots, wished it were Winter so i could chop wood, separated original and carbon of the novel just finished for submission, got up and down, fixed more coffee. It was awful. i sweated. (i do not perspire. i have never perspired. i sweat. And no, you're wrong: i weigh 154 at 6' 1'.) "i fought. i kept sitting down and trying to type. i snarled, cursed, cussed, obscenitized. Kept on fingering keys. (i use three fingers, one of which is on my left hand. It gets sorest.) i kept on. Come on on, d.a.m.n you!

"i PREVAILED! It had been awful. It had lasted 45 minutes, and now i know what a block is. i'd liefer forget, and i will never ever stop at a stopping point again!

"i can't see that a block ever need be longer, a.s.suming one has any control over himself at all. Ideas come out of the woodwork, daily, and who writes something he doesn't WANT to write?"

Ellison again. Now you understand why I have allowed offutt to go on at such length. As a man who is just emerging from a very long Writer's Block (for me), a Block that's lasted about three months, I know how the poor soul felt during those terrible 45 minutes.

offutt, you arrogant sonofab.i.t.c.h, there are writers around whose pencil cases we can't carry, who've been in blocks for years! years! Sturgeon has been through at least three that I know of, each one about three years long. Sheckley goes into blocks that drive him to the Costa Brava and keep him off the typer for a year at a time. William Tenn has been in a Block for at least the last ten years that Sturgeon has been through at least three that I know of, each one about three years long. Sheckley goes into blocks that drive him to the Costa Brava and keep him off the typer for a year at a time. William Tenn has been in a Block for at least the last ten years that I I know of, living off the teaching abilities of Phil Kla.s.s. There are fans who jest about me and Silverberg "blocking"-for half an hour. But one day will come, smarta.s.s; one frightening, mouth-drying day when know of, living off the teaching abilities of Phil Kla.s.s. There are fans who jest about me and Silverberg "blocking"-for half an hour. But one day will come, smarta.s.s; one frightening, mouth-drying day when nothing nothing comes. And then you'll know what it is to suffer the torments of a h.e.l.l you can't even name. It's like being nibbled to death by mice in Philadelphia. You straighten the desk, you clean the house, you listen to music, you reread Tolstoy, you pray, you go get laid, you come back and...nothing. comes. And then you'll know what it is to suffer the torments of a h.e.l.l you can't even name. It's like being nibbled to death by mice in Philadelphia. You straighten the desk, you clean the house, you listen to music, you reread Tolstoy, you pray, you go get laid, you come back and...nothing.

And it goes on and on.