Erica Lindquist's Blog, page 9

Reblog: Hugo Story Withdrawn

Erica Lindquist:

I haven’t really commented on the Hugo kerfuffle, but Annie Bellet’s thoughts are worth reading. I’m so sorry this has ruined what should have been a really proud moment for her.

Originally posted on :

I have withdrawn my story ���Goodnight Stars��� from consideration in this year���s Hugo Awards.

I want to make it clear I am not doing this lightly. I am not doing it because I

am ashamed. I am not doing it because I was pressured by anyone either way or on

any ���side,��� though many friends have made cogent arguments for both keeping my

nomination and sticking it out, as well as for retracting it and letting things proceed without me in the middle.

I am withdrawing because this has become about something very different than great science fiction.�� I find my story, and by extension myself, stuck in a game of political dodge ball, where I���m both a conscripted player and also a ball. (Wrap your head around that analogy, if you can, ha!) All joy that might have come from this nomination has been co-opted, ruined, or sapped away���

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It finally happened

We knew it would happen eventually. Whisperworld just got its first one-star review for “disgusting homo-love.”

Screw that.

When we wrote Whisperworld, we decided to make the main character a lesbian. It was kind of a leap for us, but we felt it was important that we try. Neither Aron nor I are homosexual. We did as much research as we could ahead of time, but in the end, we were really writing ‘the other,’ someone other than ourselves.

It was hard. Not only because of the craft challenge in writing someone so different than us, but because LGBT rights and representation are under fire across the world. Hell, that’s part of why we wanted to write Julia ��� because books need better diversity.

So we knew from the outset that it would open Whisperworld up to some negative reviews. Now, it’s finally happened. Someone hated the whole book for no other real reason than Julia falls in love with another woman.

Aron always reminds me that reviews often tell us more about the reader than the writer. In this case, he’s even more right than usual. To be fair, the reviewer��also mentioned��what they felt was an inadequate explanation of the world setup, that finding this answer was the only reason they finished the book, but didn’t think we explained enough. Well, that��was a specific decision on our part ��� we disclosed only the details of the Wrath (the catastrophe that makes our post-apocalyptic setting��post-apocalyptic) that related to the story. Whisperworld isn’t about the world’s end, but about it’s new beginning. But if that doesn’t do it for readers, that’s fine. Everyone reads for different things. I don’t mind being docked stars because someone feels I didn’t answer their questions adequately. Well, I do ��� it makes me feel like a shitty writer ��� but I can’t blame the reviewer for that.

But just because of the sexual orientation of the character? I feel like I’ve been��kicked in the stomach, sure, but��� and maybe this is weird��� also a little proud? We put a book out that we knew risked some backlash. And we got it. But we don’t regret writing Julia at all. We would and will do it again.

So bring it on.

Miss Rose is almost done

Our very first erotica book��is almost ready to go. We’ve brushed up the first two stories ��� which I wrote some time ago ��� and have added a third that we’re pretty proud of. All told, the book is about 22,000 words of bondage and discipline. Smack!

Obviously, Miss Rose is not intended for all-ages reading. Adults only! Like all of our Severine titles, Miss Rose is pure smut. That being said, let’s talk smut!

I can’t tell you how much fun we had working on Miss Rose. I don’t often get to research and write about bondage. Going into the book, I know only a little bit. Pretty much what we all hear from popular media����� whips and chains and black leather. I was delighted and fascinated to have this chance to delve deeper��into the psychology and kink of BDSM.

If you’re looking for something like 50 Shades of Gray, this isn’t it. In addition to being a domme-led (a female dominant) story, it was our goal to better and more safely represent bondage and dominance play. You won’t find any stalking in Miss Rose. Boundaries and safe words are respected. We were far more interested in exploring the healing and trusting aspects of BDSM than the extreme fantasies of 50 Shades and Secretary. After all, that’s been done now, to great the great financial success of EL James.

That’s not to disrespect 50 Shades and Secretary! It’s because of those books and movies that Aron and I (or Eric and I, under our erotica pen names) even have an audience for our Severine titles! They brought erotica and bondage to the mainstream, to people who knew next to nothing about it. Hats off to both titles and all due respect! Thank you for paving the way for the rest of us.

Miss Rose is with beta readers and editors now. It should be ready for your greedy little eyes by July this year.

It’s going to be a little nerve-wracking to release Miss Rose! I’ve been writing erotica just for myself and Aron for many, many years. We have a smut folder containing nearly 100 pieces of writing. And since we’ve lost a few over the years, I think it’s safe to say we broke the three digit mark. But now we’re going to be sharing it with the whole world. Eek!

Website changes

You have Chuck Wendig to thank for this.

I’ve revamped the website. Mostly front end stuff, really. From my side, things are pretty much the same. But there’s a new theme and ��� most importantly ��� the front page has changed. My blog is no longer the first thing you’ll see��on this site.

So, how come? Because I’m a shitty blogger. I don’t often have things to say that someone else hasn’t said better and more publicly. I update on the progress of our books every few weeks, sure, but that doesn’t make for a very good or socially relevant blog. And I don’t want some three-week-old post about the word count on The Burning Noose to be the first thing visitors see. That makes it look like I don’t care. I do! I’m just ��� as previously mentioned ��� shit at blogging.

I could force myself to post every day or so with something passionate and pithy, but that would take up half of my writing time. Or maybe my shower time. Either way, that’s not what either of us want. Ew.

So the front page will now contain the relevant shit: latest books, next books and any announcements. The blog will still be here and I’ll still post like normal ��� which is to say, not often and not well. But I’ll still be updating everyone on our progress and the occasional issue that gets my panties in a bunch.��Like Indiana. Fuck that.

Yeah��� Clean Reader

Their tagline: “Reader books, not profanity.”

So��� Clean Reader. In case you don’t know the deal, here’s the story in a nutshell: A group published an app that takes ebooks and strips out swearing, sexual words and racial slurs. Ebooks were added to the Clean Reader without author consent. After a great deal of backlash from authors, Clean Reader has pulled the plug on the project.

I really feel weird about this. I have friends who have religious issues with swearing and pornography. I write both. A lot. And one of them has even expressed a mild interest in a version of Lily Quinn suited to their specific needs. Which I have declined to create not only because I don’t have the time, but because��� well, that’s not our book. Lily Quinn without the swearing and��the jungle��of cocks just isn’t what Aron and I wrote.

But while I’m glad none of our books showed up in Clean Reader and would never have consented to let them, I’m just not as offended as many of my fellow authors. (Not that I’m suggesting Chuck Wendig is a friend or contemporary. More like a furious role model.) I understand the desire of the app designers, sort of, even though I really do feel like Clean Reader is pissing on ��� excuse me, peeing on ��� the original creation.

I may not like a book for including certain language ��� I get really, really uncomfortable with racial epithets, for example ��� but I would never put The Drawing of the Three through Clean Reader to remove every time Susannah is called a n****r cunt. That is a part of the character’s experience, a part of her life. Removing those words would remove so much of the sting that is vital to her story. It ruins the art. But I’ll admit that I tend to hurry through those bits because they made me feel so shitty.

So��� those are my feelings on Clean Reader. I understand the sentiment, but I still think it was a bad idea. I’m glad it’s not going to continue. I wish the creators well, though. Maybe put together a big, comprehensive catalogue of clean books for your client base? Books that were written without the stuff you find problematic. The readers are happy with their squeaky books and the authors are glad to have their art��read in the form in which they created it. Deal?

Characters of The Hangman’s Cross

I don’t know if these will make it into the final book, but I added a character list to The Hangman’s Cross. I wanted to share, so here it is:

Seth LaVonne ��� A priest of the West.

Sarah Marcus ��� A gunslinger sworn to kill Cole Black.

Cole Black ��� An infamous bandit leader.

Belial ��� A demon lord.

Celia ��� Belial’s witch.

Yu-Li Carter ��� A special agent of the FBI, charged to find and arrest Juan Corazon.

Juan Corazon ��� Once a federal agent, now turned bandit.

Jarrod Wilson ��� An old man with many bad habits.

Damn it

Insert every explicative known to man here.

I’ve been struggling with The Burning Noose for weeks and making very little progress. I couldn’t get traction and now I know why. It’s my own fault ��� I kept pushing back information in The Hangman’s Cross. I kept thinking that the readers didn’t need to know that yet. Now I’ve hit the second book and realized that the reader won’t have almost any of the information that they need to in order to make sense of what’s going on. The result has been massive info dumps that are bogging down the story and throwing too much data at the reader far too fast.

That doesn’t make for a very good book. You can’t put 4/5 of the filling into half of a pie, 1/5 into the other and call it a good pie.

This is my own damned fault. We didn’t do enough world building ahead of time, and the world of The Hangman’s Cross is complicated. I didn’t accommodate enough for that. What I hoped would be fun and different is just coming across as confusing. Need to fix that. And Aron seeded more info through the first books, but I was the one who kept cutting it and telling myself “Later. We’ll revel that later.” Well, it’s later and we’ve got a lot of problems.

So that means I need to go all the way back to the beginning of The Hangman’s Cross and fix this. I’ve got to bring in more world info, more backstory and in-world mythology much earlier on. It’s going to take weeks or rewrites. Perhaps months. I’ve screwed our schedule royally, and we didn’t really even have one.

I’m not a happy author today. But you know what? I’ll get over it. And I’ll get back to work. It’s better to have a good book than a fast one. We don’t have a contracted deadline to meet and I’m so grateful for that. It’s worth the time to make these books right.

The moment that almost gut-punched my writing career to death

For some reason, I was thinking about a moment and felt like sharing. This isn’t really important to any of our books or anything, so feel free to skip it, guys.

I was still in college when I finished the first draft of Anvil of Tears. At that time, it was still called “Anvil of Stars.” It wasn’t��until months later that someone pointed out the Greg Bear book to me and I changed the title.

There was��some trouble writing the book. I had no clue what I was doing, to say the least. I had no outline and only the vaguest idea where my story was gong. In grade school, I was barely literate. No one would have pegged me for an author in their most deluded daydreams. It’s a point of deep regret for me that my mother died before I wrote my first book. She would have loved it.

I didn’t really have Aron as a coauthor yet, not on that first draft. And I had finished the first Anvil of Tears manuscript while on the road up to Sequoia to meet with some friends from online (this was during my World of Warcraft days) and then subsequently lost the file containing the ending. I had to write the final chapter all over again. At a point in my writing where I still struggled to produce 150 words day, that was devastating.

But I finished the book, damn it! I was so fucking proud of myself.

In college, I went through ten��majors: pre-med, psychology, criminal justice, anthropology (as a lead-up to the graduate archeology degree), art, photography, graphic design,��English (this one lasted until I was given my first screenplay to read), journalism and then, finally, communications studies. It wasn’t really out of any love of communications that I stuck with that last major. It was because I had three absolutely amazing professors who truly taught me how to write, how to communicate and what I wanted to say. They presented technology and media to me in a brand new light ��� not just shiny toys just there to be played with, but powerful tools of communication that engaged millions.

So when I finished Anvil of Tears (and rewrote the stupid ending), I very proudly went up to one of these professors after class and told him that I had finished writing my first book! I was positively glowing. My professor looked up from his laptop, gave me the tiniest smile, congratulated me and then said that he had finished writing his first book three years younger than I was.

That was it. That was all he had to say to me. He didn’t asked about the genre or anything else. Just pointed out to me how much better he was than some undergraduate little punk and always would be.

I felt gut-punched. I hadn’t expected gushing praise or anything. I was just one of about a gazillion students at what even the professors admitted was��a commuter school. He wasn’t my mentor or anything. I doubt he remembers me at all. But fuck if I don’t remember that moment with razor-sharp clarity.��It just about killed me writing career right then. If a professor��whom I respected and whose job it was to teach me about communication couldn’t summon up anything but scorn for the fact that I wrote a book, what the hell would the rest of the world think? I didn’t tell the other two professors that I adored. Not after that.

To be fair, I don’t know what was going on in his head. Maybe a dozen students announced the same thing every semester. Maybe whatever he was reading on the laptop was really important and he was distracted, or just in a hurry. Maybe he was having a bad day. Maybe he just really, really didn’t care. I have no idea. I’m still digital friends with him and he was otherwise a really wonderful influence on my life.

I cried for an hour. I never wanted to write anything every again. Aron hugged me and told me not to worry about it, that I had done something awesome, no matter what my professor said. I didn’t believe him and only cried harder. I was never going to amount to anything, I was sure, and no one would ever want to read my stupid words.

A week later, Aron and I went over to see some of our friends. I was still so depressed about the book, about everything in the world. But when we arrived, my friends jumped up from under tables and behind counters, cheering and shouting “surprise.” They had put together a party to celebrate completing Anvil of Tears, even making up��a version of Balderdash that used��the glossary of my newly-finished book. I couldn’t believe it. Some of the people there��still have never read Anvil of Tears, but that didn’t stop them from celebrating what I had accomplished.��They supported me, not the book.

I think I cried again, though��I’m not sure. But it was just what I needed. I kept writing. I brought Aron in as a real coauthor ��� I really needed his help. That’s not to say I never got discouraged again. I did. I cried a lot. I still do. But I also have friends who cheer and clap me on the back every time I finish a book, even if they never read a word of it.

Writing is a rough profession sometimes. Authors craft stories with a lot of blood, sweat and tears and then put them out on display for public consumption and critique. A lot of that feedback is negative. It can be hard to hold onto the love of the craft sometimes in the face a critical public. But some of you make it all worthwhile.

Thank you.

“Edgier”

DC is claiming their new lineup of movies will be “edgier.”��Specifically, moreso than Marvel’s movies. Well, good luck with that, DC. Though while I certainly cannot and should not tell you to mimic Marvel, I also can’t say I’m excited. I’ve been loving the Marvel movies, especially Big Hero 6. (I need to watch that again tonight or as soon as humanly possible.)

And what’s been so awesome? While I enjoy Chris Hemsworth’s abs as much as anyone (okay, almost as much), that’s not why I’ve become a Marvel fan. And it sure as hell isn’t because of any edginess. Did you see Guardians of the Galaxy? There’s barely enough��edge there to cut an apple. What Marvel’s got is fun.

Do whatever you need to do, DC. They’re your movies. But so far, I’m not sold.

Sleep and dreams

I’ve been sleeping really poorly. I have managed one good night in the last month. It’s not stopping me from getting my work done ��� I finished off the Lily Quinn #1 rewrites today ��� but it’s getting really annoying.

This isn’t insomnia, even though I’m often prone to that, too. My dreams have been crazy. Not necessarily bad (though they frequently��are), but just really busy and vivid. I wake up exhausted and feeling like I didn’t sleep at all.��In one dream, Stephen Colbert confessed his love with a 4-foot-long chocolate and salted caramel bar. I had one bite, decided it tasted like ass, and stuck it in the back of a shelf. Thanks, Stephen!

I used to get these kinds of vivid dreams whenever I wasn’t writing. I thought that was the cause, but I’ve been super busy with all of our books and putting in a lot of hours of writing/editing. I keep running out of time, though, and going to bed each night with work still undone. And I think that’s the real cause of the crazy dreams ��� whether because of lack of writing or just more work than time, I’m going to sleep with too much shit still in my head.

I’ve been working my ass off to��try to get ahead on the books and attempt to get some projects off my plate, to free up some brain. It hasn’t helped much yet, though, even though I’ve been able to get to just three projects. Let’s see if I can get it down to two. If that doesn’t work,��I might be posting a new theory soon.

Sleep well, guys!