August 21, 2008
THE FOOL
| HAL DUNCAN |
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So you want to be a writer, then?
Look at the card, the zero card of the Major Arcana. See the madman in motley dancing on the edge of destruction, the bag of tricks on a stick slung over his back, the ferocious glory of the sun burning in the sky above, the little dog yapping, snapping at his heels.
This card represents you, Fool. You know it does.
You must be willing to wear the patchwork rags of a pauper Harlequin, stitched from stolen scraps of skin, the only cloth of true style and substance, flayed from the corpses of your idols and your ego. Do not imagine yourself a Hanged Man, noble and self-sacrificing. Do not imagine yourself Death, the great leveller come to turn the world upside-down. You are a joke, clothed in the offcuts of others. Little children will point at you and laugh. Still, you will dance—you must dance—delirious as Dionysus. The Fool is not simply stupid. The Fool is bona fide bugfuck crazy.
That bag of tricks is the swag of your swiped tools, your tropes and techniques, all you own in the world—if you really own them. Have you really made them yours by use yet? Your precious bundle is worthless if it is only a little treasure wrapped in silk, a hoard of textual trinkets to be admired under the firelight at night, daintily unwrapped and set before you as a magpie’s shiny things, relished with the folly of wonder. Ask yourself this, Fool: can your words feed your hunger like bread? Can they soothe your sorrows like wine?
Do not imagine yourself a Magician, Fool.
That sun, though . . . oh, that sun. Can you see it? Not on the card, Fool. In your own left eye, in the mirror of the sky. Hold a hand over your right eye; that’s the moon. Now, look!
Ignore the dog snapping at your heels. That dog is your critics and it is your audience. It is your friends and family, the taxman and the power company, your accountant, your agent, your editor, a million nips at your ankles every day for the rest of your life. They will tear their tendrils if they can, hamstring you. So fuck?
Walk on toward the sun, Fool. Walk on, out into the abyss.
Hal Duncan is the author of Ink and Vellum, which was a finalist for both William H. Crawford Award and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. He is a member of the Glasgow SF Writer’s Circle. He lives in the West End of Glasgow. He can be found online at notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com.