Aleksandr Voinov's Blog: Letters from the Front, page 17
January 24, 2013
Windows 8 is effing scary
Apparently, Windows 8 decides when to update. It's not even telling you in advance. You can't switch it off or defer it. This is the total - utter - reduction of the computer user to the state of toddler. "There, there, we know what's good for you, don't you worry your pretty little head."
So, when I switched on my computer, the teal background turned purple and the system informed me I was logged into a temporary account and wouldn't be able to access my files. I couldn't get online, either (so not even to work on a file in GoogleDocs). My desktop background (where I have my current files) was pretty much empty. No files reachable OR visible.
Some hyperventilation later, I assumed it was the update. No progress bar told me how long it would take. Gods be thanked for my iPad to keep me entertained. I'd actually sat down to get back to work on my birds book. When the Muse is singing like a banshee, I want to write NOW. Windows 8 thought that was unacceptable. Or at least that update was much more important than me getting back into my file.
*shakes fist*
Can we find a way to not treat users like complete fools with only two brain cells rubbing together unhappily, please? What next? Computers who enforce the 40-hr working week or switch off mid-flow because they are concerned we're not getting enough sleep? (OVER MY DEAD STINKING CORPSE, BILL!)
Harrumpf.
Now back to writing the birds book. It's hard-going enough, without rebellious technology stepping on my dick.
So, when I switched on my computer, the teal background turned purple and the system informed me I was logged into a temporary account and wouldn't be able to access my files. I couldn't get online, either (so not even to work on a file in GoogleDocs). My desktop background (where I have my current files) was pretty much empty. No files reachable OR visible.
Some hyperventilation later, I assumed it was the update. No progress bar told me how long it would take. Gods be thanked for my iPad to keep me entertained. I'd actually sat down to get back to work on my birds book. When the Muse is singing like a banshee, I want to write NOW. Windows 8 thought that was unacceptable. Or at least that update was much more important than me getting back into my file.
*shakes fist*
Can we find a way to not treat users like complete fools with only two brain cells rubbing together unhappily, please? What next? Computers who enforce the 40-hr working week or switch off mid-flow because they are concerned we're not getting enough sleep? (OVER MY DEAD STINKING CORPSE, BILL!)
Harrumpf.
Now back to writing the birds book. It's hard-going enough, without rebellious technology stepping on my dick.
January 23, 2013
The value of short
Sometimes, I write short stories. Short stories, as described by a writer friend of mine are like little shards of glass lodged in our brain that you can only pull out by writing them down. Remembering her saying that, I try to remember whether she was talking about poems or short stories. For me, that's kind of the same thing. I can't write poems worth shit, though I've written a few until I realised I'm very much a prose writer and I'll never be anything more than a dabbler in poetry.
Still, sometimes that sense of urgency (or: bleeding in your brain) comes over me. A thought. A voice I can't shake. An image. ONE image. My Muse is being stingy - it's NOT a novella, it has no real plot (just an arch, because short stories still have a structure), it's not a novel, it's not a seven-volume fantasy saga. I won't spend the next 2.5 years of my life pumping out words. I'll ... just end up bleeding quietly on a page for a weekend, or a day, or a week.
Short stories come to me as perfectly formed pebbles of ancient glass washed onto a shore. There's almost no point to ask what they were - they are perfect in the shape that they are. (Usually, they are glass bottle bottoms, I've learned, but that's neither here nor there.) I accept them in their shape. My mind has dealt with stories for twenty-five years. It can tell the difference between a short story and a novella and a novel. I sometimes go wrong - Deliverance was actually a small series, Burn could easily be a novella, but that's me trying to write to specs, which usually goes hilariously wrong anyway.
Maybe it's like digging up a dinosaur. You find a bone. After some more digging, you can tell whether it's T-Rex's pinky or the leg bone of something much smaller. The work of digging remains absolutely the same. There's no difference for me in writing shorts or novels. If anything, it's much easier to fuck up a short story than a novel.
As my very wise friend said: "One weak word ruins a poem, one weak sentence ruins a short story, one weak chapter ruins a novel."
The margin of error is the difference. A gap of a centimeter might mean nothing when you're building a ship, but means everything when you're making jewelry.
Ships and necklaces are different things. Both take different skills. They are both desirable, in both cases you're making something to a purpose. Sometimes I have crazy ideas and can't push the Muse away, and then, I assure you, the same brain that wrote Skybound wrote Quid Pro Quo (my parts of the latter, anyway). I embrace the variety. I literally cannot say what I'll be writing next, because the Muse is like a high-speed train and I seem to ALWAYS stand on the rails, back turned towards it. It's not always coming; sometimes I stand there for days and weeks (busying myself editing, usually, going about my life). But when it comes, there's no negotiation.
Short stories happen to me. I don't ask for them, and very often, I don't get to negotiate how much of it I want. For example, I'm not withholding the novel "Skybound" from my readers, because it doesn't exist, not in my reality, it doesn't. (If it exists in YOUR reality, you have my blessing to dig out those bones... they weren't in the ground I covered.)
There's no competition. I'm not "wasting my time" on shorts when I "should be" writing a novel. If the novel rolls over me, it will. I can carve diligently for months and years on a novel, if that's its natural speed. I'm not going to ruin my T-Rex skeleton with hastily blowing it out of the rock with TNT.
Sometimes, I can hold two or three different things in my head at the same time. Sometimes, I get sidetracked by TEH SHINY. That's fine. I'm allowed to enjoy my work and follow my joy every now and then. I'm not a stone-grinding slave somewhere, I'm not a worker screwing in little monitors all day, seven days a week. My brain is allowed to play, because that's part of the joy of my work. I get assembly line-style work at my day job, but they pay me for it and I get pension and medical.
And I love the little things I build as much as the big things. It might sound like sacrilege, but if all of my work burned in a fire on the internet, I'd hope to save Skybound, of all things. (Silvio can fend for himself in that fire. There's no fire strong enough to exorcise that little demon.) There's no competition for me between Skybound and Special Forces. One has given me nothing but joy. The other - much less so.
I do wonder when small forms (poems, short stories) have become "less valuable" than novels. I've never before encountered the attitude of, put bluntly, and so common on Goodreads: "I loved this, but it was only a short story, so I'm only giving it 3 stars." (No, this post has not been brought on by a review of one of my shorter works - I've seen this for a long time and I remain flabbergasted by it.) Since when is quantity = quality?
Similarly reviewers who write things like: "This is badly flawed and needs 500 pages cut out if it, but it's so big, it's a five-star read."
Is it the emotional attachment you build while reading a gazillion pages? Is it an attempt to slap the author ("stop selling me short things, I want a novel, and if I keep griping over the shortness, you'll write one, won't you? Why aren't you at your desk yet?")? Is it an inability to appreciate small things for what they are? Or is it a desire to reward novel-length work for length alone? The logic goes like this: Only novels can be 5-star reads, and even a very good short story can only get three stars, because I can't possibly give a short story five stars AND a novel five stars, because I just prefer novels?
(And I agree, short stories are not novels, but personally, I rate anything I rate on its own merits. I rate a poem as a poem, and not as a "not-novel", which would mean it can't help but fall short anyway, because I do tend to enjoy reading novels more than poems. However, few novels have punched me in the brain like some poems. For delivering that famous two-inch killing blow, no other form does it so well than a poem. Hell, a single sentence can do it, but it'll have that "concentration of force/intent" that makes a poem in the first place.)
Maybe it's even money, though personally I'd rather pay 2.99 for a very good short story than a dog's dinner of a 250k self-published novel. I wouldn't read the latter for free, because really the only irreplaceable thing you can spend on this planet is the time of your life it takes you to read.
It's difficult.
But when I feel the rails vibrate, feel that wave of energy cresting in my soul, I honestly don't care. I only hope, whatever's coming over me, that it'll be good and that I'll be able to do it justice with what powers I have, few as they may be.
Still, sometimes that sense of urgency (or: bleeding in your brain) comes over me. A thought. A voice I can't shake. An image. ONE image. My Muse is being stingy - it's NOT a novella, it has no real plot (just an arch, because short stories still have a structure), it's not a novel, it's not a seven-volume fantasy saga. I won't spend the next 2.5 years of my life pumping out words. I'll ... just end up bleeding quietly on a page for a weekend, or a day, or a week.
Short stories come to me as perfectly formed pebbles of ancient glass washed onto a shore. There's almost no point to ask what they were - they are perfect in the shape that they are. (Usually, they are glass bottle bottoms, I've learned, but that's neither here nor there.) I accept them in their shape. My mind has dealt with stories for twenty-five years. It can tell the difference between a short story and a novella and a novel. I sometimes go wrong - Deliverance was actually a small series, Burn could easily be a novella, but that's me trying to write to specs, which usually goes hilariously wrong anyway.
Maybe it's like digging up a dinosaur. You find a bone. After some more digging, you can tell whether it's T-Rex's pinky or the leg bone of something much smaller. The work of digging remains absolutely the same. There's no difference for me in writing shorts or novels. If anything, it's much easier to fuck up a short story than a novel.
As my very wise friend said: "One weak word ruins a poem, one weak sentence ruins a short story, one weak chapter ruins a novel."
The margin of error is the difference. A gap of a centimeter might mean nothing when you're building a ship, but means everything when you're making jewelry.
Ships and necklaces are different things. Both take different skills. They are both desirable, in both cases you're making something to a purpose. Sometimes I have crazy ideas and can't push the Muse away, and then, I assure you, the same brain that wrote Skybound wrote Quid Pro Quo (my parts of the latter, anyway). I embrace the variety. I literally cannot say what I'll be writing next, because the Muse is like a high-speed train and I seem to ALWAYS stand on the rails, back turned towards it. It's not always coming; sometimes I stand there for days and weeks (busying myself editing, usually, going about my life). But when it comes, there's no negotiation.
Short stories happen to me. I don't ask for them, and very often, I don't get to negotiate how much of it I want. For example, I'm not withholding the novel "Skybound" from my readers, because it doesn't exist, not in my reality, it doesn't. (If it exists in YOUR reality, you have my blessing to dig out those bones... they weren't in the ground I covered.)
There's no competition. I'm not "wasting my time" on shorts when I "should be" writing a novel. If the novel rolls over me, it will. I can carve diligently for months and years on a novel, if that's its natural speed. I'm not going to ruin my T-Rex skeleton with hastily blowing it out of the rock with TNT.
Sometimes, I can hold two or three different things in my head at the same time. Sometimes, I get sidetracked by TEH SHINY. That's fine. I'm allowed to enjoy my work and follow my joy every now and then. I'm not a stone-grinding slave somewhere, I'm not a worker screwing in little monitors all day, seven days a week. My brain is allowed to play, because that's part of the joy of my work. I get assembly line-style work at my day job, but they pay me for it and I get pension and medical.
And I love the little things I build as much as the big things. It might sound like sacrilege, but if all of my work burned in a fire on the internet, I'd hope to save Skybound, of all things. (Silvio can fend for himself in that fire. There's no fire strong enough to exorcise that little demon.) There's no competition for me between Skybound and Special Forces. One has given me nothing but joy. The other - much less so.
I do wonder when small forms (poems, short stories) have become "less valuable" than novels. I've never before encountered the attitude of, put bluntly, and so common on Goodreads: "I loved this, but it was only a short story, so I'm only giving it 3 stars." (No, this post has not been brought on by a review of one of my shorter works - I've seen this for a long time and I remain flabbergasted by it.) Since when is quantity = quality?
Similarly reviewers who write things like: "This is badly flawed and needs 500 pages cut out if it, but it's so big, it's a five-star read."
Is it the emotional attachment you build while reading a gazillion pages? Is it an attempt to slap the author ("stop selling me short things, I want a novel, and if I keep griping over the shortness, you'll write one, won't you? Why aren't you at your desk yet?")? Is it an inability to appreciate small things for what they are? Or is it a desire to reward novel-length work for length alone? The logic goes like this: Only novels can be 5-star reads, and even a very good short story can only get three stars, because I can't possibly give a short story five stars AND a novel five stars, because I just prefer novels?
(And I agree, short stories are not novels, but personally, I rate anything I rate on its own merits. I rate a poem as a poem, and not as a "not-novel", which would mean it can't help but fall short anyway, because I do tend to enjoy reading novels more than poems. However, few novels have punched me in the brain like some poems. For delivering that famous two-inch killing blow, no other form does it so well than a poem. Hell, a single sentence can do it, but it'll have that "concentration of force/intent" that makes a poem in the first place.)
Maybe it's even money, though personally I'd rather pay 2.99 for a very good short story than a dog's dinner of a 250k self-published novel. I wouldn't read the latter for free, because really the only irreplaceable thing you can spend on this planet is the time of your life it takes you to read.
It's difficult.
But when I feel the rails vibrate, feel that wave of energy cresting in my soul, I honestly don't care. I only hope, whatever's coming over me, that it'll be good and that I'll be able to do it justice with what powers I have, few as they may be.
January 22, 2013
Who's your daddy?
The new year is 3 weeks old, and I've been incredibly busy with stuff. Mostly writing and editing, as can be expected. I have a number of releases lined up already - thanks to a shocking amount of productivity because of teaming up with LA Witt. I can't believe we wrote two novels, two novellas and two short stories since we started working together somewhen in late October/early November?
As I write this, Quid Pro Quo has stormed the Amazon bestseller lists, hitting #13 and #17 in a couple, and around 3,000ish in the overall sales. I think it's the fastest-selling thing I've done in my life.
Four more things are in edits: two Market Garden novellas that link into each other are currently in developmental edits, which means they might jump on my desk any moment now. Our WWII novel had its guts torn out already and is back with Riptide. I've also completed the first edit of Scorpion, which will be re-released with a new edit and a new cover. So that's two novellas and two novels for 2013. I'm already feeling very productive.
Then I'm currently going through Amy's edits of City Mouse (Country Mouse sequel), which should return to Riptide in the next couple days (maybe tomorrow if I have a good run and the day job doesn't eat my day). So that's three novellas and two novels total.
And then I'll try to tackle the edits of the Market Garden novel (which is completed in first draft and is currently "resting"). Three novels and three novellas.
And we're doing a story for Riptide's law enforcement call - which I'd say is 50-60% done (and then we were both slapped HARD by a pile of edits). Wrapping that one up and getting it ready to publish will be the next thing.
Four novels and three novellas for 2013, and it's only January.
Extremely pleased, here. I'm hoping to add a few more during the year, but the "Oh my god, I have no releases for 2013!" panic is dealt with. It takes some pressure off, and I do want to write the Scorpion sequel between now and May, so that'll be a solo work I'm doing soon.
As I write this, Quid Pro Quo has stormed the Amazon bestseller lists, hitting #13 and #17 in a couple, and around 3,000ish in the overall sales. I think it's the fastest-selling thing I've done in my life.
Four more things are in edits: two Market Garden novellas that link into each other are currently in developmental edits, which means they might jump on my desk any moment now. Our WWII novel had its guts torn out already and is back with Riptide. I've also completed the first edit of Scorpion, which will be re-released with a new edit and a new cover. So that's two novellas and two novels for 2013. I'm already feeling very productive.
Then I'm currently going through Amy's edits of City Mouse (Country Mouse sequel), which should return to Riptide in the next couple days (maybe tomorrow if I have a good run and the day job doesn't eat my day). So that's three novellas and two novels total.
And then I'll try to tackle the edits of the Market Garden novel (which is completed in first draft and is currently "resting"). Three novels and three novellas.
And we're doing a story for Riptide's law enforcement call - which I'd say is 50-60% done (and then we were both slapped HARD by a pile of edits). Wrapping that one up and getting it ready to publish will be the next thing.
Four novels and three novellas for 2013, and it's only January.
Extremely pleased, here. I'm hoping to add a few more during the year, but the "Oh my god, I have no releases for 2013!" panic is dealt with. It takes some pressure off, and I do want to write the Scorpion sequel between now and May, so that'll be a solo work I'm doing soon.
December 31, 2012
Thank you for 2012 - Here's to 2013!
While 2011 was a bit of a wash for me - too much nasty stuff happened to me and friends, though I will forever fondly remember having planned and started Riptide with Rachel in the second half of 2011 - 2012 was a fabulous year. Emerging from the trauma that was late 2011, re-thinking myself and my writing and how I interact with people, the new year 2012 started with me getting a new job in one of the worst depressions in recent times, and a payout or "golden handshake" from my previous job that took some of the pain and anxiety away.
In 2012, I became more visible in the mainstream romance world. No longer supporting trans* phobic blogs or actively trans* hostile Goodreads groups after the blow-up of November 2011 and its aftermath, I felt vulnerable and condemned to obscurity because I wasn't "playing the game" and defied the rules that were basically defined as "suck up to them even if they suck". I left/ignored several people in the m/m world that think of themselves as "genre-makers" or "genre leaders". Thought leaders. Some of these sent me or my friends threatening emails, claiming they'd kill Riptide or organize boycotts because "Aleks Voinov is being such an asshole over the trans* thing".
What I found, at Dear Author, at the Paranormal Romance Guild, at Totally Booked, with bloggers like Vacuous Minx and more reviewers and bloggers and romance people than I can possibly hope to mention here, but I mean ALL OF YOU)--were whip-smart, progressive, open-minded, tolerant and bloody impressive people, none of which ONCE judged me or my books by what I have in my underwear. The vast majority of these non-m/m people impressed the living daylights out of me. I suddenly realised that the m/m genre behaves in many ways like a ghetto, and is in some ways actively stifling dissent and creativity. I decided that I don't need those thought-leaders and leaving them behind was the best thing I've ever done to free myself from the creative thought police who attempted to kick down my door to see what I have in my underwear and threatened to boycott me or other authors who are not playing by their rules. (Note on this: I feel the genre has made huge steps on those counts during 2012, but much of it has been a running battle.)
Freer than I've ever felt in my life, I went about to write. I finished Dark Soul 4 and 5, saying a hearty "fuck you" to the "guardians of m/m purity" who will hate and badly review any book with a female that's not a raging bitch or, gods forbid, might be a sexual being on the page. I did not break up the heterosexual marriage of a bisexual character in favour of his new, male lover, instead positing that three adults can find a way to work shit out. I didn't get much flak for it (much less than I'd expected in any case), though some people weren't happy. Being bisexual myself, it was one step towards moving away from "bi erasure" - giving bi people more visibility in the genre.
Sex and gender isn't that easy, but we can work shit out - that's really the core message in my writing in that period. It felt good. I no longer had to cram myself into a genre where several highly influential people simply rejected me. Unable to please everybody, I went about pleasing myself and staying true to my characters. I decided to a) stay true to myself and my characters and b) yes, sometimes make a point by subverting the genre expectation, but the latter was secondary.
I re-thought the representations of women in m/m fiction - how I write them (thanks, Donata, you taught me some very important lessons), and how others write them. This has become editorial policy at Riptide, that we like to see women represented fairly. You can have a raging bitch, but then please also include positive female characters. It's too easy to revert back to "two guys in lurv, one woman putting on the hatin'" structure.
In March, our genre had a huge plagiarism debate that brought up some very interesting discussions overall--how much can publishers do to not publish plagiarised product, and how does the genre deal with its fanfiction root (there are other roots as well). In the middle of all that, I finished the edits for the print book of Dark Soul. I also thought long and hard about consistency and quality and started to plan to claw back old releases that have editing issues to ensure that my backlist is the best it can possibly be. My readers deserve the best and I owe it to them to ensure anything out there is up to my standards. This was definitely the death of "let's publish for shits and giggles"--I really began seeing this as more of an obligation, maybe more of a job. Part of that was because Rachel kicked the hell out of me in edits and I learned a great deal about writing and, from that newfound humility, I realised that I'd made shortcuts and I was ashamed of them.
In real life, I started planning a revamp of my garden and getting quotes in. That work wasn't completed until November. What a project!
In April, Country Mouse released, which I co-wrote with Amy Lane. This was probably my best-selling book, ever, which says a lot more about Amy Lane than myself. It was also fun. After the darkness of Dark Soul, I wanted to play and write something lighter. It was fun, Amy was awesome, and it sold like hotcakes. I enjoyed working with Amy so much that we've just completed Country Mouse 2, the sequel. Fun!
In real life, I was burgled, though nothing valuable stolen. (My dude lost his manbag, which was recovered in the park behind the house.) Writing-wise, I was planning to halt m/m writing for the time being, as I wanted to focus on a number of mainstream projects. These are still going, though obviously I've written more m/m in the meantime. I'm still not sure how things will go and what I'll write, so I'm just letting the Muse have his head and his play and keep doing what I enjoy. Whether the end result is an m/m book, a heterosexual novel (i have one of those in my head) or anything else, who knows, who cares, as long as it demands to be written.
In May, I travelled to Canada (Ottawa) to meet friends. We had a blast. And I got out of the house over my birthday, which is a plus. Meanwhile, my WWII research continued apace.
June saw some interesting discussions on the direction of the genre again--whether we write too fast and what it does to the quality. If publish or perish is the only way to go. These days, I think the debate is more complex than that, having met people who put out consistently high quality at a pace that's impressive, and knowing people who write slowly but aren't better for it. The mysteries of quality/quantity remain, though these days I find the speed in which books get written and produced energising rather than scary.
In July, I released Incursion, where I have so many boxes ticked the book almost feels like an exercise in Can I Fuck With Your Mind Some More. (It wasn't planned as that, it just turned out that way.) Disabled interracial character meets genderbending, mind-reading alien bad guy and he isn't. It's written in part out of rage about the transphobia in the m/m community. Pretty much a sales flop, Incursion went on to be shortlisted in the Goodreads Sci-Fi Readers Choice category. Sci-fi doesn't sell, but critical acclaim is fun. In real life, people married (a LOT) in that month, old childhood friends were in touch.I reflected a lot on that weird decade, the thirties, when you turn from ambition into reality, which some minor adjustments along the way. End result: It's awesome being a DINK, free, healthy and at the peak of my creative abilities. Loving this period. Meanwhile, some scary blog entries on copyright freaked half the community out as photographers seem to go against all the "hottie of the week" posts. Interesting debates emerge on, for example, authors blogging aggressively versus pirates while plastering non-licensed photographic art all over their blogs. It's 2012, and the copyright wars are on. Also in July (what a month, eh?), Noble Romance blows up in a gigantic tsunami of shit-hits-fan, and while we're talking, the new CEO, Jean Gombart, still hasn't managed to improve things, as authors get no responses on emails, no royalties or no royalty reports (or none of those). Yay, Noble, screwing its authors for a good six months now.
In August, I released Skybound, my short historical and another complete sales flop (none of my critical successes sell. Everybody loves it, nobody buys it, but I'm getting used to the pattern). Also, work with Riptide and writing got so intense that I was starting think out aloud about going part-time. As I write this, that hasn't happened because my company are douchebagels about some things.
In September, I went to the UK GLBTQ Meet in Brighton and finally got to meet the European m/m crowd and people I'd known on the internet for ages. The discussions were great and I flounced around in my nice new suit. This meeting did a lot to instill a great deal of hope and pride in me about where the genre is going and how we're developing. Obviously, Riptide sponsored. Right after that, I went to a writing retreat in Yorkshire with a friend, where we attended a writing course for historical novellists. It breathed life back into my stupidly ambitious WWII novels and I made friends. I also managed to recharge my batteries quite considerably. Hell, telling Sarah Waters your plot over dinner and her saying "that's interesting" might have made my week (dear Sarah, thank you, even if you were just polite!). I realised there's no unbridgeable gap between "art" and "entertainment". Several of the historical writers were writing romances or paranormals. We are a pretty diverse bunch. Meanwhile, Gold Digger launched while I was away on very limited internet.
In October, a piece I wrote went up on USA Today. I was "wow" for a week or two. And my garden revamp finally started with diggers rolling in and tearing up everything. Very impressive. I also learned how to tier a double Windsor (my dude taught me and bought me my first silk ties), then finally said "bye-bye" to my long hair and, now short-haired, travelled to Albuquerque where I was mostly spending my time being extremely goofy with LA Witt and getting up early to get breakfast for Stephanie, our marketing girl at Riptide, whom I shared a room with. (And got to meet her, and she's awesome.) Travelling to the States for GRL was a bit of a last-minute decision, but I loved it and will be back. Meeting my readers was a great feeling, too. I was hemming and hawing and nervous and tried to keep everything low key, and then it kind of didn't work out like that at all. Had a great time with readers and Riptiders and got to hug and shake hands a lot. I had the time of my life.
November brought more Noble Romance grief as they started violating my copyright. Hence I spent time researching copyright lawyers in the US. In positive news, Skybound went to print. In positive news, I did start writing like a madman with LA Witt and we wrote two shorts, two novellas and a full historical novel ("What, you like WWII too?") in six weeks, easily doubling my total wordcount in 2012. (It was not the most productive year of my life). In real life, my garden was finished and paid, and I attended two seminars on NLP, which ended up helping me retain my equilibrium when an online friend turned out to be a fake and a fraud.
In December, we agreed on a planting plan for the garden, and Quid Pro Quo was readied for release in January. Country Mouse 2 was finished and sent off. My historical novels are both nowhere near finished, though, although I made some progress on at least one of them. And I set a wordcount goal of 2013 as I'm making a serious push to be able to quit my day job once and for all in a few years' time so I can focus on writing without sleeping under a bridge.
There's much else. Friends moving house, job issues, dental stuff, friends suffering health scares and real danger, another friend having a baby, my return to the gym, lots of research, another friend landing a five-book deal, a controlling boyfriend hating my guts and forbidding me to see a friend, great meals I've had, beautiful encounters with readers in London and away, seeing a book I've known for ten years being translated and published. Encountering love and forgiveness and big plans, some of which worked out and others didn't. And for every amateur asshole publisher there's at least one who's kind and pleasant and generous. For every mistake I made I made at least one very good decision of lasting value, and for every person who didn't fit my life I've made at least two new friends. There were also surprising things going on--books that didn't sell became category winners, books that did so-so suddenly getting huge boosts as everybody discovered them six months later, and very uncommercial stories finding a few people who loved them.
All in all, an awesome year that got better and better and provided a great basis for 2013. I thank everybody for the positive, and maybe I'll find the wisdom to even thank those of you who provided the negative. I'll try.
And to 2013--BRING IT.
In 2012, I became more visible in the mainstream romance world. No longer supporting trans* phobic blogs or actively trans* hostile Goodreads groups after the blow-up of November 2011 and its aftermath, I felt vulnerable and condemned to obscurity because I wasn't "playing the game" and defied the rules that were basically defined as "suck up to them even if they suck". I left/ignored several people in the m/m world that think of themselves as "genre-makers" or "genre leaders". Thought leaders. Some of these sent me or my friends threatening emails, claiming they'd kill Riptide or organize boycotts because "Aleks Voinov is being such an asshole over the trans* thing".
What I found, at Dear Author, at the Paranormal Romance Guild, at Totally Booked, with bloggers like Vacuous Minx and more reviewers and bloggers and romance people than I can possibly hope to mention here, but I mean ALL OF YOU)--were whip-smart, progressive, open-minded, tolerant and bloody impressive people, none of which ONCE judged me or my books by what I have in my underwear. The vast majority of these non-m/m people impressed the living daylights out of me. I suddenly realised that the m/m genre behaves in many ways like a ghetto, and is in some ways actively stifling dissent and creativity. I decided that I don't need those thought-leaders and leaving them behind was the best thing I've ever done to free myself from the creative thought police who attempted to kick down my door to see what I have in my underwear and threatened to boycott me or other authors who are not playing by their rules. (Note on this: I feel the genre has made huge steps on those counts during 2012, but much of it has been a running battle.)
Freer than I've ever felt in my life, I went about to write. I finished Dark Soul 4 and 5, saying a hearty "fuck you" to the "guardians of m/m purity" who will hate and badly review any book with a female that's not a raging bitch or, gods forbid, might be a sexual being on the page. I did not break up the heterosexual marriage of a bisexual character in favour of his new, male lover, instead positing that three adults can find a way to work shit out. I didn't get much flak for it (much less than I'd expected in any case), though some people weren't happy. Being bisexual myself, it was one step towards moving away from "bi erasure" - giving bi people more visibility in the genre.
Sex and gender isn't that easy, but we can work shit out - that's really the core message in my writing in that period. It felt good. I no longer had to cram myself into a genre where several highly influential people simply rejected me. Unable to please everybody, I went about pleasing myself and staying true to my characters. I decided to a) stay true to myself and my characters and b) yes, sometimes make a point by subverting the genre expectation, but the latter was secondary.
I re-thought the representations of women in m/m fiction - how I write them (thanks, Donata, you taught me some very important lessons), and how others write them. This has become editorial policy at Riptide, that we like to see women represented fairly. You can have a raging bitch, but then please also include positive female characters. It's too easy to revert back to "two guys in lurv, one woman putting on the hatin'" structure.
In March, our genre had a huge plagiarism debate that brought up some very interesting discussions overall--how much can publishers do to not publish plagiarised product, and how does the genre deal with its fanfiction root (there are other roots as well). In the middle of all that, I finished the edits for the print book of Dark Soul. I also thought long and hard about consistency and quality and started to plan to claw back old releases that have editing issues to ensure that my backlist is the best it can possibly be. My readers deserve the best and I owe it to them to ensure anything out there is up to my standards. This was definitely the death of "let's publish for shits and giggles"--I really began seeing this as more of an obligation, maybe more of a job. Part of that was because Rachel kicked the hell out of me in edits and I learned a great deal about writing and, from that newfound humility, I realised that I'd made shortcuts and I was ashamed of them.
In real life, I started planning a revamp of my garden and getting quotes in. That work wasn't completed until November. What a project!
In April, Country Mouse released, which I co-wrote with Amy Lane. This was probably my best-selling book, ever, which says a lot more about Amy Lane than myself. It was also fun. After the darkness of Dark Soul, I wanted to play and write something lighter. It was fun, Amy was awesome, and it sold like hotcakes. I enjoyed working with Amy so much that we've just completed Country Mouse 2, the sequel. Fun!
In real life, I was burgled, though nothing valuable stolen. (My dude lost his manbag, which was recovered in the park behind the house.) Writing-wise, I was planning to halt m/m writing for the time being, as I wanted to focus on a number of mainstream projects. These are still going, though obviously I've written more m/m in the meantime. I'm still not sure how things will go and what I'll write, so I'm just letting the Muse have his head and his play and keep doing what I enjoy. Whether the end result is an m/m book, a heterosexual novel (i have one of those in my head) or anything else, who knows, who cares, as long as it demands to be written.
In May, I travelled to Canada (Ottawa) to meet friends. We had a blast. And I got out of the house over my birthday, which is a plus. Meanwhile, my WWII research continued apace.
June saw some interesting discussions on the direction of the genre again--whether we write too fast and what it does to the quality. If publish or perish is the only way to go. These days, I think the debate is more complex than that, having met people who put out consistently high quality at a pace that's impressive, and knowing people who write slowly but aren't better for it. The mysteries of quality/quantity remain, though these days I find the speed in which books get written and produced energising rather than scary.
In July, I released Incursion, where I have so many boxes ticked the book almost feels like an exercise in Can I Fuck With Your Mind Some More. (It wasn't planned as that, it just turned out that way.) Disabled interracial character meets genderbending, mind-reading alien bad guy and he isn't. It's written in part out of rage about the transphobia in the m/m community. Pretty much a sales flop, Incursion went on to be shortlisted in the Goodreads Sci-Fi Readers Choice category. Sci-fi doesn't sell, but critical acclaim is fun. In real life, people married (a LOT) in that month, old childhood friends were in touch.I reflected a lot on that weird decade, the thirties, when you turn from ambition into reality, which some minor adjustments along the way. End result: It's awesome being a DINK, free, healthy and at the peak of my creative abilities. Loving this period. Meanwhile, some scary blog entries on copyright freaked half the community out as photographers seem to go against all the "hottie of the week" posts. Interesting debates emerge on, for example, authors blogging aggressively versus pirates while plastering non-licensed photographic art all over their blogs. It's 2012, and the copyright wars are on. Also in July (what a month, eh?), Noble Romance blows up in a gigantic tsunami of shit-hits-fan, and while we're talking, the new CEO, Jean Gombart, still hasn't managed to improve things, as authors get no responses on emails, no royalties or no royalty reports (or none of those). Yay, Noble, screwing its authors for a good six months now.
In August, I released Skybound, my short historical and another complete sales flop (none of my critical successes sell. Everybody loves it, nobody buys it, but I'm getting used to the pattern). Also, work with Riptide and writing got so intense that I was starting think out aloud about going part-time. As I write this, that hasn't happened because my company are douchebagels about some things.
In September, I went to the UK GLBTQ Meet in Brighton and finally got to meet the European m/m crowd and people I'd known on the internet for ages. The discussions were great and I flounced around in my nice new suit. This meeting did a lot to instill a great deal of hope and pride in me about where the genre is going and how we're developing. Obviously, Riptide sponsored. Right after that, I went to a writing retreat in Yorkshire with a friend, where we attended a writing course for historical novellists. It breathed life back into my stupidly ambitious WWII novels and I made friends. I also managed to recharge my batteries quite considerably. Hell, telling Sarah Waters your plot over dinner and her saying "that's interesting" might have made my week (dear Sarah, thank you, even if you were just polite!). I realised there's no unbridgeable gap between "art" and "entertainment". Several of the historical writers were writing romances or paranormals. We are a pretty diverse bunch. Meanwhile, Gold Digger launched while I was away on very limited internet.
In October, a piece I wrote went up on USA Today. I was "wow" for a week or two. And my garden revamp finally started with diggers rolling in and tearing up everything. Very impressive. I also learned how to tier a double Windsor (my dude taught me and bought me my first silk ties), then finally said "bye-bye" to my long hair and, now short-haired, travelled to Albuquerque where I was mostly spending my time being extremely goofy with LA Witt and getting up early to get breakfast for Stephanie, our marketing girl at Riptide, whom I shared a room with. (And got to meet her, and she's awesome.) Travelling to the States for GRL was a bit of a last-minute decision, but I loved it and will be back. Meeting my readers was a great feeling, too. I was hemming and hawing and nervous and tried to keep everything low key, and then it kind of didn't work out like that at all. Had a great time with readers and Riptiders and got to hug and shake hands a lot. I had the time of my life.
November brought more Noble Romance grief as they started violating my copyright. Hence I spent time researching copyright lawyers in the US. In positive news, Skybound went to print. In positive news, I did start writing like a madman with LA Witt and we wrote two shorts, two novellas and a full historical novel ("What, you like WWII too?") in six weeks, easily doubling my total wordcount in 2012. (It was not the most productive year of my life). In real life, my garden was finished and paid, and I attended two seminars on NLP, which ended up helping me retain my equilibrium when an online friend turned out to be a fake and a fraud.
In December, we agreed on a planting plan for the garden, and Quid Pro Quo was readied for release in January. Country Mouse 2 was finished and sent off. My historical novels are both nowhere near finished, though, although I made some progress on at least one of them. And I set a wordcount goal of 2013 as I'm making a serious push to be able to quit my day job once and for all in a few years' time so I can focus on writing without sleeping under a bridge.
There's much else. Friends moving house, job issues, dental stuff, friends suffering health scares and real danger, another friend having a baby, my return to the gym, lots of research, another friend landing a five-book deal, a controlling boyfriend hating my guts and forbidding me to see a friend, great meals I've had, beautiful encounters with readers in London and away, seeing a book I've known for ten years being translated and published. Encountering love and forgiveness and big plans, some of which worked out and others didn't. And for every amateur asshole publisher there's at least one who's kind and pleasant and generous. For every mistake I made I made at least one very good decision of lasting value, and for every person who didn't fit my life I've made at least two new friends. There were also surprising things going on--books that didn't sell became category winners, books that did so-so suddenly getting huge boosts as everybody discovered them six months later, and very uncommercial stories finding a few people who loved them.
All in all, an awesome year that got better and better and provided a great basis for 2013. I thank everybody for the positive, and maybe I'll find the wisdom to even thank those of you who provided the negative. I'll try.
And to 2013--BRING IT.
December 28, 2012
That writing goal
Quid Pro Quo is discounted for another day at Riptide - we have a holiday sale on, so if you're still missing Dark Soul or Gold Digger, here's your chance to get your hands on (cheaper) words. :)
And yep, Quid Pro Quo is the next story out. Here's the cover:
Blurb: For the past six months, Jared’s been selling sex at Market Garden, a London club that caters to the better-off. But business is slow in the run-up to Christmas, when businessmen and bankers are too busy bickering over bonuses to rent themselves a little high-class action.Though Jared’s wallet finds the downtime unnerving, the rest of him rather enjoys the opportunity it gives him to admire Tristan, an old hand in the club whose reputation usually sees him well-booked. Jared has been crushing on Tristan for months—he’s no more immune to Tristan’s cockiness and confidence than the johns, and those are just Tristan’s inner qualities.Just as Jared’s about to chat Tristan up, a businessman asks for something a little different: he wants to book them both. They agree—and Jared finds himself going from crush to mind-bending lust as he’s made the pawn in a sexual power game. Tristan shows him how a pro handles a john while delivering the top-shelf sex for which the Market Garden is so rightly renowned.
As a side note: This is heavy on the sex--essentially, it's 10k worth of porn. Hot, fun, and short. Lori and I had so much fun with that one. :)And in other news--I completed an editing pass on Country Mouse 2, and we expect to submit that to Riptide very soon for a release early in 2013.Another novel has been submitted and is in edits (that's a WWII historical). Also two BDSM novellas focused on Market Garden (and very loosely connected, by location only, to Quid Pro Quo). So, I'm getting my ducks in a row for 2013. I AM planning to release 4-6 novels next year. Two will be solo historicals, and then there's the whole Scorpion series I want to wrap up in 2013. After juggling around how much I can write versus how much I can write without working myself to death, I'm attempting to impose a 500k wordcount target on myself. It's up on the whiteboard and all. Here's a link to keep you guys updated on the status of individual books (apparently, lots of people were shocked/surprised at Country Mouse 2 - so I'm not doing a great job of keeping everybody in the loop - SORRY!). So, bookmark this: Voinov's Order of Battle (aka: WIP spreadsheet).I'll let you know how that wordcount goal goes. :)
And yep, Quid Pro Quo is the next story out. Here's the cover:
Blurb: For the past six months, Jared’s been selling sex at Market Garden, a London club that caters to the better-off. But business is slow in the run-up to Christmas, when businessmen and bankers are too busy bickering over bonuses to rent themselves a little high-class action.Though Jared’s wallet finds the downtime unnerving, the rest of him rather enjoys the opportunity it gives him to admire Tristan, an old hand in the club whose reputation usually sees him well-booked. Jared has been crushing on Tristan for months—he’s no more immune to Tristan’s cockiness and confidence than the johns, and those are just Tristan’s inner qualities.Just as Jared’s about to chat Tristan up, a businessman asks for something a little different: he wants to book them both. They agree—and Jared finds himself going from crush to mind-bending lust as he’s made the pawn in a sexual power game. Tristan shows him how a pro handles a john while delivering the top-shelf sex for which the Market Garden is so rightly renowned.
As a side note: This is heavy on the sex--essentially, it's 10k worth of porn. Hot, fun, and short. Lori and I had so much fun with that one. :)And in other news--I completed an editing pass on Country Mouse 2, and we expect to submit that to Riptide very soon for a release early in 2013.Another novel has been submitted and is in edits (that's a WWII historical). Also two BDSM novellas focused on Market Garden (and very loosely connected, by location only, to Quid Pro Quo). So, I'm getting my ducks in a row for 2013. I AM planning to release 4-6 novels next year. Two will be solo historicals, and then there's the whole Scorpion series I want to wrap up in 2013. After juggling around how much I can write versus how much I can write without working myself to death, I'm attempting to impose a 500k wordcount target on myself. It's up on the whiteboard and all. Here's a link to keep you guys updated on the status of individual books (apparently, lots of people were shocked/surprised at Country Mouse 2 - so I'm not doing a great job of keeping everybody in the loop - SORRY!). So, bookmark this: Voinov's Order of Battle (aka: WIP spreadsheet).I'll let you know how that wordcount goal goes. :)
December 24, 2012
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it (and a happy festive season to those who don't). Happy Sol Invictus day/Solstice (even though we're late for that now).
As I'm writing, there's several things I've been working on that I haven't really been talking about. Maybe because the projects ambushed me. So, LA Witt and I went off on a writing binge after we had so much fun at GRL a couple months ago. We wrote two shorts, two novellas and a full historical novel in seven weeks, and are currently knee-deep in a second novel after a very productive weekend. So, 2013 is starting to look much better in terms of release schedule for me. My schedule is actually pretty damn ludicrous, getting two WWII novels and a fantasy series written on my own, but if I manage to write 2k/day, that's 730k in words and might just cover everything I'm itching to write. (Editing, now, that's a different matter...)
That's not counting the "Wouldn't be cool if..." projects. The books that hook in my brain out of nowhere and demand that the world stops for them. Predicting them or pushing them to the side doesn't usually work. Hell, Skybound demanded to be written, even though I was working hard on other stuff. It just took over. So much for controlling the Muse. I'd say most of my best work were "Wouldn't it be cool" books. There's just something extremely compelling about a book that forces its way. I think they have a different energy. Maybe more blood and guts.
Above all, though, I need to rethink how I write to be able to hit that required wordcount. I don't believe that writing a lot or fast necessarily means it's lower quality. I have written huge chunks of text in a kind of blissful rage, and the end result had power and rang true. I've also painstakingly assembled paragraphs, and at the end I can't really remember which bit flowed and tore through me and which parts I agonized over. As long as the overall project has a good energy, and breathes and pushes, I'm usually safe. It doesn't matter how fast it was made.
So, yeah, if all works out, six novels from me next year. Gods help me. (I take comfort in that one is, and three more are halfway.)
Christmas here is going to be low-intensity. I handed the dude a couple presents. Tomorrow, we'll have Christmas dinner at a friends', exchange more gifts. And then I can crawl into the suspense novel I'm co-writing (and which has no right to be so incredibly hot). And push one historical's wordcount, while outlining the Scorpion sequel. Ah, who am I kidding? I think I'll write Scorpion II before the year's up.
As I'm writing, there's several things I've been working on that I haven't really been talking about. Maybe because the projects ambushed me. So, LA Witt and I went off on a writing binge after we had so much fun at GRL a couple months ago. We wrote two shorts, two novellas and a full historical novel in seven weeks, and are currently knee-deep in a second novel after a very productive weekend. So, 2013 is starting to look much better in terms of release schedule for me. My schedule is actually pretty damn ludicrous, getting two WWII novels and a fantasy series written on my own, but if I manage to write 2k/day, that's 730k in words and might just cover everything I'm itching to write. (Editing, now, that's a different matter...)
That's not counting the "Wouldn't be cool if..." projects. The books that hook in my brain out of nowhere and demand that the world stops for them. Predicting them or pushing them to the side doesn't usually work. Hell, Skybound demanded to be written, even though I was working hard on other stuff. It just took over. So much for controlling the Muse. I'd say most of my best work were "Wouldn't it be cool" books. There's just something extremely compelling about a book that forces its way. I think they have a different energy. Maybe more blood and guts.
Above all, though, I need to rethink how I write to be able to hit that required wordcount. I don't believe that writing a lot or fast necessarily means it's lower quality. I have written huge chunks of text in a kind of blissful rage, and the end result had power and rang true. I've also painstakingly assembled paragraphs, and at the end I can't really remember which bit flowed and tore through me and which parts I agonized over. As long as the overall project has a good energy, and breathes and pushes, I'm usually safe. It doesn't matter how fast it was made.
So, yeah, if all works out, six novels from me next year. Gods help me. (I take comfort in that one is, and three more are halfway.)
Christmas here is going to be low-intensity. I handed the dude a couple presents. Tomorrow, we'll have Christmas dinner at a friends', exchange more gifts. And then I can crawl into the suspense novel I'm co-writing (and which has no right to be so incredibly hot). And push one historical's wordcount, while outlining the Scorpion sequel. Ah, who am I kidding? I think I'll write Scorpion II before the year's up.
November 25, 2012
Skybound in print
We agreed at Riptide that Skybound is the kind of story that appeals to people who still prefer paper, so we released it in paper - one of our "stealth releases", so there won't be another blog tour for this.
So, if you want to pick it up from Barnes and Noble (I'm having an allergic reaction to writing that word, Noble, but that's not Barnes's fault), here's the link. And if you'd rather buy from Amazon, here's their link. Thanks!
(I'll also bring a pile of these to conventions and other appearances - they are small enough to fit plenty of them into a suitcase. :) )
So, if you want to pick it up from Barnes and Noble (I'm having an allergic reaction to writing that word, Noble, but that's not Barnes's fault), here's the link. And if you'd rather buy from Amazon, here's their link. Thanks!
(I'll also bring a pile of these to conventions and other appearances - they are small enough to fit plenty of them into a suitcase. :) )
November 20, 2012
Same old argument
Seems the old discussion about "women exploiting gay men and making a buck" is going as strong as ever.
Megan Derr delivers a most excellent slapdown of that nonsense here.
To which I add: describing the genre as "straight women writing about gay men for straight women readers" is wrong and ignores the variation and richness of our genre.
We, the writers, are straight, bisexual, asexual, lesbian, gay, queer, omnisexual/pansexual. We are women, men, transmen and transwomen (same thing to men and women, really, just adding us as "trans" to be absolutely clear). Of the trans people, some choose to adjust their primary sexual organs, and some don't. Others might do so later. We're genderqueer, just plain queer, defy description, resent being put in a box. Some of us are intersex. Some are intersex who transition. Others are bigendered/two-spirited.
The people we write about are straight (granted, very often not the Main Characters), bisexual, asexual, lesbian, gay, queer, omnisexual/pansexual. They are women, men, transmen and transwomen. Of the trans people, some choose to adjust their primary sexual organs, and some don't. Others might do so later. Our characters are genderqueer, just plain queer, defy description, resent being put in a box and fight us, theircreators, when we try to put them there. Our characters may be intersex. Some might be intersex who transition. Others are bigendered/two-spirited.
Our readers - oh, the lifeblood of the genre, our patrons, our critics, our customers, our friends. They are straight, bisexual, asexual, lesbian, gay, queer, omnisexual/pansexual. They are women, men, transmen and transwomen. Of the trans people, some choose to adjust their primary sexual organs, and some don't. Others might do so later. Our characters are genderqueer, just plain queer, defy description, resent being put in a box and ask us, their authors, to not try put them into a box. Our readers may be intersex. Some might be intersex who transition. Others are bigendered/two-spirited.
Ignoring any of these, and creating an artificial - dare I say "elitist"? - "community" of "pure gay men, born with a penis, engaging in TEH REELZ GAYZ SEXX0RS" (implying there's a "real experience" that is universal), while kicking out everybody who doesn't get a membership pass based on their birth/genetic biological sex and their AUTHENTIX TRUE REELZ GAYZ EXPERIENCE and calling them exploiters or fakes or implying they aren't part of the community or have no "right" to write about "gay men" or may only do so in a certain way - approved by the REELZ GAYZ MENS CLUB - is, frankly, counter-productive.
It ignores that the genre isn't that simple. It tries to marginalise women in a genre that THEY are driving. It tries to limit the strong, gushing river to a stagnant pool - purely on the virtue of what the writer has in their underwear.
Similarly, gay rights were won by gays. Yes. They were also won by their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and children, their colleagues, their friends, their allies. Telling them they don't "belong" ignores the varied and diverse community that real-life rainbow people interact in. My trans* status has made everybody around me more aware of gender and trans issues. Surely that's a good thing. If somebody chooses to write a story with a trans character, surely that's a good thing, if its done respectfully. And even better if the trans character has a happy ending.
But not only does that thinking slap everybody in the face who doesn't fit into an unworkable definition (as it has been reduced to a level where it's patently absurd), ignoring real life for the sexist preconceptions that seem to be pervasive. For example, I'd comment on that post with "you're not speaking for me". And "by your definition, are we trans* writers males or females? Are we allowed to write m/m? CAN WE PLEASE BE ALLOWED TO WRITE M/M? PLEASE? Can I have the license from the TRUE REEELZ GAY MEN to follow my muse and tell stories my readers want to read? Where do I apply? Where's the Reichsschriftkammer where I get my m/m licensed?" Will non-conforming text be burned?
But not only does this not reflect, by any stretch, the diversity of the authors, but it also doesn't reflect (or honour) the diversity of our characters OR our readers. It tries to draw a line in quicksand. These categories do not exist. Where they are artificially constructed, they aren't helpful. I know, it may comes as news, but even a gay man does not live on Planet Gay. We aren't islands. (Though some people desperately try to be Moruroa).
This is that ugly "purity" argument raising its head again - now just regarding authors or how authors may engage with their material. More importantly, it also does not reflect all gay men. I have plenty of gay male-born readers who enjoy what I do and how I do it. And they are open-minded and educated and have a diversified range of friends and family. In short, they are usually mature, understanding individuals who will not drive a perceived "gay agenda" by being hostile to other colours of the rainbow or trying to exclude straight people. Also, they tend to know what a good book is and what a bad book is, which, you know, is still the most important thing.
Well, in short, Megan Derr covered it. Also check out the comments, especially by Alex Beecroft.
Megan Derr delivers a most excellent slapdown of that nonsense here.
To which I add: describing the genre as "straight women writing about gay men for straight women readers" is wrong and ignores the variation and richness of our genre.
We, the writers, are straight, bisexual, asexual, lesbian, gay, queer, omnisexual/pansexual. We are women, men, transmen and transwomen (same thing to men and women, really, just adding us as "trans" to be absolutely clear). Of the trans people, some choose to adjust their primary sexual organs, and some don't. Others might do so later. We're genderqueer, just plain queer, defy description, resent being put in a box. Some of us are intersex. Some are intersex who transition. Others are bigendered/two-spirited.
The people we write about are straight (granted, very often not the Main Characters), bisexual, asexual, lesbian, gay, queer, omnisexual/pansexual. They are women, men, transmen and transwomen. Of the trans people, some choose to adjust their primary sexual organs, and some don't. Others might do so later. Our characters are genderqueer, just plain queer, defy description, resent being put in a box and fight us, theircreators, when we try to put them there. Our characters may be intersex. Some might be intersex who transition. Others are bigendered/two-spirited.
Our readers - oh, the lifeblood of the genre, our patrons, our critics, our customers, our friends. They are straight, bisexual, asexual, lesbian, gay, queer, omnisexual/pansexual. They are women, men, transmen and transwomen. Of the trans people, some choose to adjust their primary sexual organs, and some don't. Others might do so later. Our characters are genderqueer, just plain queer, defy description, resent being put in a box and ask us, their authors, to not try put them into a box. Our readers may be intersex. Some might be intersex who transition. Others are bigendered/two-spirited.
Ignoring any of these, and creating an artificial - dare I say "elitist"? - "community" of "pure gay men, born with a penis, engaging in TEH REELZ GAYZ SEXX0RS" (implying there's a "real experience" that is universal), while kicking out everybody who doesn't get a membership pass based on their birth/genetic biological sex and their AUTHENTIX TRUE REELZ GAYZ EXPERIENCE and calling them exploiters or fakes or implying they aren't part of the community or have no "right" to write about "gay men" or may only do so in a certain way - approved by the REELZ GAYZ MENS CLUB - is, frankly, counter-productive.
It ignores that the genre isn't that simple. It tries to marginalise women in a genre that THEY are driving. It tries to limit the strong, gushing river to a stagnant pool - purely on the virtue of what the writer has in their underwear.
Similarly, gay rights were won by gays. Yes. They were also won by their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and children, their colleagues, their friends, their allies. Telling them they don't "belong" ignores the varied and diverse community that real-life rainbow people interact in. My trans* status has made everybody around me more aware of gender and trans issues. Surely that's a good thing. If somebody chooses to write a story with a trans character, surely that's a good thing, if its done respectfully. And even better if the trans character has a happy ending.
But not only does that thinking slap everybody in the face who doesn't fit into an unworkable definition (as it has been reduced to a level where it's patently absurd), ignoring real life for the sexist preconceptions that seem to be pervasive. For example, I'd comment on that post with "you're not speaking for me". And "by your definition, are we trans* writers males or females? Are we allowed to write m/m? CAN WE PLEASE BE ALLOWED TO WRITE M/M? PLEASE? Can I have the license from the TRUE REEELZ GAY MEN to follow my muse and tell stories my readers want to read? Where do I apply? Where's the Reichsschriftkammer where I get my m/m licensed?" Will non-conforming text be burned?
But not only does this not reflect, by any stretch, the diversity of the authors, but it also doesn't reflect (or honour) the diversity of our characters OR our readers. It tries to draw a line in quicksand. These categories do not exist. Where they are artificially constructed, they aren't helpful. I know, it may comes as news, but even a gay man does not live on Planet Gay. We aren't islands. (Though some people desperately try to be Moruroa).
This is that ugly "purity" argument raising its head again - now just regarding authors or how authors may engage with their material. More importantly, it also does not reflect all gay men. I have plenty of gay male-born readers who enjoy what I do and how I do it. And they are open-minded and educated and have a diversified range of friends and family. In short, they are usually mature, understanding individuals who will not drive a perceived "gay agenda" by being hostile to other colours of the rainbow or trying to exclude straight people. Also, they tend to know what a good book is and what a bad book is, which, you know, is still the most important thing.
Well, in short, Megan Derr covered it. Also check out the comments, especially by Alex Beecroft.
November 15, 2012
Big life changes & new project (also: thanks!)
Well, it's finally happening. I've just emailed my boss at work to discuss what's called "downshifting" in business parlance, that is, work less time for less money, while devoting more attention/time on the things that are actually meaningful to me. In other words, cut the things that anybody can do and replace them with things only I can do. Everybody can edit a financial report. Only I can write my stories.
I had to go against quite a bit of my deep-seated programming. I like security. I like money (not for its own sake, but for the things I can do with it--pay off my house faster, go travelling). I like the independence of being able to say, "Fuck this, if writing doesn't work out, I'll do something else." Fact is, it's what I've been doing for nigh-on twenty-five years, I think it's safe to assume that I'll continue doing it for a little while longer.
The economy is another factor. My current job was never meant as more than a "Notnagel" (German, lit. "emergency nail" = emergency solution). I was much better paid in banking, and I took this job as a stepping stone to return to banking, get some financial qualifications (which the people here promised me and that haven't materialised as yet) and overall have a fairly easy life.
Well, after about 10 months, I have to admit that the financial industry won't be re-hiring in research/editing any time soon, so I might as well be "stuck" here for another few years. I'm not moaning. The last 18 months gave me time to focus more on Riptide, though I was more productive in my banking job (thanks to an environment here where I struggle to focus on anything for any significant stretch of time).
I had to kick what I call my "real-life ambitions" out of my head. Writing is the focus of my life, no question. I don't really care about much outside of it. I won't have a brilliant career in the "real world". I've seen and met people who had them, and I'm not even sure the trade-off in time in worth it. Certainly not as somebody's employee. (A writing friend who quit her day job said she'd resented "making some asshole rich" - quite.)
In addition, in the last six months, my writing income has reached a level and consistency that'll allow me to make that step with likely no negative impact on my overall income. Originally I was going to play it safe and cut two Fridays a month, but I will be much happier on a four-day week, with the eventual intermediate goal of cutting the time I do fairly useless and routine things in an office to 2.5 days a week (largely for the pension benefits) in the next 2-3 years.
That said, I'd love to go full-time at Riptide and as a writer, possibly throwing in some freelancing as a coach and writing teacher, to "pay it forward" and spend more time with real-life flesh and blood people. It's a goal for the next 5-10 years.
I don't know yet what impact this'll have in terms of productivity and what I'll write. It's clear that the money is in contemporaries, but, although I love them, maybe only 25-30% of my ideas are contemps. I'll have to make sure that I'm not selling out in the larger game of Making a Living as a Writer. I don't think I could. When the Muse grabs me, there's extremely little I can do about it.
What I will have to do--and I think that's entirely possible--is to significantly up my daily wordcount. I'm incredibly inspired by working this past week with LA Witt. We wrote a 67k first draft in 5 days. Granted, there's research holes, and editing will take a while, but even if it takes us a few weeks to fix what we've written, writing a novel in 5 days is extreme sport, yet I had so much fun. We're looking at either a March or July release date for it, so there's time.
In essence, I think I can sustain my income and my joy in life if I manage one release a month--that includes all the sequels and prequels I've promised. Hard work and being productive is really just a habit, and I'll do what I can to fulfill that quota.
The game-changer for me were my increased sales and much larger royalties at Riptide, and feeling I have much more control over my "brain children" than I've ever had. Starting Riptide and publishing with it was the single best decision of my writing life. I'm already happier and more productive than ever. Now it's time to push this harder and make the most of the opportunity.
What it absolutely comes down to is, I'm losing my independence in some psychologically significant way. It was that writing was almost like feinting in fencing, playing, testing the waters, but now I'm committed to the attack because my royalties ever since Country Mouse and Dark Soul are no longer "pocket money", but a crucial part of my overall income. This makes me vulnerable. It feels like a huge risk, but I think it's time to give this a go. I finally have the courage.
Above all, though, and after this extensive piece of navel-gazing, I have to accept that I have a new boss: You guys. I'm already buoyed and humbled and gratified by your love and support. Meeting my readers, online or in the flesh, is a source of huge joy in my life. Now you're my employers AND my friends/supporters.
I'll do everything I can to say "thank you" for your past and future support--for enabling me to reclaim my time from the corporate world so I can write and publish more books.
Thank you so much. And here's to the future!
I had to go against quite a bit of my deep-seated programming. I like security. I like money (not for its own sake, but for the things I can do with it--pay off my house faster, go travelling). I like the independence of being able to say, "Fuck this, if writing doesn't work out, I'll do something else." Fact is, it's what I've been doing for nigh-on twenty-five years, I think it's safe to assume that I'll continue doing it for a little while longer.
The economy is another factor. My current job was never meant as more than a "Notnagel" (German, lit. "emergency nail" = emergency solution). I was much better paid in banking, and I took this job as a stepping stone to return to banking, get some financial qualifications (which the people here promised me and that haven't materialised as yet) and overall have a fairly easy life.
Well, after about 10 months, I have to admit that the financial industry won't be re-hiring in research/editing any time soon, so I might as well be "stuck" here for another few years. I'm not moaning. The last 18 months gave me time to focus more on Riptide, though I was more productive in my banking job (thanks to an environment here where I struggle to focus on anything for any significant stretch of time).
I had to kick what I call my "real-life ambitions" out of my head. Writing is the focus of my life, no question. I don't really care about much outside of it. I won't have a brilliant career in the "real world". I've seen and met people who had them, and I'm not even sure the trade-off in time in worth it. Certainly not as somebody's employee. (A writing friend who quit her day job said she'd resented "making some asshole rich" - quite.)
In addition, in the last six months, my writing income has reached a level and consistency that'll allow me to make that step with likely no negative impact on my overall income. Originally I was going to play it safe and cut two Fridays a month, but I will be much happier on a four-day week, with the eventual intermediate goal of cutting the time I do fairly useless and routine things in an office to 2.5 days a week (largely for the pension benefits) in the next 2-3 years.
That said, I'd love to go full-time at Riptide and as a writer, possibly throwing in some freelancing as a coach and writing teacher, to "pay it forward" and spend more time with real-life flesh and blood people. It's a goal for the next 5-10 years.
I don't know yet what impact this'll have in terms of productivity and what I'll write. It's clear that the money is in contemporaries, but, although I love them, maybe only 25-30% of my ideas are contemps. I'll have to make sure that I'm not selling out in the larger game of Making a Living as a Writer. I don't think I could. When the Muse grabs me, there's extremely little I can do about it.
What I will have to do--and I think that's entirely possible--is to significantly up my daily wordcount. I'm incredibly inspired by working this past week with LA Witt. We wrote a 67k first draft in 5 days. Granted, there's research holes, and editing will take a while, but even if it takes us a few weeks to fix what we've written, writing a novel in 5 days is extreme sport, yet I had so much fun. We're looking at either a March or July release date for it, so there's time.
In essence, I think I can sustain my income and my joy in life if I manage one release a month--that includes all the sequels and prequels I've promised. Hard work and being productive is really just a habit, and I'll do what I can to fulfill that quota.
The game-changer for me were my increased sales and much larger royalties at Riptide, and feeling I have much more control over my "brain children" than I've ever had. Starting Riptide and publishing with it was the single best decision of my writing life. I'm already happier and more productive than ever. Now it's time to push this harder and make the most of the opportunity.
What it absolutely comes down to is, I'm losing my independence in some psychologically significant way. It was that writing was almost like feinting in fencing, playing, testing the waters, but now I'm committed to the attack because my royalties ever since Country Mouse and Dark Soul are no longer "pocket money", but a crucial part of my overall income. This makes me vulnerable. It feels like a huge risk, but I think it's time to give this a go. I finally have the courage.
Above all, though, and after this extensive piece of navel-gazing, I have to accept that I have a new boss: You guys. I'm already buoyed and humbled and gratified by your love and support. Meeting my readers, online or in the flesh, is a source of huge joy in my life. Now you're my employers AND my friends/supporters.
I'll do everything I can to say "thank you" for your past and future support--for enabling me to reclaim my time from the corporate world so I can write and publish more books.
Thank you so much. And here's to the future!
November 13, 2012
"Incursion" among top 20 Goodreads readers' choice sci-fi books
My little sci-fi story Incursion ended up, rather surprisingly, in the semi-finals on Goodreads: Here's the link.
(Yep, I'll do a screen shot for myself, because OMG ARE YOU GUYS KIDDING?).
It's weird (and humbling and amazing) to be with a small-press LGBTQ book with a "disabled" character and a gender-fluid cast of characters against, you know, Scalzi and IAN BANKS (my partner will never forgive me--he's a HUGE fan), and every multi-bazillion movie and sci-fi franchise in the history of ever (Alien? Star Wars spin-off, anybody?).
So, uhm, yeah. My little story's definitely going in as the underdogs to beat all underdogs. Nothing short of a "Rocky"-sized miracle will get me a round further, but getting *that* far is already a miracle, so I'm just going to take a screenshot of that and keep it in my "nobody loves me, I write only crap, I'll never make it" folder on the computer.
Because HOLY HELL.
Of course, Dani Alexander is giving the big names in the much-harder-fought Romance category a run for their money. Being up as an indie against Fifty Shades AND JR Ward is worse than me battling Orson Scott Card (though, honestly, I want to punch him in the nose, at least, err, book-versus-book, for his homophobia. I'd never encourage violence against the bedrock of the speculative genre--kinda. I try to a good guy here. It can be hard, because I effing love sci-fi and cyberpunk and I think in that genre, of all of them, we can actually explore gender and sexuality. Well, off the box now).
So, in any case, do vote for your favourites. (These don't have to be my books, BTW--I don't like vote-whoring very much, and there are many fine authors on the poll.) If that happens to be my book, awesome. If not, awesome. And thanks for playing. :)
(But I'm still getting a huge kick out of that cover between the others. I do. No lie.)
In writing-related notes, LA Witt (yes, HER), with whom I spent so much time laughing like a pair of hyenas at GRL, has dragged my ass out of the huge writing slump when she admitted to liking historical fiction (in one of her interviews regarding the release of The Left Hand of Calvus - a gladiator novel in my Warriors of Rome call at Riptide), and also liking/having an interest in WWII.
So, I ... may have ambushed her to write something.
I think that was Thursday. Thursday and Friday we talked about plot/characters.
Saturday we started writing. Sunday, we wrote. Monday, we wrote.
We're 51k in and it's looking like a 70-80k book. At that speed, we'll be done by Monday (latest). It's twisted fun, but it's fun. I'm finding it very romantic, but it's very good fun. but then, I'm twisted. I thought I'd never say that, but writing 50k in 30 days is for pussies. (No, I love all my NaNo-ing friends. Go you!)
We do have a working title, though it's not really "sticking" yet. More when I know, but it's... a little surprise!project to look forward to.
(Yep, I'll do a screen shot for myself, because OMG ARE YOU GUYS KIDDING?).
It's weird (and humbling and amazing) to be with a small-press LGBTQ book with a "disabled" character and a gender-fluid cast of characters against, you know, Scalzi and IAN BANKS (my partner will never forgive me--he's a HUGE fan), and every multi-bazillion movie and sci-fi franchise in the history of ever (Alien? Star Wars spin-off, anybody?).
So, uhm, yeah. My little story's definitely going in as the underdogs to beat all underdogs. Nothing short of a "Rocky"-sized miracle will get me a round further, but getting *that* far is already a miracle, so I'm just going to take a screenshot of that and keep it in my "nobody loves me, I write only crap, I'll never make it" folder on the computer.
Because HOLY HELL.
Of course, Dani Alexander is giving the big names in the much-harder-fought Romance category a run for their money. Being up as an indie against Fifty Shades AND JR Ward is worse than me battling Orson Scott Card (though, honestly, I want to punch him in the nose, at least, err, book-versus-book, for his homophobia. I'd never encourage violence against the bedrock of the speculative genre--kinda. I try to a good guy here. It can be hard, because I effing love sci-fi and cyberpunk and I think in that genre, of all of them, we can actually explore gender and sexuality. Well, off the box now).
So, in any case, do vote for your favourites. (These don't have to be my books, BTW--I don't like vote-whoring very much, and there are many fine authors on the poll.) If that happens to be my book, awesome. If not, awesome. And thanks for playing. :)
(But I'm still getting a huge kick out of that cover between the others. I do. No lie.)
In writing-related notes, LA Witt (yes, HER), with whom I spent so much time laughing like a pair of hyenas at GRL, has dragged my ass out of the huge writing slump when she admitted to liking historical fiction (in one of her interviews regarding the release of The Left Hand of Calvus - a gladiator novel in my Warriors of Rome call at Riptide), and also liking/having an interest in WWII.
So, I ... may have ambushed her to write something.
I think that was Thursday. Thursday and Friday we talked about plot/characters.
Saturday we started writing. Sunday, we wrote. Monday, we wrote.
We're 51k in and it's looking like a 70-80k book. At that speed, we'll be done by Monday (latest). It's twisted fun, but it's fun. I'm finding it very romantic, but it's very good fun. but then, I'm twisted. I thought I'd never say that, but writing 50k in 30 days is for pussies. (No, I love all my NaNo-ing friends. Go you!)
We do have a working title, though it's not really "sticking" yet. More when I know, but it's... a little surprise!project to look forward to.
Letters from the Front
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