Isa K.'s Blog, page 2
March 2, 2013
Off to SXSW!
....I really love my job.
I mean I really really really love my job.
Tomorrow I am hopping on a pimped out tech bus to Austin TX for SXSW. Today I've been finalizing some of the logistics, including sorting through invites to literally HUNDREDS of different parties (OMG The Suicide Girls are having a party? :D :D :D BOOBS!). I've never been to SXSW, so this promises to be an experience that's for sure.
When I get back (and uh... out of rehab by the looks of things) I'll be releasing the first (and maybe second) chapter of Fun With Dick & Shame. How much of that you get depends on how crazy my schedule ends up being in reality. I still have four or five chapters left to write of The Freelancers: The Mercenary (so close... so cloosssseee...) and I really want to finish that before I turn my attention fully to poor Danny and his fetishes :)
Until then... here's a little taste (mwhahaha)
I mean I really really really love my job.
Tomorrow I am hopping on a pimped out tech bus to Austin TX for SXSW. Today I've been finalizing some of the logistics, including sorting through invites to literally HUNDREDS of different parties (OMG The Suicide Girls are having a party? :D :D :D BOOBS!). I've never been to SXSW, so this promises to be an experience that's for sure.
When I get back (and uh... out of rehab by the looks of things) I'll be releasing the first (and maybe second) chapter of Fun With Dick & Shame. How much of that you get depends on how crazy my schedule ends up being in reality. I still have four or five chapters left to write of The Freelancers: The Mercenary (so close... so cloosssseee...) and I really want to finish that before I turn my attention fully to poor Danny and his fetishes :)
Until then... here's a little taste (mwhahaha)
It was fucked up on so many different levels.
They were at a bar … or rather, he was at the bar. She was outside sharing a cigarette with a computer science student in a startup T-shirt. When tech companies started making billions, computer science students stopped looking like geeks and became more and more like scruffy teen heartthrobs. Lanky skater boys with perfectly messed up hair.
She was flirting. Watching it was getting him hard.
So fucked up … so many levels.
February 23, 2013
Racists, Transphobes, Misogynists and Me
Last night I got to take Tyler Dewar of The Freelancers: The Mercenary through a turning point.
I love writing Tyler: he's misogynistic. he's transphobic, he's basically an ass but he desperately wants to be the good guy, which gives him a certain degree of charm. He wants to help people, but usually ends up doing more harm than good.
Fun thing about antiheros: when things get tough there is no outcome that isn't emotionally satisfying. If the antihero suffers it seems to confirm the rightness of the world, they're only getting what they deserve really. If the antihero thrives it plays into the reader's innate desire to be the most clever of all too.
Plus cartoon heros and villains are boring.
But the trouble with writing racist, sexist and otherwise bigoted MCs is that people don't always understand that they are not meant as an endorsement of the flaws you assign to them.
I love Tyler's relationship with his transexual paramour Army. Without it I think it's too easy to assume that Tyler is a good guy. After all, he puts his life at risk to thwart gangsters and government corruption. He cares for the little guy, no life is worth sacrificing for the greater good...
It's only through his relationship with Army that you see that Tyler does these things for completely the wrong reasons. He's controlling, patronizing ... he does good primarily for narcissistic reasons.
So while I really love Tyler and Army ... I'm also really scared of writing them. I think it's clear I'm not trying to advocate transphobia... but I've been surprised before. I thought the flaws of stereotype loving Harry were clear enough to avoid any misunderstandings about The Condor's critique on racism ... errr ... not everyone agreed ^o^
It's probably the hardest part of writing. Dealing with the people who don't like the book are easy ... dealing with the people who completely misunderstand what you're going for are very difficult.
“Army,” he breathed as he was led into the visiting room. He never would have recognized-- The young man that stood when Tyler entered had scarcely left any trace of his former self...
Tyler had never been able to think of Army as a man, but now it was undeniable.
He wanted to hug h-- He didn't know what to do with himself. The invisible chain prison had around his neck jerked him back. No touching.
Probably for the best, he wouldn't be able to keep himself from thinking about where those breasts used to be and how soft and vulnerable the girl he once was--
The girl, his girl.
But the man in front of him could read his mind. Experience made it easy, Tyler supposed. He always knew that as much as Tyler tried to say the right things, the right thoughts weren't in his head and Tyler couldn't make himself think them.
He was a bigot. Quality time with bigots had taught him that. And he wanted to be better he just didn't know how.
“I missed you,” he said.
I love writing Tyler: he's misogynistic. he's transphobic, he's basically an ass but he desperately wants to be the good guy, which gives him a certain degree of charm. He wants to help people, but usually ends up doing more harm than good.
Fun thing about antiheros: when things get tough there is no outcome that isn't emotionally satisfying. If the antihero suffers it seems to confirm the rightness of the world, they're only getting what they deserve really. If the antihero thrives it plays into the reader's innate desire to be the most clever of all too.
Plus cartoon heros and villains are boring.
But the trouble with writing racist, sexist and otherwise bigoted MCs is that people don't always understand that they are not meant as an endorsement of the flaws you assign to them.
I love Tyler's relationship with his transexual paramour Army. Without it I think it's too easy to assume that Tyler is a good guy. After all, he puts his life at risk to thwart gangsters and government corruption. He cares for the little guy, no life is worth sacrificing for the greater good...
It's only through his relationship with Army that you see that Tyler does these things for completely the wrong reasons. He's controlling, patronizing ... he does good primarily for narcissistic reasons.
So while I really love Tyler and Army ... I'm also really scared of writing them. I think it's clear I'm not trying to advocate transphobia... but I've been surprised before. I thought the flaws of stereotype loving Harry were clear enough to avoid any misunderstandings about The Condor's critique on racism ... errr ... not everyone agreed ^o^
It's probably the hardest part of writing. Dealing with the people who don't like the book are easy ... dealing with the people who completely misunderstand what you're going for are very difficult.
February 21, 2013
Alternatives For GayRomLit 2013
Apparently, there's some drama surrounding how GayRomLit is handling space restrictions. I'm still digging through it, but the crux of the dilemma seems to be the event space can only handle 400 people, GayRomLit obviously wants to improve programming by having more readers and more popular writers and as a result has reserved a large percentage of the diminished number of author spots for "must-have" authors.
I followed reports about last year's GayRomLit with religious devotion ... I can't exactly explain why. I think it had something to do with knowing more of the people involved this time around. Blog posts about GayRomLit became sort of like a localized form of TMZ-- "Who did what? at the Loose Id brunch?"-- it was crazy addictive.
I've even toyed with the idea of attending this year ... except for the fact that it may conflict with another conference I might be speaking at (ugh) ... but nothing is set in stone in that regard.
What's particularly amusing about this little controversy is how completely unnecessary it is. A conference doesn't have to be run on a traditional top-down model with a speaker group and a listener group. In fact in our case I think GayRomLit could end up with much more interesting and profitable programming for everyone if it played to the strengths of a niche community.
Because, let's be honest, our big name authors are still big fish swimming in the tiniest shallow puddle of a pond there is. I can't think of anyone with enough pull to convince people who love M/M but weren't planning on going to GayRomLit to shell out a couple hundred and travel cross country for the chance to meet them.
Now, if there's one thing that the tech community knows how to do it's run awesome niche conferences. So there are lessons to be learned by looking beyond the traditional model. Individual M/M authors might not have that pull, but the M/M community certainly does. Here are some models we use in tech that might make for a fun and exciting more reader centric GayRomLit:
The Unconference: An unconference, as its name might suggest, is a conference where the agenda is set by the attendees. Generally what happens is the organizers set up some kind of giant white board in which people scribble down what they would like to talk about and a meeting place/time within the conference. Others interested in that topic join up for a group discussion.
Nowadays very few groups do a pure unconference-- because, as you might assume, they can be very chaotic-- but using elements of an unconference helps build exciting programming when there isn't a big prestige gap between attendee and speaker. (It also helps people meet each other, which is the major drive of any conference really)
Some of the best applications of the unconference model I've seen alternate periods of structure with "break out" periods. So they might have a keynote by some super impressive figure in the community, a few panel discussions, followed by an hour or two of unconference like activity, then maybe another speaker... etc.
Gives people the best of both worlds.
The Request For Proposals: To me, GRL comes off as one giant endless series of promo slots for authors. I hate doing promo work for my books and as a reader I find that very few authors actually have anything interesting to say about their own books (sorry guys). If GRL wants to attract more readers, then it needs to provide content actually interesting to readers.
I believe that GRL knows this and is trying their best to accomplish it ... But personally I think it would be much more fun to step away from the "let me tell you about my book...oh look, there are copies for sale over there!" business and get people discussing M/M. How fun would it be to see a great presentation on the stylistic differences between Japanese M/M and Western M/M? Or to see someone break down popular tropes? Or a panel discussion on slash fanfic -vs- traditionally published M/M? Or a panel of gay men discussing the appeal and accuracy of the genre?
The possibilities are limitless. In the tech world this is generally how we promote ourselves to potential technical customers: we give a talk and include a little plug ("oh by the way I work for this company here...") When the talk is interesting, people buy what you're selling, even when what you're selling had nothing to do with the talk. People like to support awesome with cash. It's true.
It also gives a unique opportunity for readers to talk back to publishers and writers. If there was a well attended discussion on PoC in romance you better believe we would suddenly see a whole lot more writers "inspired" to go that direction. If the conversation we've been having here on GR about how so much M/M is too much pointless sex were to happen with GayRomLit, I'm pretty sure I'd stop seeing requests to add a few more sex scenes to my work from editors.
If GayRomLit is mostly authors and not enough readers, it's because there's nothing really all that interesting about a whole weekend of authors plugging their books. But GayRomLit is also a unique opportunity for writers, readers, reviewers and publishers to meet and collaborate. I believe that is what GRL is intended to be and if it took on a structure that facilitated discussion there would be no need to pre-register "must have" authors in order to create a truly spectacular event.
I followed reports about last year's GayRomLit with religious devotion ... I can't exactly explain why. I think it had something to do with knowing more of the people involved this time around. Blog posts about GayRomLit became sort of like a localized form of TMZ-- "Who did what? at the Loose Id brunch?"-- it was crazy addictive.
I've even toyed with the idea of attending this year ... except for the fact that it may conflict with another conference I might be speaking at (ugh) ... but nothing is set in stone in that regard.
What's particularly amusing about this little controversy is how completely unnecessary it is. A conference doesn't have to be run on a traditional top-down model with a speaker group and a listener group. In fact in our case I think GayRomLit could end up with much more interesting and profitable programming for everyone if it played to the strengths of a niche community.
Because, let's be honest, our big name authors are still big fish swimming in the tiniest shallow puddle of a pond there is. I can't think of anyone with enough pull to convince people who love M/M but weren't planning on going to GayRomLit to shell out a couple hundred and travel cross country for the chance to meet them.
Now, if there's one thing that the tech community knows how to do it's run awesome niche conferences. So there are lessons to be learned by looking beyond the traditional model. Individual M/M authors might not have that pull, but the M/M community certainly does. Here are some models we use in tech that might make for a fun and exciting more reader centric GayRomLit:
The Unconference: An unconference, as its name might suggest, is a conference where the agenda is set by the attendees. Generally what happens is the organizers set up some kind of giant white board in which people scribble down what they would like to talk about and a meeting place/time within the conference. Others interested in that topic join up for a group discussion.
Nowadays very few groups do a pure unconference-- because, as you might assume, they can be very chaotic-- but using elements of an unconference helps build exciting programming when there isn't a big prestige gap between attendee and speaker. (It also helps people meet each other, which is the major drive of any conference really)
Some of the best applications of the unconference model I've seen alternate periods of structure with "break out" periods. So they might have a keynote by some super impressive figure in the community, a few panel discussions, followed by an hour or two of unconference like activity, then maybe another speaker... etc.
Gives people the best of both worlds.
The Request For Proposals: To me, GRL comes off as one giant endless series of promo slots for authors. I hate doing promo work for my books and as a reader I find that very few authors actually have anything interesting to say about their own books (sorry guys). If GRL wants to attract more readers, then it needs to provide content actually interesting to readers.
I believe that GRL knows this and is trying their best to accomplish it ... But personally I think it would be much more fun to step away from the "let me tell you about my book...oh look, there are copies for sale over there!" business and get people discussing M/M. How fun would it be to see a great presentation on the stylistic differences between Japanese M/M and Western M/M? Or to see someone break down popular tropes? Or a panel discussion on slash fanfic -vs- traditionally published M/M? Or a panel of gay men discussing the appeal and accuracy of the genre?
The possibilities are limitless. In the tech world this is generally how we promote ourselves to potential technical customers: we give a talk and include a little plug ("oh by the way I work for this company here...") When the talk is interesting, people buy what you're selling, even when what you're selling had nothing to do with the talk. People like to support awesome with cash. It's true.
It also gives a unique opportunity for readers to talk back to publishers and writers. If there was a well attended discussion on PoC in romance you better believe we would suddenly see a whole lot more writers "inspired" to go that direction. If the conversation we've been having here on GR about how so much M/M is too much pointless sex were to happen with GayRomLit, I'm pretty sure I'd stop seeing requests to add a few more sex scenes to my work from editors.
If GayRomLit is mostly authors and not enough readers, it's because there's nothing really all that interesting about a whole weekend of authors plugging their books. But GayRomLit is also a unique opportunity for writers, readers, reviewers and publishers to meet and collaborate. I believe that is what GRL is intended to be and if it took on a structure that facilitated discussion there would be no need to pre-register "must have" authors in order to create a truly spectacular event.
February 11, 2013
What Is a Romance?
Lately I've been thinking a lot about how I classify the books I write. I actually never thought of myself as a romance writer. I never thought of my books as romance novels until people started calling them that and romance publishers started expressing interest in them. Then I changed my mind about identifying as a romance novelist. I didn't think the fit was perfect, but I felt publishing in a genre while not identifying with that genre would be interpreted the wrong way. Especially with a genre so often kicked around and disrespected.
But as soon as I started publishing books as romance novels, reviewers started commenting on how they weren't romance novels. It's become an endless cycle of frustration: if I say it's not a romance everyone goes "yes it is and you're doing it wrong!" X_X
I don't really care whether my books are classified as romance or not romance, I just want to find an easy way to connect with readers who are looking for the types of books I write and help readers who aren't interested my kind of books decide I'm not for them before they end up disappointed.
Officially Speaking...
Romance is defined as:
So speaks the RWA
In practice though, readers will identify anything with eroticism in it and (especially!) anything with M/M overtones as romance. This is what leaves me in kind of a muddy gray area: because I rarely satisfy either of those two genre requirements perfectly.
The Books
Split Self
Romance... Three MCs enter a sexual relationship together and struggle to balance the dynamic. Happy ending after most of the issues have been worked out and resolved.
Not a Romance... Set up like a love triangle that ends in a menage. Doesn't follow the rules of menage even in that. The MC dates both men separately for most of the book and spends lots of time with other characters not at all connected to the love story. Split Self is essentially a story about parasitic relationships in various shapes and sizes and while it does end happily, there's nothing "unconditional" about their love.
Guttersnipe
Romance... The relationship between two characters who have a lot of sex together is the primary focus.
Not a Romance... However the MCs never fall in love. In fact the book was intended as an FU to the one of the most popular romance tropes: the power of love to change abusive relationships.
The Hockey Series
Romance... MCs spend a lot of time figuring out how to make their relationship work in and out of the closet. Eventually work it all out and live happily (adorably) ever after.
Not a Romance... The first story was written as a sex scene. I originally planned it as a fanfic, but couldn't find two characters I felt fit each role. I had no intention of going any further after the freebie. What got me writing the second book was the You Can Play Project. Although I support challenging the homophobia in the hockey community, the leaders of You Can Play talk about gay athletes as if they are looking for martyrs. Coming out publicly affects more than just one person, it's a personal decision that shouldn't be motivated by political advantages. Especially not political advantages for people other than the person coming out. I wanted to write a coming out story where the coming out was not a positive thing and I also wanted to point out that it's not teammates who's homophobia is the most threatening to gay hockey players. A small group of people have an incredible degree of influence on a player's success or failure, with almost no accountability. Coaches, scouts, trainers, agents, GMs ... all the talent in the world doesn't mean a thing if those people are discriminating against you.
The Condor
Romance... Plot focuses on MC's relationships with love interests. Happily ever after, unconditional love included.
Not a Romance... The relationship that basically becomes true love is only about a third of the book. Much more time is spent on a relationship that is built entirely on lies and false assumptions.
The Freelancers Series
Romance... The desire to be together, and the elements constantly keeping the MCs apart drives the twists and turns of this series.
Not a Romance... Very unlikely to have a happy ending. Plus the MCs spend most of their time apart and true love is slow to develop. For the most part, the MCs want to be together for completely selfish reasons linked to their own personal issues.
Thoughts?
But as soon as I started publishing books as romance novels, reviewers started commenting on how they weren't romance novels. It's become an endless cycle of frustration: if I say it's not a romance everyone goes "yes it is and you're doing it wrong!" X_X
I don't really care whether my books are classified as romance or not romance, I just want to find an easy way to connect with readers who are looking for the types of books I write and help readers who aren't interested my kind of books decide I'm not for them before they end up disappointed.
Officially Speaking...
Romance is defined as:
Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending.
A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. A writer can include as many subplots as he/she wants as long as the love story is the main focus of the novel.
An Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love.
So speaks the RWA
In practice though, readers will identify anything with eroticism in it and (especially!) anything with M/M overtones as romance. This is what leaves me in kind of a muddy gray area: because I rarely satisfy either of those two genre requirements perfectly.
The Books
Split Self
Romance... Three MCs enter a sexual relationship together and struggle to balance the dynamic. Happy ending after most of the issues have been worked out and resolved.
Not a Romance... Set up like a love triangle that ends in a menage. Doesn't follow the rules of menage even in that. The MC dates both men separately for most of the book and spends lots of time with other characters not at all connected to the love story. Split Self is essentially a story about parasitic relationships in various shapes and sizes and while it does end happily, there's nothing "unconditional" about their love.
Guttersnipe
Romance... The relationship between two characters who have a lot of sex together is the primary focus.
Not a Romance... However the MCs never fall in love. In fact the book was intended as an FU to the one of the most popular romance tropes: the power of love to change abusive relationships.
The Hockey Series
Romance... MCs spend a lot of time figuring out how to make their relationship work in and out of the closet. Eventually work it all out and live happily (adorably) ever after.
Not a Romance... The first story was written as a sex scene. I originally planned it as a fanfic, but couldn't find two characters I felt fit each role. I had no intention of going any further after the freebie. What got me writing the second book was the You Can Play Project. Although I support challenging the homophobia in the hockey community, the leaders of You Can Play talk about gay athletes as if they are looking for martyrs. Coming out publicly affects more than just one person, it's a personal decision that shouldn't be motivated by political advantages. Especially not political advantages for people other than the person coming out. I wanted to write a coming out story where the coming out was not a positive thing and I also wanted to point out that it's not teammates who's homophobia is the most threatening to gay hockey players. A small group of people have an incredible degree of influence on a player's success or failure, with almost no accountability. Coaches, scouts, trainers, agents, GMs ... all the talent in the world doesn't mean a thing if those people are discriminating against you.
The Condor
Romance... Plot focuses on MC's relationships with love interests. Happily ever after, unconditional love included.
Not a Romance... The relationship that basically becomes true love is only about a third of the book. Much more time is spent on a relationship that is built entirely on lies and false assumptions.
The Freelancers Series
Romance... The desire to be together, and the elements constantly keeping the MCs apart drives the twists and turns of this series.
Not a Romance... Very unlikely to have a happy ending. Plus the MCs spend most of their time apart and true love is slow to develop. For the most part, the MCs want to be together for completely selfish reasons linked to their own personal issues.
Thoughts?
January 28, 2013
The Dog Has Eaten My Bisexual Action Hero
I set myself up with a pretty insane writing schedule these last few month. In November I wrote Lords of the Gutter, basically in two and a half weeks. In December I wrote Tinsel Is Like Bondage For Trees in only slightly more time. Both projects ran way way over their estimated word count @_@ Both met their deadlines.
This month the project was The Freelancers: The Mercenary and unfortunately this one is not going to meet its deadline :( I've hit a good pace with it... I'm probably about half way done. I really really like the plot so far :D
But I've been busy with work and lingering logistics from my move last month, which has seriously cut into my writing time. Add to that the fact that-- despite my best attempts to make this my no-fucks-given project-- the Freelancer's series is very detail-oriented. I keep getting sidetracked researching completely obscure things *lol*
Anyway ... to tide you over, here's a little preview :)
This month the project was The Freelancers: The Mercenary and unfortunately this one is not going to meet its deadline :( I've hit a good pace with it... I'm probably about half way done. I really really like the plot so far :D
But I've been busy with work and lingering logistics from my move last month, which has seriously cut into my writing time. Add to that the fact that-- despite my best attempts to make this my no-fucks-given project-- the Freelancer's series is very detail-oriented. I keep getting sidetracked researching completely obscure things *lol*
Anyway ... to tide you over, here's a little preview :)
Moscow was constantly sprouting off buds, growing like a weed over its own bones, regenerating, redividing. It was different from when Yuri was a child; different even from the last time he'd been here. And yet still unquestioningly Russian in all it manifestations.
As a person with many manifestations himself, Yuri could appreciate that. The remarkable consistency of Russian aesthetics-- aristocracy with a touch of starvation-- was a model he had the outmost respect for. His own multiplicity did not have much in aesthetics. His only constants were violence and deception.
The door to Ake's shitty dive bar swung open. A burst of cool air, unaffected the humidity of summer, wrapped around yet another belligerent low level mobster, gambler, or common drunk. Barely worth a polite acknowledgement. Even as the footsteps came ever closer and Yuri could see the toes of the man's boots.
Mm. Yuri's eyes were watery, the edges felt sticky, but through the fog of drunkenness he could still make a few easy deductions. Not mafia, even low level. Those were not shoes you could buy in any Russian store and they were not nice enough to bother importing.
Foreigner. And Yuri understood what that meant. He pulled himself up the rolled his head back and forth, hoping to project the right image of himself-- aloof, slovenly, not worth the trouble to mess with.
Then his eyes settled on the face and he knew all was lost.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Wreford?”
Beckett Wreford was an Australian arms dealer. Not a friend, sometimes an ally, usually a useful source of potential employment. Yuri was in the business of matchmaking between those in the know and those who wished to be in the know, between spies and informants. Wreford was in the business of arming one side with kickbacks from the other. Their interests were sometimes aligned.
But right now … Yuri was on sabbatical. No more spy games. No more crime rings. He was going to spend at least half of his savings on alcohol until he was either over Tyler Dewar or his liver gave out.
It seemed like a good idea. Wreford would only screw it up.
The arms dealer took off his hat, made a show of wiping his brow and frowned at the label-less taps sticking up in front of him like a row of carnival levers. “Any of these worth drinking?” he asked.
“No. Go away.”
If only it was that simple.
Wreford shifted his weight, pretend to study what he might have thought was a menu written on the wall but was actually a list of most recent sports results scribble out in chalk. He spared Yuri only a glance, which Yuri supposed was to make him feel small and irrelevant. “Well then...” Wreford turned to Akim Kubanovich and ordered a whiskey in Russian that made Yuri flinch. The old bartender replied they had none left, but naturally that wasn't part of the conversation on whatever shit Berlitz tape the arms dealer had been studying.
Wreford ignored his own ignorance and sat down. Obviously he was not going away.
“Whatever it is, I'm not interested,” Yuri grunted.
From the corner of his eye he could see the staged surprise. “Maybe I just came to see you?”
“Fuck off.” The longer Yuri stayed here, the more comfortable his face pressed to the bar top became. If only the rippling weak vowels of Australian accent would go away Yuri might actually be able to pass out.
“Dear friend, dear Yuri … I heard you were in a sad state and I couldn't keep my feelings to myself anymore. I know how you are. I know what you like. I know what you've longed for all your life. Now it's time to confess what I've been wondering since we met, when are you going to take me home with you?”
...wut?
Yuri lifted his head off the bar and glared until Wreford's image came back into focus. Was it was worth the effort to threaten Beckett Wreford's life? The man wasn't gay. Not even close. The barrel end of Yuri's Makarov digging into his thigh should put an end to anymore cute, teasing references to his sexuality.
“Sorry?” he said instead. He was drunk, his aim would be shit. He would intend to blow off Wreford's balls and instead put a hole in his head. Tragedy. Ake's beautiful new floor would be ruined again.
When he looked back up there was something stuck in Wreford's mouth. Dark brown, it bounced up and down like a conductor's baton as he muttered. It took a shrug and a gesture to the glowing end of Yuri's cigarette for Yuri to figure out what it was. Wreford was looking for a light.
Yuri almost handed it over to him. Then he thought better of it and leaned in, glowing orange embers offered up only if Wreford dared get close enough. A sort of noxious kiss, the tips of their cigarettes pressing up against one another while they both breathed heavily in each other's faces.
“You bastard.” Wreford laughed, pulling away and belching a huge cloud of smoke that smelled like incense. “Can't take a joke, can you?”
“Maybe I just don't appreciate your sense of humor?”
“And after I took great care to track you down.”
Yes, back to that. What did an arms dealer want with him? Surely some people found Yuri's skill useful, but few found him useful enough to search for specifically--
Tyler was such a person. The thought of it made Yuri sad. He shot back the rest of his gin and pretended the tears on the edges of his eyes was just from the irritation of hard liquor.
It worked, Wreford grunted at old man Ake “I'll have one of those.”
And then, he seemed to lose interest in his flirtation. “I'll pay you good money.”
“To take you home with me?” Yuri drew a throatful of smoke in and held it as he pondered this shift in conversation. Not even Wreford would carry a tasteless joke this far. “I'm not that type of guy.”
“Ah, but I need the type of guy you are. How else am I going to navigate Kolbasna?”
Kolbasna… of course. So that was it. Not home, home. Transnistria. Kolbasna, a tiny town close to the Ukrainian border. Barely a spec on the population map. No sports teams of worth. No tourist attractions. Only one thing of interest at all.
“You want to raid the old Soviet weapons depot,” Yuri concluded.
“Not raid, raid sounds so violent. I have a deal there: six surface to air missiles, twenty assault rifles perhaps more. You never know what surprises these bureaucrat-gangsters throw in when you buy in bulk. Easy deal, but I've never dealt directly in Transnistria and I'd feel better having a local with me.”
“No way.” Yuri had not been a local in a very long time. And those streets … the memory of the war had solidified in his mind. If he saw those roads without bodies would he feel like something was missing?
A return would be surreal, philosophical, heart breaking … all the things Yuri didn't want anymore.
“And why not?” Wreford said. “When was the last time you visited mommy? She must miss you so badly.”
“My mother is dead.”
If he expected Wreford to be shamed by the faux pas, he was deluding himself. Men that sell AK-47s to child soldiers shake off minor breaches in etiquette like dead leaves. “Her grave then,” Wreford grunted.
“I don't know where that is, if it exists at all.”
“Perfect. You can go find it. The deal will take only a day or two to complete. Plenty of time to catch up and trace your roots.”
No. His answer was no. As much as he had once wanted to know what had become of his parents-- As much as he had hoped Anton would come back with news... those days were gone. He had buried his need for closure at Anton's funeral.
His parents were dead, his guardian and mentor was dead, his lover was far away serving a life sentence in an American prison. A romantic fantasy of undoing trauma of wars in his past was not going to improve anything about his future.
Beckett Wreford could go to hell.
January 16, 2013
I'm a Freak
Some years ago, back when I was a teenager, my doctor remarked off hand during an exam, "You know, your eyes are getting better."
I was born with terrible vision. The classic Coke bottles look, cross-eyed, the works. I am farsighted so I've never had a problem seeing without my glasses in the sense that I can wander around and not bump into things, but my eyes cross when my glasses are off which can make my vision a bit funky and of course I can't read :/
Well I've been putting off getting a new contacts prescription forever because I wear +5/+5.75 daily disposables. My current glasses are actually +5/+6 but (at the time at least) nobody carried disposable contacts higher than +5.75. So when I realized I was struggling to see with my +5/+6 pair I knew that I might have to go back to the world of soft contacts (NOOOO!!!!!)
Yesterday I finally sucked it up and went to the eye doctor. I've been squinting all the time, which is a terribly unattractive look really. Unavoidable. I need new glasses.
I tested at +4.5/+5 ... I didn't need a stronger prescription at all. I needed a WEAKER one @_@
Funny thing is, during the exam the doctor ever so casually said "You're lucky you weren't cross eyed as a child."
To which I replied "O.o.... uh, I was-- wait a minute I am ... as far as I know. @_@"
"Hmmm..." said the doctor, like he didn't quite believe me.
Later that night I took out my new contacts and stared in the mirror .... sure enough the eye doesn't cross anymore @____@
Just before I left the doctor's office he said "...And you've never had eye surgery, right?"
It appears, for some reason no one can quite figure out, my vision is getting better as I age instead of worse. This is not unusual with nearsighted people because most people tend to get more farsighted as they age ... but for farsighted people things are only supposed to get worse.
Except they're not.
My new prescription is weird. I feel naked somehow. I can see but everything feels more open and clear. The difference between my vision with my glasses off and with them on used to be so dramatic. From a psychological point of view the stronger lens provided a sense of security. A feeling of "Now I can see" ... I guess it will just take time to get used to the reality that I can actually see much better this way @_@
I just wish I knew why this was happening. There are a number of alarming explanations of improved vision in farsighted people, none of them good ... the scariest of which is diabetes, but best I can tell those types of vision improvements are sudden, dramatic and short-lived. Not a gradual improvement over years...
I was born with terrible vision. The classic Coke bottles look, cross-eyed, the works. I am farsighted so I've never had a problem seeing without my glasses in the sense that I can wander around and not bump into things, but my eyes cross when my glasses are off which can make my vision a bit funky and of course I can't read :/
Well I've been putting off getting a new contacts prescription forever because I wear +5/+5.75 daily disposables. My current glasses are actually +5/+6 but (at the time at least) nobody carried disposable contacts higher than +5.75. So when I realized I was struggling to see with my +5/+6 pair I knew that I might have to go back to the world of soft contacts (NOOOO!!!!!)
Yesterday I finally sucked it up and went to the eye doctor. I've been squinting all the time, which is a terribly unattractive look really. Unavoidable. I need new glasses.
I tested at +4.5/+5 ... I didn't need a stronger prescription at all. I needed a WEAKER one @_@
Funny thing is, during the exam the doctor ever so casually said "You're lucky you weren't cross eyed as a child."
To which I replied "O.o.... uh, I was-- wait a minute I am ... as far as I know. @_@"
"Hmmm..." said the doctor, like he didn't quite believe me.
Later that night I took out my new contacts and stared in the mirror .... sure enough the eye doesn't cross anymore @____@
Just before I left the doctor's office he said "...And you've never had eye surgery, right?"
It appears, for some reason no one can quite figure out, my vision is getting better as I age instead of worse. This is not unusual with nearsighted people because most people tend to get more farsighted as they age ... but for farsighted people things are only supposed to get worse.
Except they're not.
My new prescription is weird. I feel naked somehow. I can see but everything feels more open and clear. The difference between my vision with my glasses off and with them on used to be so dramatic. From a psychological point of view the stronger lens provided a sense of security. A feeling of "Now I can see" ... I guess it will just take time to get used to the reality that I can actually see much better this way @_@
I just wish I knew why this was happening. There are a number of alarming explanations of improved vision in farsighted people, none of them good ... the scariest of which is diabetes, but best I can tell those types of vision improvements are sudden, dramatic and short-lived. Not a gradual improvement over years...
December 30, 2012
2012: The Year I Got Everything
A month or two ago my horoscope included a rather strange comment. "Very soon," it said. "You will need to set new goals for yourself because you will have accomplished everything you wanted to."
"Not hardly!" I thought. But then a few weeks later I realized it was kind of true. Sure I'm not ridiculously rich or famous ... but did I ever really want to be either of those things? I had reached the level of income where money-to-happiness ratio peaks, more money would be nice in a rose colored glasses fantasy world, but in the words of the immortal BIG: Mo' money, mo' problems.
I have reached a level of "fame" professionally that gives me a sense of security. Enough people know me and admire my work for me to find a new situation if (God forbid) my current job disappears.
I have also, in my mind, reached that "just right" level with writing fame. I'm no big shot, but then I've never wanted to be either. I had the privilege of being a big-fucking-deal in microcosm ages ago. I hate it. It was isolating, the mindless praise of fangirls made me more insecure instead of less, my prone-to-hyperbole-and-snark style made me a target of constant criticism, under the pressure I behaved like a miserable brat because I was miserable. I hated being the big shot. I have no desire to do it again.
Right now my status is perfect: I have a core group of fans who are extremely supportive yet also opinionated. They have no problems telling me when they don't like what I've put out ... and while sometimes that does hurt it makes their praise all the more enjoyable. I don't actually want any more fame (although I probably won't have a choice in this either way ... thrown a snowball down the mountain here ^_^;;;)
As the new year approaches I've been thinking about accomplishment. We define success based on the maximum level achievable. We expect people to aim for the top. People aren't supposed to set goals for the midlist, even if the midlist is what would make most of us the happiest.
When I read that horoscope it was already true-- I already had achieved everything I wanted to-- but it took time to see it because I was too busy looking ahead instead of stopping and checking out where I was now. We tend to visualize advancement as a mountain ... but what if what's at the top is not what we assume? We think we're going one step further by being just a little more successful, making just a little more money ... but maybe we're just gradually taking steps down, further away from the things we wanted to achieve in the first place.
Food for thought. Happy New Year everyone :D
"Not hardly!" I thought. But then a few weeks later I realized it was kind of true. Sure I'm not ridiculously rich or famous ... but did I ever really want to be either of those things? I had reached the level of income where money-to-happiness ratio peaks, more money would be nice in a rose colored glasses fantasy world, but in the words of the immortal BIG: Mo' money, mo' problems.
I have reached a level of "fame" professionally that gives me a sense of security. Enough people know me and admire my work for me to find a new situation if (God forbid) my current job disappears.
I have also, in my mind, reached that "just right" level with writing fame. I'm no big shot, but then I've never wanted to be either. I had the privilege of being a big-fucking-deal in microcosm ages ago. I hate it. It was isolating, the mindless praise of fangirls made me more insecure instead of less, my prone-to-hyperbole-and-snark style made me a target of constant criticism, under the pressure I behaved like a miserable brat because I was miserable. I hated being the big shot. I have no desire to do it again.
Right now my status is perfect: I have a core group of fans who are extremely supportive yet also opinionated. They have no problems telling me when they don't like what I've put out ... and while sometimes that does hurt it makes their praise all the more enjoyable. I don't actually want any more fame (although I probably won't have a choice in this either way ... thrown a snowball down the mountain here ^_^;;;)
As the new year approaches I've been thinking about accomplishment. We define success based on the maximum level achievable. We expect people to aim for the top. People aren't supposed to set goals for the midlist, even if the midlist is what would make most of us the happiest.
When I read that horoscope it was already true-- I already had achieved everything I wanted to-- but it took time to see it because I was too busy looking ahead instead of stopping and checking out where I was now. We tend to visualize advancement as a mountain ... but what if what's at the top is not what we assume? We think we're going one step further by being just a little more successful, making just a little more money ... but maybe we're just gradually taking steps down, further away from the things we wanted to achieve in the first place.
Food for thought. Happy New Year everyone :D
December 23, 2012
Isa's Pompous Plotbunny-Propogating Primer to Polyamory
As a poly-inclined person there's no trope more intolerable to me than the menage. While romance readers are usually all for the occasional bit of realism to offset their sugary fantasies there seems to be virtually no market for novels true to poly lifestyle ... because no one is even attempting to write them. (And before you say "So write one yourself, Isa" I did :p But this isn't about promoting my own attempts... look for the cover with three naked people on it if you're curious *snort*)
Like BDSM and rape/capture fantasies, writers seem to be laboring under the delusion that in order to write satisfying menage they have to depict poly lifestyle as perfect, without flaw, without downside, based on pure love and complete union. In doing so they force their characters into situations that are the exact opposite of what polyamory is about. I'm not sure if this fantasy appeals to rubbernecking monogamists, but it certainly does not appeal to polys.
So, without further ado, allow me to sprinkle little seeds of inspiration in your heads. Because realistic poly makes for some good romance if you will only let it.
Poly Is Not About Sex
It's an easy, understandable misconception. The only reason to have multiple sex partners is to multiply your sex life. But, in my experience, most poly people don't really have that much more sex than non-polys ... at least not for an extended period of time. Do some of us go through periods where we sleep around? Sure, but then so do many monogamists. A girl can spend a few years acting like the town bicycle and still in her heart-of-hearts want to get married and settle down with one partner. Likewise a girl can spend years completely and totally celibate and still in her heart-of-hearts imagine herself having a few regular partners.
Most poly people are not looking for more sex. Rather poly people tend to be loners, we tend to be fiercely independent. The idea of having one person who is to be your sole source of affection and intimacy while you are likewise obligated to support his/her emotional health completely gives poly people hives. But that's the reality of modern relationships. People don't really live in communities anymore. They get married, they become couples and they isolate themselves inside that traditional family unit ... sometimes losing friends and interests outside of that relationship. Nowadays people look to their significant others to be the lover, the best friend, the therapist, the cheerleader, the everything.
Monogamists find that idea romantic and reassuring. Poly people find that idea threatening and a little insane.
Love and Like
Yes, we do love all our partners the same (well the ones we're in love with that is), but that doesn't mean what most people seem to assume it means. Love, particularly in romance novels, tends to get sold packaged up with all these other emotions and affectations. Therefore in menage stories every partner must be 100% equal. One partner can't be more desired than another, one partner can't be more amusing than another, you must always have exactly the same level of closeness and intimacy with all your partners or else someone is getting left out and the relationship is a sham!
But the reality is NO relationship-- be it monogamous or polyamorous-- stays constant like that. Feelings and preferences wax and wane. Think of it like this: which one of your parents do you love more?
For most people the answer is "I love them both the same" ... oh sure there are periods when your dad might piss you off or moments when you're sick of your mom nagging you. And at the time you may feel closer to one than you do to the other ... but those feelings shift and fade as life goes on. No matter how many times your mom embarrasses you with baby pictures, you still love her.
Real poly relationship are like that. At any given moment I may feel closer to one partner than another. I may want to spent more time with him and less time with the other. But that doesn't mean I have "chosen" Partner A over Partner B. I still love Partner B, I still want him in my life. And it's not as if my partners are standing around waiting for me to decide to like them best either. Sometimes they're really not that into me. Doesn't mean they want out.
In truth, poly relationships shift ... and yes, sometimes it's YOU who's left without a seat when the music stops. That's part of the reason why polys tend to be loners. We don't mind this idea. Actually we're usually all for it, because we understand that it's temporary. Eventually the music starts up again and you're no longer the one left out.
Polys Date Other Polys
I can't sell polyamory to a person who wants the fixings of monogamy deep down. If you want that one constant exclusive romantic relationship then you are a monogamist. Nothing wrong with being a monogamist. Some polys, in an attempt to get their lifestyle choices accepted, will throw around a bunch of bullshit about poly being a more enlightened frame of mind because real love shouldn't be about owning a person blah~blah~blah~ I don't believe that poly is right for everyone ... actually I would say that poly is wrong for 99.99999% of people.
So perhaps the most annoying thing about menage stories is that the characters are almost always monogamists. Deep down they want the all encompassing love story. They come into their poly-union and try to make it monogamy with few more people. There is no such thing as "Poly for you" ... monogamists who try to live poly in order to make a partner happy end up heartbroken.<-Period.
Poly Structures
Because the community is so small, there is no standard arrangement for poly people. Some people prefer complete independence with a regular stable of lovers who will never move in, never make a life together.
Others (like myself) enjoy nesting with a partner whose routine is most compatible with her/his own while taking on other relationships that might be as simple as close friendship but might also occasionally be sexual.
There are no rules. Like all relationships you have to be mindful of the boundaries and comfort levels of the people you're entering the relationship with. In my case I do not care whether my partners have other partners. When they do I like to be friendly with the other partners, but sometimes that doesn't happen. No biggie. For health reasons I like to keep a pretty closed circle, meaning that I prefer to have only one relationship that's sexually active at a time instead of assigning lovers days or going through some kind of weird rotation @_@ In a perfect world without STDs and unwanted pregnancies I would probably feel differently about that-- it's not a big deal if someone has two sex partners concurrently-- but it's just easier to be safer when the network of fluid swapping is as small as possible.
This isn't nearly as difficult or as complicated as it may sound because, like I said in the beginning, poly people don't really have that much more sex than monogamists. I have had some incredibly deep and romantic relationships with people who never once touched me sexually ... those are really rather nice actually. You shake all the body image neuroses that fretting over desirability creates and can enjoy the people as people.
So if you're open to the possibility that sex (or wanting to have sex) is not to be used to gauge the health of a romance, poly relationships are totally doable.
And Yet... Nothing Lasts Forever
I would be remiss if I didn't point out one other thing: poly relationships do tend to be transient. The lifestyle can be forever, the individual affairs tend not to be.
Confused monogamists and worried family members are always quick to point this out as a reason why polyamory doesn't work. Polys are equally quick to retort that with worldwide divorce rates as high as 60%, monogamy is no guarantee of happiness.
In the end, the temporary nature of poly relationships is usually just a matter of logistics. You can move to another country for a lover, but it's harder when that partner is not the only person in the picture. The advantages of having a "primary" (that is a central relationship where you share a home, finances, children, etc) get more and more attractive and convenient as you get older. Poly relationships are much more fluid than monogamous ones, sometimes that means people grow apart.
How to Write Poly
Yes, I know! You want your fantasy, you want your HEA. As a poly person I'm willing to accept a certain degree of "unicorn-ness". That is to say, polyamorous relationships where everybody is in love with everyone else aren't particularly realistic (unicorn polyamory) but that's the part of the menage fantasy that is appealing to us poly people. I mean ... especially since I'm a lover of hot man on man sex :D It would be really awesome if my partners *cough* got along like that. So you can actually write a realistic, compelling menage and still keep your true love perfect-unit-of-three escapism, you just have to tweak your approach slightly.
Think of it as a love triangle with a different ending. Give the MC time to build a relationship and intimacy with each partner. Don't be afraid to make one relationship more passionate and one more comfortable and dependable. Don't assume that the love interests must immediately accept one another, a little tension can be nice.
Never lose sight of your selfishness, use your selfishness as your guide. People do not enter into relationships for altruistic reasons. They enter into relationships for what the relationship can offer them. If you write a menage we should have a clear idea of what each partner brings to the table and what each one is getting out of it. Too often I find myself reading menage stories that feel like the whole relationship is built around worshipping the MC ... that's not the fantasy you imagine it to be. It's actually kind of tiresome to read >.> There should be some sense of why the love interests want to be in a relationship with the MC, why this arrangement works for them.
Ultimately, don't be afraid of imbalances. All partners do not have to be equal in order for all relationships to be equal. And to be frank, sometimes the most interesting aspect of the story are the politics and dynamics between the various relationships.
Like BDSM and rape/capture fantasies, writers seem to be laboring under the delusion that in order to write satisfying menage they have to depict poly lifestyle as perfect, without flaw, without downside, based on pure love and complete union. In doing so they force their characters into situations that are the exact opposite of what polyamory is about. I'm not sure if this fantasy appeals to rubbernecking monogamists, but it certainly does not appeal to polys.
So, without further ado, allow me to sprinkle little seeds of inspiration in your heads. Because realistic poly makes for some good romance if you will only let it.
Poly Is Not About Sex
It's an easy, understandable misconception. The only reason to have multiple sex partners is to multiply your sex life. But, in my experience, most poly people don't really have that much more sex than non-polys ... at least not for an extended period of time. Do some of us go through periods where we sleep around? Sure, but then so do many monogamists. A girl can spend a few years acting like the town bicycle and still in her heart-of-hearts want to get married and settle down with one partner. Likewise a girl can spend years completely and totally celibate and still in her heart-of-hearts imagine herself having a few regular partners.
Most poly people are not looking for more sex. Rather poly people tend to be loners, we tend to be fiercely independent. The idea of having one person who is to be your sole source of affection and intimacy while you are likewise obligated to support his/her emotional health completely gives poly people hives. But that's the reality of modern relationships. People don't really live in communities anymore. They get married, they become couples and they isolate themselves inside that traditional family unit ... sometimes losing friends and interests outside of that relationship. Nowadays people look to their significant others to be the lover, the best friend, the therapist, the cheerleader, the everything.
Monogamists find that idea romantic and reassuring. Poly people find that idea threatening and a little insane.
Love and Like
Yes, we do love all our partners the same (well the ones we're in love with that is), but that doesn't mean what most people seem to assume it means. Love, particularly in romance novels, tends to get sold packaged up with all these other emotions and affectations. Therefore in menage stories every partner must be 100% equal. One partner can't be more desired than another, one partner can't be more amusing than another, you must always have exactly the same level of closeness and intimacy with all your partners or else someone is getting left out and the relationship is a sham!
But the reality is NO relationship-- be it monogamous or polyamorous-- stays constant like that. Feelings and preferences wax and wane. Think of it like this: which one of your parents do you love more?
For most people the answer is "I love them both the same" ... oh sure there are periods when your dad might piss you off or moments when you're sick of your mom nagging you. And at the time you may feel closer to one than you do to the other ... but those feelings shift and fade as life goes on. No matter how many times your mom embarrasses you with baby pictures, you still love her.
Real poly relationship are like that. At any given moment I may feel closer to one partner than another. I may want to spent more time with him and less time with the other. But that doesn't mean I have "chosen" Partner A over Partner B. I still love Partner B, I still want him in my life. And it's not as if my partners are standing around waiting for me to decide to like them best either. Sometimes they're really not that into me. Doesn't mean they want out.
In truth, poly relationships shift ... and yes, sometimes it's YOU who's left without a seat when the music stops. That's part of the reason why polys tend to be loners. We don't mind this idea. Actually we're usually all for it, because we understand that it's temporary. Eventually the music starts up again and you're no longer the one left out.
Polys Date Other Polys
I can't sell polyamory to a person who wants the fixings of monogamy deep down. If you want that one constant exclusive romantic relationship then you are a monogamist. Nothing wrong with being a monogamist. Some polys, in an attempt to get their lifestyle choices accepted, will throw around a bunch of bullshit about poly being a more enlightened frame of mind because real love shouldn't be about owning a person blah~blah~blah~ I don't believe that poly is right for everyone ... actually I would say that poly is wrong for 99.99999% of people.
So perhaps the most annoying thing about menage stories is that the characters are almost always monogamists. Deep down they want the all encompassing love story. They come into their poly-union and try to make it monogamy with few more people. There is no such thing as "Poly for you" ... monogamists who try to live poly in order to make a partner happy end up heartbroken.<-Period.
Poly Structures
Because the community is so small, there is no standard arrangement for poly people. Some people prefer complete independence with a regular stable of lovers who will never move in, never make a life together.
Others (like myself) enjoy nesting with a partner whose routine is most compatible with her/his own while taking on other relationships that might be as simple as close friendship but might also occasionally be sexual.
There are no rules. Like all relationships you have to be mindful of the boundaries and comfort levels of the people you're entering the relationship with. In my case I do not care whether my partners have other partners. When they do I like to be friendly with the other partners, but sometimes that doesn't happen. No biggie. For health reasons I like to keep a pretty closed circle, meaning that I prefer to have only one relationship that's sexually active at a time instead of assigning lovers days or going through some kind of weird rotation @_@ In a perfect world without STDs and unwanted pregnancies I would probably feel differently about that-- it's not a big deal if someone has two sex partners concurrently-- but it's just easier to be safer when the network of fluid swapping is as small as possible.
This isn't nearly as difficult or as complicated as it may sound because, like I said in the beginning, poly people don't really have that much more sex than monogamists. I have had some incredibly deep and romantic relationships with people who never once touched me sexually ... those are really rather nice actually. You shake all the body image neuroses that fretting over desirability creates and can enjoy the people as people.
So if you're open to the possibility that sex (or wanting to have sex) is not to be used to gauge the health of a romance, poly relationships are totally doable.
And Yet... Nothing Lasts Forever
I would be remiss if I didn't point out one other thing: poly relationships do tend to be transient. The lifestyle can be forever, the individual affairs tend not to be.
Confused monogamists and worried family members are always quick to point this out as a reason why polyamory doesn't work. Polys are equally quick to retort that with worldwide divorce rates as high as 60%, monogamy is no guarantee of happiness.
In the end, the temporary nature of poly relationships is usually just a matter of logistics. You can move to another country for a lover, but it's harder when that partner is not the only person in the picture. The advantages of having a "primary" (that is a central relationship where you share a home, finances, children, etc) get more and more attractive and convenient as you get older. Poly relationships are much more fluid than monogamous ones, sometimes that means people grow apart.
How to Write Poly
Yes, I know! You want your fantasy, you want your HEA. As a poly person I'm willing to accept a certain degree of "unicorn-ness". That is to say, polyamorous relationships where everybody is in love with everyone else aren't particularly realistic (unicorn polyamory) but that's the part of the menage fantasy that is appealing to us poly people. I mean ... especially since I'm a lover of hot man on man sex :D It would be really awesome if my partners *cough* got along like that. So you can actually write a realistic, compelling menage and still keep your true love perfect-unit-of-three escapism, you just have to tweak your approach slightly.
Think of it as a love triangle with a different ending. Give the MC time to build a relationship and intimacy with each partner. Don't be afraid to make one relationship more passionate and one more comfortable and dependable. Don't assume that the love interests must immediately accept one another, a little tension can be nice.
Never lose sight of your selfishness, use your selfishness as your guide. People do not enter into relationships for altruistic reasons. They enter into relationships for what the relationship can offer them. If you write a menage we should have a clear idea of what each partner brings to the table and what each one is getting out of it. Too often I find myself reading menage stories that feel like the whole relationship is built around worshipping the MC ... that's not the fantasy you imagine it to be. It's actually kind of tiresome to read >.> There should be some sense of why the love interests want to be in a relationship with the MC, why this arrangement works for them.
Ultimately, don't be afraid of imbalances. All partners do not have to be equal in order for all relationships to be equal. And to be frank, sometimes the most interesting aspect of the story are the politics and dynamics between the various relationships.
December 19, 2012
I'm Not Your Girlfriend
The other day I got to thinking about how I started reviewing on GR. This was back when I was working in publishing tech, so I was at BEA gathering piles of ARCs. One of these was The Night Circus, which I picked up just before I went to cocktail party where I was stopped a couple of times by various agents and editors who had bid on the book. They all told me how wonderful it was. Oh they wished they could be me! Discover it all over again!
Intrigued, I started it on the train ride home. About thirty pages in my first reaction was ".....Really?"
I hated it. I really really hated it. I thought to myself "Oh my God this book is terrible...." and suddenly felt compelled to share my opinion with others. So I logged on to my much neglected GR account and posted a review.
Shortly after, all these YA people who had also hated The Night Circus starting friending me and reviewing became a lot of fun. I started moving through my pile of BEA freebies (We the Animals - better than the hype, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick - okay but poorly researched, Daughter of Smoke & Bone - 1st part Great! 2nd part okay), reading with a mind for later discussion. It wasn't enough to like or dislike a book, I had to figure out a way to express what it was I liked or disliked so that I could talk about these things with others.
Then M/M Romance announced a new reading challenge game: Bingo. I read the rules, it sounded like it could be fun. I signed up. Immediately my Bingo group started comparing reads to see how similar all our tastes were. Except I had no M/M shelved ... no M/M reviews... actually I hadn't really read any M/M. I was strictly a slash fanfiction/doujinshi sort of girl. "Get with the program, Isa" my group told me ... and while I originally planned to post my reviews just on the Bingo thread, I soon found myself having too much fun reading books, picking them apart for better or worse and discussing them with my team.
Since then I have had a lot of fun, met a lot of awesome people, been introduced to some amazing books and to some less than amazing ones, had fun celebrating the good and way more fun poking fun at the bad, but I've also had authors post nasty things about me to their fans: that I'm an attention seeking self-promoter targeting big name authors, that I'm prejudiced against them because of their orientation one way or another, that I'm a troll because I bought their book with my own money and expected to be able to tell my friends what I thought about it. Every word I've posted has been analyzed for hidden meanings like people listening to records backwards for Satanic verses @_@ If I hate a book it's a personal attack on the author, if I love a book, well obviously I am just being passive aggressive and sarcastic...
So, if you haven't noticed, I'm no longer doing public reviews. I'm going to keep on posting public status updates-- because I enjoy them and those seem to be free of drama-- but all my reviews will be private.
What's interesting to me about what's happened in the last couple months is that ... it's never the authors whose work I hate who troll me. There are a couple popular M/M writers that I've made no secret my opinion of ... and often that opinion is so harsh I would not blame them for vowing revenge.
Those are never the people who go after me.
Instead the authors who cause the most drama tend to be authors I like .... as in I've given them a few glowing reviews. And then at some point I pick a book with their name on the cover and find myself less than impressed. It happens. There is no writer on the planet whose every release is consistently brilliant.
And perhaps since I have an author account myself it's not my place to say what should be said here but I feel like someone has to...
Authors, I'm not your girlfriend .
I expect unconditional love from significant others. I expect my boyfriend to look past my flaws and cherish the real me. I expect my boyfriend to defend me and be on my side even when I'm completely out of line. I do not, nor should any writer, expect that from readers. A reader is not a boyfriend or a girlfriend.
I am not your girlfriend. I am not here to stroke your ego for all eternity just because we had that one great hook up over that M/M Erotic Mystery you published three years ago. I am not going to be faithful to you. I will cheat on you with other authors, even authors you hate because-- hello-- I am not your girlfriend, you have no right to ask for that kind of loyalty.
That being said, I'm still out of the reviewing game. It's just not worth it anymore. The drama itself doesn't bother me but the reality of these things is that drama is never about just two people. People who are friends with me are also friends with the authors who misbehave. M/M is not like other genres where big time authors hit bestseller lists and get book deals from big time publishing. Even the most famous of our famous only really get as far as a few thousand sold through small presses. As a result M/M readers and authors active on communities like GR are constantly rubbing elbows.
Every time an author takes issue with one of my reviews a whole bunch of people end up sitting uncomfortably in the middle and that sucks. Authors expect them to be girlfriends and nobly turn their backs on me for betraying the code of absolute loyalty and faithfulness. And while my detractors seem to be fine with playing this "with me or against me" game, I am not fine with it. I hate putting people I genuinely like and enjoy talking to in that kind of position, but I can't really control what authors overreact to.
It has been suggested to me that the problem really isn't what I say, or even how I say it, but that I get a lot of attention for saying it. It's nice to have people appreciate your opinion, but that's not really what I'm trying to do with my reviews. The goal is discussions with friends and that can be achieved without reviewing.
So I've set up a private community where I will be posting my reviews. If you're one of my friends and you didn't get an invite it's probably because 1) we haven't really talked about books that much, 2) I don't really know you well enough to involve you in the potential drama of OMG A SEKRET CABAL!!!, or 3) you should be too busy finishing up Not So Innocent already! (ha~)
I'm admitting it now because ... let's face it, people talk. This is a small community with very few degrees of separation. Plus, I discussed the possibility of doing it with various people in public threads. So, at some point people are going to hear about it and I'd rather you hear it from me first.
Actually, to be perfectly frank, I would prefer to be honest and transparent and not have a hidden community at all, but there are people committed to keeping M/M tiny and fringe so that they can remain big fishes in our pond. Bad reviews of popular books are seen as part of a grand conspiracy instead of a challenge to our best to be better.
So now ... ironically, there actually *is* a grand conspiracy.
As I informed all the members before inviting them: this is not intended to be a bitchy place to talk shit about people behind their backs. When I first started I was worried no one would join. I was worried no one would participate. I was worried I was alone in my frustration.
I was wrong. Suddenly people I had been talking to for months had all these opinions I have never heard before. Finally out from under the eyes of those who expect absolute loyalty, I'm having really interesting conversations with really interesting people about books again!
It's sad... Goodreads is a community for discussing books, but in order to freely discuss books we have to hide within the site itself. It shouldn't be this way. Authors shouldn't feel entitled to demand absolute, cultish loyalty. We shouldn't be expected to play girlfriends. We shouldn't have to deal with naive white-knighters hoping their trolling will improve their rank among rivals for the author's affection. It shouldn't be like this ... but it is and one person can't change that. It has become obvious to me that if I respect my friends and want to make sure that their GR experience remains enjoyable, I have to find another way to get what I'm looking for. And that other way is to retreat back into a private space where I'm not making them targets.
I will continue to support the author's right to use GR the way GR was intended to be used, but I'm out. "Goodnight and good luck" everyone
Intrigued, I started it on the train ride home. About thirty pages in my first reaction was ".....Really?"
I hated it. I really really hated it. I thought to myself "Oh my God this book is terrible...." and suddenly felt compelled to share my opinion with others. So I logged on to my much neglected GR account and posted a review.
Shortly after, all these YA people who had also hated The Night Circus starting friending me and reviewing became a lot of fun. I started moving through my pile of BEA freebies (We the Animals - better than the hype, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick - okay but poorly researched, Daughter of Smoke & Bone - 1st part Great! 2nd part okay), reading with a mind for later discussion. It wasn't enough to like or dislike a book, I had to figure out a way to express what it was I liked or disliked so that I could talk about these things with others.
Then M/M Romance announced a new reading challenge game: Bingo. I read the rules, it sounded like it could be fun. I signed up. Immediately my Bingo group started comparing reads to see how similar all our tastes were. Except I had no M/M shelved ... no M/M reviews... actually I hadn't really read any M/M. I was strictly a slash fanfiction/doujinshi sort of girl. "Get with the program, Isa" my group told me ... and while I originally planned to post my reviews just on the Bingo thread, I soon found myself having too much fun reading books, picking them apart for better or worse and discussing them with my team.
Since then I have had a lot of fun, met a lot of awesome people, been introduced to some amazing books and to some less than amazing ones, had fun celebrating the good and way more fun poking fun at the bad, but I've also had authors post nasty things about me to their fans: that I'm an attention seeking self-promoter targeting big name authors, that I'm prejudiced against them because of their orientation one way or another, that I'm a troll because I bought their book with my own money and expected to be able to tell my friends what I thought about it. Every word I've posted has been analyzed for hidden meanings like people listening to records backwards for Satanic verses @_@ If I hate a book it's a personal attack on the author, if I love a book, well obviously I am just being passive aggressive and sarcastic...
So, if you haven't noticed, I'm no longer doing public reviews. I'm going to keep on posting public status updates-- because I enjoy them and those seem to be free of drama-- but all my reviews will be private.
What's interesting to me about what's happened in the last couple months is that ... it's never the authors whose work I hate who troll me. There are a couple popular M/M writers that I've made no secret my opinion of ... and often that opinion is so harsh I would not blame them for vowing revenge.
Those are never the people who go after me.
Instead the authors who cause the most drama tend to be authors I like .... as in I've given them a few glowing reviews. And then at some point I pick a book with their name on the cover and find myself less than impressed. It happens. There is no writer on the planet whose every release is consistently brilliant.
And perhaps since I have an author account myself it's not my place to say what should be said here but I feel like someone has to...
Authors, I'm not your girlfriend .
I expect unconditional love from significant others. I expect my boyfriend to look past my flaws and cherish the real me. I expect my boyfriend to defend me and be on my side even when I'm completely out of line. I do not, nor should any writer, expect that from readers. A reader is not a boyfriend or a girlfriend.
I am not your girlfriend. I am not here to stroke your ego for all eternity just because we had that one great hook up over that M/M Erotic Mystery you published three years ago. I am not going to be faithful to you. I will cheat on you with other authors, even authors you hate because-- hello-- I am not your girlfriend, you have no right to ask for that kind of loyalty.
That being said, I'm still out of the reviewing game. It's just not worth it anymore. The drama itself doesn't bother me but the reality of these things is that drama is never about just two people. People who are friends with me are also friends with the authors who misbehave. M/M is not like other genres where big time authors hit bestseller lists and get book deals from big time publishing. Even the most famous of our famous only really get as far as a few thousand sold through small presses. As a result M/M readers and authors active on communities like GR are constantly rubbing elbows.
Every time an author takes issue with one of my reviews a whole bunch of people end up sitting uncomfortably in the middle and that sucks. Authors expect them to be girlfriends and nobly turn their backs on me for betraying the code of absolute loyalty and faithfulness. And while my detractors seem to be fine with playing this "with me or against me" game, I am not fine with it. I hate putting people I genuinely like and enjoy talking to in that kind of position, but I can't really control what authors overreact to.
It has been suggested to me that the problem really isn't what I say, or even how I say it, but that I get a lot of attention for saying it. It's nice to have people appreciate your opinion, but that's not really what I'm trying to do with my reviews. The goal is discussions with friends and that can be achieved without reviewing.
So I've set up a private community where I will be posting my reviews. If you're one of my friends and you didn't get an invite it's probably because 1) we haven't really talked about books that much, 2) I don't really know you well enough to involve you in the potential drama of OMG A SEKRET CABAL!!!, or 3) you should be too busy finishing up Not So Innocent already! (ha~)
I'm admitting it now because ... let's face it, people talk. This is a small community with very few degrees of separation. Plus, I discussed the possibility of doing it with various people in public threads. So, at some point people are going to hear about it and I'd rather you hear it from me first.
Actually, to be perfectly frank, I would prefer to be honest and transparent and not have a hidden community at all, but there are people committed to keeping M/M tiny and fringe so that they can remain big fishes in our pond. Bad reviews of popular books are seen as part of a grand conspiracy instead of a challenge to our best to be better.
So now ... ironically, there actually *is* a grand conspiracy.
As I informed all the members before inviting them: this is not intended to be a bitchy place to talk shit about people behind their backs. When I first started I was worried no one would join. I was worried no one would participate. I was worried I was alone in my frustration.
I was wrong. Suddenly people I had been talking to for months had all these opinions I have never heard before. Finally out from under the eyes of those who expect absolute loyalty, I'm having really interesting conversations with really interesting people about books again!
It's sad... Goodreads is a community for discussing books, but in order to freely discuss books we have to hide within the site itself. It shouldn't be this way. Authors shouldn't feel entitled to demand absolute, cultish loyalty. We shouldn't be expected to play girlfriends. We shouldn't have to deal with naive white-knighters hoping their trolling will improve their rank among rivals for the author's affection. It shouldn't be like this ... but it is and one person can't change that. It has become obvious to me that if I respect my friends and want to make sure that their GR experience remains enjoyable, I have to find another way to get what I'm looking for. And that other way is to retreat back into a private space where I'm not making them targets.
I will continue to support the author's right to use GR the way GR was intended to be used, but I'm out. "Goodnight and good luck" everyone
December 15, 2012
Christmas with the Rocha Family
Today I've released my first Christmas freebie Tinsel Is Like Bondage For Trees. Well actually I released it last night, but thankfully only told two people because-- in what seems to be a freebie tradition for me-- I fucked up the editing job -_-;;;;;;;;
ANYWAY, Tinsel Is Like Bondage For Trees features the characters from The Condor which psssst... is up for a couple of M/M Romance Members' Choice Awards (I'm hoping to totally get killed in Best Overall, but take advantage of a split vote when people are asked to choose between Abigail Roux, Kaje Harper, and Heidi Cullinan for Best Free Story)
I think you can probably enjoy this short without reading The Condor, but I think you'll probably enjoy it more if you know the characters first (which BTW, if you don't mind typos galore you can still read for free in its original serial format ... yes, the whole book is free). Plus there's no sex, all teeth-rotting-sweet-fluff, and Harry and Logan are all about the kinky sex otherwise ^__^ I suppose we'll see...
Download for free from Smashwords (along for all my other freebies too!). Happy Holidays everyone~
ANYWAY, Tinsel Is Like Bondage For Trees features the characters from The Condor which psssst... is up for a couple of M/M Romance Members' Choice Awards (I'm hoping to totally get killed in Best Overall, but take advantage of a split vote when people are asked to choose between Abigail Roux, Kaje Harper, and Heidi Cullinan for Best Free Story)
I think you can probably enjoy this short without reading The Condor, but I think you'll probably enjoy it more if you know the characters first (which BTW, if you don't mind typos galore you can still read for free in its original serial format ... yes, the whole book is free). Plus there's no sex, all teeth-rotting-sweet-fluff, and Harry and Logan are all about the kinky sex otherwise ^__^ I suppose we'll see...
Download for free from Smashwords (along for all my other freebies too!). Happy Holidays everyone~
