Sunday 4 July 2010

Oh, yeah, right - about the name...

Why "Lies, Ink"?

Most people seem to use their own name as a title for their blog, and there's a lot of sense in that.

What kept me from using my name is the thought that - one day - I plan to have a couple of writing careers in parallel. See, I'm an awkward swine and like the idea of writing both mainstream/literary fiction and genre stuff. Publishers, apparently, aren't keen on this and if writers insist on hopping out of their pigeonholes every once in a while, they are expected to use a different name so that bookshops can put the different styles of books in the appropriate sections and nobody has to venture into a part of the bookshop that is unfamiliar and scary to them. So, I might end up publishing stuff under two (or more, I suppose) different names. Unless I did an Iain Banks / Iain M. Banks. I like his no-nonsense approach to this dual-name thing, but can't help thinking he's missed an opportunity. Why not really let his hair down and call himself Iain Banks for one category, and Zoot Freeblander or Spanky Huckerdime for the other? Just a thought, Iain, if you happen to drop by.

Er, anyway. So I wanted a blog name that meant something to me but wasn't actually my name. So I picked "Lies, Ink". It's based on the Philip K. Dick novel, Lies, Inc. - but cunningly altered so that it references two aspects of writing fiction. Lies, because fiction is essentially the art of telling massive lies, and ink, because - well, it's obvious, innit?


Click on the link for more details of the book, and plenty of information about Philip K. Dick's other work. There'll be more references to PKD in the future, I'm sure - I'm a big fan of his.

4 comments:

Patsy said...

I on't agree that fiction is telling massive lies, nor even little ones. I think it's telling the truth, but with all the facts left out.

Patsy said...

Oh, and if it's me writing it, some of the letters missing too. Ooops.

Dan Purdue said...

"Truth, but with the facts left out" - I like that description, Patsy.

It would make for a considerably less snappy blog title, though...

Patsy said...

Look good on my memoirs though!