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Jetse de Vries / Quotations
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JETSE DE VRIES
The Frog's Pool (Nemo 4)
How I am getting on:
A few months before "The Frog's Pool" was published, Andy Cox asked me if I was interested in joining the Interzone editorial team. By saying 'yes' I basically destroyed my writing career, as slowly but
inevitably IZ ate up almost all of my free time. Make no mistake: I'm enjoying it immensely, but my writing suffers.
Although I'm still trying to sell a few stories, I'm hardly writing any new ones (hopefully during the Summer break, he says, knowing better). A bibliography is online here: http://tinyurl.com/r4gz8 (it needs to be updated, one of the many 'to do' things waiting for some time).
With my employer, I stopped being a Service Engineer, and via a co-ordinating job ended up in our Training Centre, where I train both our own people and customers in working with our equipment. This gave me more regularity and spare time, which the IZ monster immediately consumed.
Having said that, I will be very tempted to try to write something for Nemo 7.
What a difference Nemo made (if any):
I agree with Neddal Ayyad that "very few paying markets would take a chance on a story like "Frog's Pool". So for this single story Nemo probably meant the difference between publication or oblivion.
Initially, the reviews for my story were scathing, and this worried me a bit, but Des firmly supported the story, and later on a few very good reviews came in.
Having said that, the Nemo experience was great fun, and educational in a way. While I don't like all the stories (which is mostly a matter of taste), I think the successes more than make up for the failures, and I also found that each Nemo not only had Des's distinctive editorial stamp, but also a sensibility of its own (and I think of Nemo 4 as the 'transformation' issue, FWIW). And Nemo as an object is superb: a weird hybrid of the Des Lewis aesthetic and the Andy Cox professionalism that works wonderfully well (although Andy may disagree about Nemo 4 ;-).
In short, I'm both happy and proud to have appeared in Nemonymous.
The submission process was fun, as well: I sent Des 4 stories during the Nemo 4 submission period under various email guises, and while he rejected three, I did think he chose the most suitable story. The other three have been published elsewhere since then.
So I'd like to applaud Des for carrying an experiment through to its logical conclusion (anonymous slush reading and publication), and the only thing I think he could have done better initially was marketing it, or at least made it easier available online, which he eventually
partly did by making it available via Project Pulp:
http://projectpulp.com/frontpage.as
(BTW: at the Interzone dealer's table at WorldCon this coming August I will have Nemo copies available.)
Here's to Nemo 7!
========================================
QUOTATIONS USED IN NEMO
NEMO ONE
“The oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and the unnameable.” – HP Lovecraft, ‘The Hound’.
“Names should be charms – I used to hope that, by saying some of them often enough, I might evoke reality.” – Patrick White, ‘Voss’.
“Writing will cease to be eventually. The future should found bureaus, where everyone at a certain age submits, anonymously, a truthful biography, it could become material for a real science of man, if such a thing should prove necessary.” – August Strindberg (specially chosen & translated for Nemo by Henrik Johnsson (where are you now, Henrik?)).
“He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare / At whatever time the deed took place – Macavity wasn’t there!” – TS Eliot.
“Whoever I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know…” – Samuel Beckett.
“In an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no bodily, no visible, audible or palpable presence.” – Edgar Allan Poe (Tale Of The Ragged Mountains).
“Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.” – Philip Larkin.
“'It’s giving girls names like that,' said Buggins, ‘that 9 times out of 10 makes ‘em go wrong. It unsettles ‘em. If ever I was to have a girl, if I ever was to have a dozen girls, I’d call ‘em all Jane.” – HG Wells (Kipps)
“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” – Virginia Woolf (A Room Of One’s Own).
“Nobody ever tells me anything.” – John Galsworthy (The Forsyte Saga).
“Anyone who isn’t confused here doesn’t really understand what’s going on.” – Anonymous.
NEMO TWO
“…then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.”
John Keats.
“I’ll be your mirror.” – Lou Reed.
“We burn daylight.” – William Shakespeare.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” – HP Lovecraft.
“One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it.” – Elizabeth Bowen.
“…clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character…” – Louisa M Alcott.
“So, to that question: ‘Who has ever fathomed the depths of the abyss?’ two men, among all men, have the right to reply: Captain Nemo and I.” – Jules Verne.
NEMO FOUR
"The nemo is an evolutionary force, as necessary as the ego. The ego is certainty, what I am; the nemo is potentiality, what I am not. But instead of utilizing the nemo as we would utilize any other force, we allow ourselves to be terrified by it, as primitive man was terrified by lightning. We run screaming from this mysterious shape in the middle of our town, even though the real terror is not in itself, but in our terror at it."
-- John Fowles 1964 (from 'The Necessity of Nemo' in 'The Aristos')
"Glass Onion." – The Beatles.
NEMO FIVE
“'Secret Way!' said Anne, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, I hope it’s that! Secret Way! How exciting. What sort of secret way would it be, Julian?’
‘How do I know, Anne, silly?’ said Julian. ‘I don’t even know that the words are meant to mean “Secret Way.” It’s really a guess on my part.’”
-- Enid Blyton (Five Go Adventuring Again).
“There was a pleasant anonymity sitting down at a corner table alone in the little restaurant, ordering vitello alla Marsala and half a bottle of Merlot. He took his time, enjoying his food but eating in a kind of haze, a sense of unreality still with him, while the conversation of his nearest neighbours had the same soothing effect as background music.”
-- Daphne du Maurier (Don’t Look Now), a quote chosen for Nemo by Margaret B Simon.
“Memo Nemo Omen” – the author of 4’33”
========================================
JETSE DE VRIES
The Frog's Pool (Nemo 4)
How I am getting on:
A few months before "The Frog's Pool" was published, Andy Cox asked me if I was interested in joining the Interzone editorial team. By saying 'yes' I basically destroyed my writing career, as slowly but
inevitably IZ ate up almost all of my free time. Make no mistake: I'm enjoying it immensely, but my writing suffers.
Although I'm still trying to sell a few stories, I'm hardly writing any new ones (hopefully during the Summer break, he says, knowing better). A bibliography is online here: http://tinyurl.com/r4gz8 (it needs to be updated, one of the many 'to do' things waiting for some time).
With my employer, I stopped being a Service Engineer, and via a co-ordinating job ended up in our Training Centre, where I train both our own people and customers in working with our equipment. This gave me more regularity and spare time, which the IZ monster immediately consumed.
Having said that, I will be very tempted to try to write something for Nemo 7.
What a difference Nemo made (if any):
I agree with Neddal Ayyad that "very few paying markets would take a chance on a story like "Frog's Pool". So for this single story Nemo probably meant the difference between publication or oblivion.
Initially, the reviews for my story were scathing, and this worried me a bit, but Des firmly supported the story, and later on a few very good reviews came in.
Having said that, the Nemo experience was great fun, and educational in a way. While I don't like all the stories (which is mostly a matter of taste), I think the successes more than make up for the failures, and I also found that each Nemo not only had Des's distinctive editorial stamp, but also a sensibility of its own (and I think of Nemo 4 as the 'transformation' issue, FWIW). And Nemo as an object is superb: a weird hybrid of the Des Lewis aesthetic and the Andy Cox professionalism that works wonderfully well (although Andy may disagree about Nemo 4 ;-).
In short, I'm both happy and proud to have appeared in Nemonymous.
The submission process was fun, as well: I sent Des 4 stories during the Nemo 4 submission period under various email guises, and while he rejected three, I did think he chose the most suitable story. The other three have been published elsewhere since then.
So I'd like to applaud Des for carrying an experiment through to its logical conclusion (anonymous slush reading and publication), and the only thing I think he could have done better initially was marketing it, or at least made it easier available online, which he eventually
partly did by making it available via Project Pulp:
http://projectpulp.com/frontpage.as
(BTW: at the Interzone dealer's table at WorldCon this coming August I will have Nemo copies available.)
Here's to Nemo 7!
========================================
QUOTATIONS USED IN NEMO
NEMO ONE
“The oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and the unnameable.” – HP Lovecraft, ‘The Hound’.
“Names should be charms – I used to hope that, by saying some of them often enough, I might evoke reality.” – Patrick White, ‘Voss’.
“Writing will cease to be eventually. The future should found bureaus, where everyone at a certain age submits, anonymously, a truthful biography, it could become material for a real science of man, if such a thing should prove necessary.” – August Strindberg (specially chosen & translated for Nemo by Henrik Johnsson (where are you now, Henrik?)).
“He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare / At whatever time the deed took place – Macavity wasn’t there!” – TS Eliot.
“Whoever I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know…” – Samuel Beckett.
“In an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no bodily, no visible, audible or palpable presence.” – Edgar Allan Poe (Tale Of The Ragged Mountains).
“Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.” – Philip Larkin.
“'It’s giving girls names like that,' said Buggins, ‘that 9 times out of 10 makes ‘em go wrong. It unsettles ‘em. If ever I was to have a girl, if I ever was to have a dozen girls, I’d call ‘em all Jane.” – HG Wells (Kipps)
“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” – Virginia Woolf (A Room Of One’s Own).
“Nobody ever tells me anything.” – John Galsworthy (The Forsyte Saga).
“Anyone who isn’t confused here doesn’t really understand what’s going on.” – Anonymous.
NEMO TWO
“…then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.”
John Keats.
“I’ll be your mirror.” – Lou Reed.
“We burn daylight.” – William Shakespeare.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” – HP Lovecraft.
“One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it.” – Elizabeth Bowen.
“…clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character…” – Louisa M Alcott.
“So, to that question: ‘Who has ever fathomed the depths of the abyss?’ two men, among all men, have the right to reply: Captain Nemo and I.” – Jules Verne.
NEMO FOUR
"The nemo is an evolutionary force, as necessary as the ego. The ego is certainty, what I am; the nemo is potentiality, what I am not. But instead of utilizing the nemo as we would utilize any other force, we allow ourselves to be terrified by it, as primitive man was terrified by lightning. We run screaming from this mysterious shape in the middle of our town, even though the real terror is not in itself, but in our terror at it."
-- John Fowles 1964 (from 'The Necessity of Nemo' in 'The Aristos')
"Glass Onion." – The Beatles.
NEMO FIVE
“'Secret Way!' said Anne, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, I hope it’s that! Secret Way! How exciting. What sort of secret way would it be, Julian?’
‘How do I know, Anne, silly?’ said Julian. ‘I don’t even know that the words are meant to mean “Secret Way.” It’s really a guess on my part.’”
-- Enid Blyton (Five Go Adventuring Again).
“There was a pleasant anonymity sitting down at a corner table alone in the little restaurant, ordering vitello alla Marsala and half a bottle of Merlot. He took his time, enjoying his food but eating in a kind of haze, a sense of unreality still with him, while the conversation of his nearest neighbours had the same soothing effect as background music.”
-- Daphne du Maurier (Don’t Look Now), a quote chosen for Nemo by Margaret B Simon.
“Memo Nemo Omen” – the author of 4’33”
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