silk cut steel

[incandescens]

I was reading John M Ford's book, The Last Hot Time, through most of my spare moments today, and besides inspiring in me a desperate wish to write that well, I was struck by a lyric quoted in it as a song which takes place at one point.

Say how you cut it
You'll never get it so thin
An edge of softness
To turn the hardness within
When will your face fall
After the long masquerade
The razor's open
Come out and dance on the blade

So here's a tip of the hat
To all the melancholy people
So uncertain what they're ready to feel
(Waitin' all night)
Diamond cut diamond
Silk cut steel

He writes with an effortless spare grace, and he doesn't bother to explain -- you either keep up and pay attention or you lose what's going on and miss meanings. Envy is a shameful emotion. Aspiration would be more practical.

So here's a tip of the glove
To all the solitary people
Undercover in the world of the real
(Hidin' all night)
Diamond cut diamond
Silk cut steel

Now I'll go and write alchemical fiction. But what I've read today will inform my writing, in just the same way that everything we live or read affects what we produce in some way. So perhaps there will be an edge. It'd be . . . nice.

So here's a tip of the shoe
To all the predatory people
Overeager for the whip and the heel
(Playin' all night)
Diamond cut diamond
Silk cut steel

Comments

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yeah. You've captured my feelings for Mike Ford's writing. Though it's hardly effortless from his point of view, it *reads* that way, and that's what is so beautiful about it. Swift and wonderful. It's good to know that he has to sweat blood to get his writing the way he wants it, in some ways. It takes him a while to produce just about anything, for a reason, but when it's done... just... wow.

hugs!

It's *possible*, and it's not like he doesn't have to work hard for it, too.

It helps having a sister who likes to eat sushi with him, introduces him to people who love voice acting, and can talk with John M. Ford as if he's just 'Mike'. *grin

[incandescens]

Thanks. :) Yes, I can see that would help a bit, but . . . eh. Words fail me.

(hugs)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Yeah.