Lavinia Collins's Blog, page 20
August 8, 2014
**NEWS!** THE WARRIOR QUEEN absolutely FREE for a limited time only!
Volume I of the Bestselling Guinevere Trilogy will be absolutely free on Amazon UK & US for a very limited time.
Get it while you can!
‘The Warrior Queen’ is the first instalment of ‘The Guinevere Trilogy’, a new series of eBooks that reimagines the famous story of Queen Guinevere for a modern audience.
When her people’s army is destroyed in the war with King Arthur, Guinevere is horrified to discover that her conqueror has demanded to have her as his bride. She arrives at Camelot angry and resentful, but quickly finds that the king who defeated her people in battle is not the brute she expected. Slowly, she gains a fragile happiness in her new home, but this is threatened when war comes again. When her life is saved on the battlefield by a mysterious French knight, Guinevere finds herself caught between desire and duty, the longing for happiness in the new life she has, and her desire to be free and follow her heart.
Praise for The Warrior Queen:
“With a mix of romance and legend along with rich descriptions, I was sucked in by the end of the first chapter.”
“I would definitely recommend this if you are looking for an old story made even better, or even if you are just looking for a quick fascinating read.”
“The book is beautifully written and very entertaining. It’s truly a pleasure to read. I devoured it in just a couple of days cos I wasn’t able to put it down. Now I can’t wait to read the next two installments!”
(see reviews here: http://vivimedieval.wordpress.com/about-2/)
August 5, 2014
Free The Nipple! The Fight for Female Nudity on Our Own Terms
I know I’ve blogged related to this before, but I’m still angry, and I want to talk about it again.
It’s the double standard that surrounds topless men and topless women. A topless man is just a normal guy whose shirt was too warm for the weather, a topless woman is an attention-seeker, a slut, and now a necessarily politicised object, making a statement about feminism, freedom and body image. The female body is never neutral, and that’s pissing me off.
Even look at this! This is a screen grab from Huffington Post, where I went for a bit of blog research on ‘Free the Nipple’. While reporting on it, they show the double standards by blacking out the female nipple, and calling their story about a naked performance artist ‘NSFW’. Would they censor a statue or a painting of a naked woman?
Do you know what is considered suitable for work? The Daily Mail newspaper. Do you know what the Daily Mail has on the 3rd of its pages? A bare-breasted woman. You can bring your newspaper to work, and perv on a lady’s bare breasts, but you can’t take your shirt off if you’re too hot and you’re a lady.
Women in France, that famous bastion of topless sunbathing, are no longer going topless so often because it has changed register culturally from something you do to get an all-over tan to something sexualised, or even politicised.
The message is that female nudity is something inherently sexualised. Something ‘NSFW’ because it is always caused by or causing sexual feelings. It is something that money can be made out of, in the form of page 3, or those awful ‘lads mags’ that are just as patronising to men as they are demeaning to women.
My own novel has had a ‘modesty panel’ added to it in order to get it out of the ‘adult’ section on Amazon.com :
I’m happy with how it looks, I’m just amazed that Amazon wasn’t able to cope with a little bit of sideboob, in a picture that is not as aggressively erotic as many other covers where the women pictured are clothed, and it did not consider ‘NSFW’ or adult the cover of volume two, which features a face-front, much more skin-on-show visibly naked man:
“You’re still angry about that?” I hear you cry, those who have read my previous post. Well, yes, actually, I am. It’s just entirely symptomatic of a system that assumes a heterosexual male viewer, and indeed one that can’t see a woman naked without going into sexual overdrive.
Also, how can we be so prudish in a society that sells naked women like cattle? We are expected to believe that the picture of a topless woman is offensive, but this kind of shit is OK? The kind of stuff that pops up whenever you browse online.
They are disgusting, offensive and symptomatic of how women are not allowed to be naked on their own terms. No topless artsy photos on instagram. Those are a violation! But society as a whole tacitly supports the sale of women’s naked bodies for male gratification. If you’re giving yours away for free you’re a slut, a loose woman, a disgrace. It’s never not political to be a woman and to be naked. It’s never not sexual.
I will be sad if continental Europe loses it as well. From its naked saunas to its topless beaches, it has much more of an adult attitude towards nudity. Understands that it’s not always sexual. I recently spotted these covers lying on the shelf at the eye level of young children in a german airport:
They’re very sexualised, and they’re on view for all to see. In a country that desexualises nudity in mixed naked saunas, the naked body is also presented as sexual in other contexts, and the message is that neither sex nor nudity is dirty or shameful.
Now, I’m not saying I want to run through the streets naked as the day I was born – for a start, I would get all over sunburn because I am very pale, and that would be painful – I’m only saying that it’s frustrating and unfair that we live in a culture now where women can’t post artsy topless photos of themselves online for a cause other than the gratification of male desire without being considered ‘NSFW’ or ‘inappropriate’ and yet the sale of the naked female body in magazines and online for male gratification is acceptable. It seems that we live in a society that cannot crept that female nudity could be anything other than a sexual act.
Just imagine, for a moment, that the royal naked sunbathing photo was not of Kate Middleton, but of Prince William. Imagine the headline ‘Prince Sunbathes Topless’. It would be absurd wouldn’t it? Why isn’t it, when it’s the other way around?
It ought to be.
July 29, 2014
The Five Stages of Writing (and Publishing) a Novel
1. The Idealistic Beginning
(denial)
You’ve just begun and you feel great. What could go wrong? It will be easy to write, won’t take over your life and will be instantly met with awards and accolades. You imagine the interviews you will give on Newsnight, and what you will wear to the Man Booker Prize party. You eat another custard cream. Life is good.
2. The Difficult Second Album (/Second Half of the Novel)
(anger )
You’ve got all the intrigue all set up, but how to effect that snazzy denouement? Why is finishing so much harder than starting? WHY CAN’T I WORK OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT I HAVE WRITTEN THIS SCENE FIVE DIFFERENT TIMES WHY WHY WHYYYY
3. Contacting an Agent/Publisher
(bargaining)
“Come on, it would be great for you to publish this novel. Think of how much money we’ll BOTH make. I know you greedy publishing types LOOOOOOVE money.”*
4. Opening Rejection Mail
(depression )
“What do you mean you don’t see the unique genius of my revolutionary novel about an intergalactic robot rabbit in a forbidden romance with a toaster? Oh whyyyyyyyy??”
4.5 BONUS STAGE: Your novel got accepted for publication! HOORAY!
Life is AMAZING! Momentarily return to stage 1, eat more custard creams, imagine lifestyle as fabulous celebrity.
5. Novel is finally published!
(acceptance)
Ok, so you’re not an overnight success, but life is pretty damn good. Although, wait, isn’t your aunt going to read that dirty sex scene you wrote? And what if someone from school who used to make fun of you thinks it’s silly? And – wait – is that a comma where there should be a semicolon? What if someone notices?? OH GAAAAAHD
(Repeat emotionally volatile cycle indefinitely. Always continue writing)
*Obviously I am not seriously recommending that you ever contact anyone professionally in this manner.
July 23, 2014
The Sexy Lies of Historical TV Drama: People Who Weren’t Really That Hot
I will be the first to admit that I have a soft spot for trashy historical TV. I like the costumes, I like the intrigue, I like the soft core “erotica” that always gets shuffled in, in case we get bored of all those names and dates. It’s all good!
HOWEVER: it has led us to believe that people in the past were hotter than they actually were (as it were). And I am here to (unfortunately) spread the truth. So, before you buy your time machine to head back and woo the historical personality of your dreams, here is a taste of unpleasant reality for you. TV “sexing up” history caught at it: the historical figures who weren’t actually THAT hot:
CLEOPATRA (1CE Egypt) ROME (HBO 2005-2007)
EXPECTATION:
REALITY:
(Ok, you can’t see her very well cos the statues are all damaged, but recent archaeological finds suggest that Cleopatra wasn’t really a looker. What she was, though, was smart and ruthless and resourceful).
RICHARD III (C15th England) THE WHITE QUEEN (BBC2 2013)
EXPECTATION:
REALITY:
(Who did you think you were kidding, BBC2?)
DAUPHIN FRANCIS (C16th France) REIGN (The CW, 2013)
EXPECTATION:
REALITY:
ANNE BOLEYN and HENRY VIII (C16th England), THE TUDORS (BBC2, 2007-10)
EXPECTATION:
REALITY:
And my personal favourite! Prize for the biggest difference…
LUCREZIA BORGIA (C16th Italy), THE BORGIAS (Showtime, 2011)
EXPECTATION:
Super hot, right? Now wait for it…
REALITY:
Better return that time machine if you were hoping to score some hot historical booty.
July 16, 2014
The “Strong Female Character” Trope
The ‘Strong Female Character’ (SFC) has been something that has been under much discussion lately. Generally, the response from the feminist element has been that we no likey.
(see articles like: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters
and http://feministfiction.com/2012/05/24/the-problem-with-strong-female-characters-tm/)
You see, the problem is by using the term ‘Strong Female Character’ we imply that women aren’t usually strong, and men are. But that’s silly. People are people, and some are strong and some are weak. So, why doesn’t our media reflect this? Also, irritatingly as a woman, we are often offered “strong” women who turn out to be nothing new. My latest annoyance was with Amy Adams in Man of Steel. She orders a whisky to trick us into thinking she is some tough-nut journalist who’s strong and edgy, not some white-wine-drinking princess and then proceeds to spend the rest of the film getting rescued and screaming.
Boo boo boo modern media. It is time for me to educate you with some medieval examples of ladies (properly) kicking ass (not just drinking whisky – I drink whisky all the time I haven’t done anything brave or daring since 1997) and men who appear with them.
BEOWULF
Grendel’s Mother – Goes all mad and kills literally almost everyone when she finds out that Beowulf killed her son. After she has gone on the rampage and eaten half of the men, B’s friend is all like “Oh yeah we knew there was a lady monster, but ladies be all like checking their hair and buying shoes so we didn’t think to mention it.”
Beowulf – Generally badass until the end, when he ignores his friend who is like ‘Hey B., you’re super old. Maybe don’t fight the dragon all on your own’ and then he does and then he dies. Oh, sorry, spoilers. But come on guys it was written more than a thousand years ago. Keep up.
Malory’s MORTE DARTHUR
Morgan Le Fay - She don’t take no shit from nobody. Best known for kidnapping the men that she fancies and taking them to her sex lair to make them hers, hers all deliciously hers, Morgan even has the sass to – after trying to murder her brother Arthur – turning up at the end when he’s dead (MEDIEVAL SPOILER, sorry not sorry. Seriously if you don’t know by now that King Arthur dies at the end of the MORTE DARTHUR, then I can’t help you) and being all like “ooh my poor brother” like butter wouldn’t melt. Serious badass, serious sass. Favourite badass moment: kidnaps a guy, and deliberately almost kills him in order to show off her magic skills to make him well again, so that he will be all hers to possess.
Lancelot - Best knight ever. Still gets stuck up a tree in his underwear because he is in his own words “an evil climber”.
BEVIS OF HAMPTON
Josiane - The heroine of this goodly romance tale Josiane, when separated from her love Bevis, goes with their kids to find him, making her own money on the way as a travelling performer. Before we even get to this, Josiane is forced to marry someone else but murders them in bed on their wedding night, cos Josiane don’t take no shit.
Bevis - He’s the hero, but he’s really annoying, and like a weirdo would prefer to be buried with his horse than his wife.
THE PLAYS OF HROSVIT OF GANDERSHEIM
sidenote: Hrosvit was a badass nun lady writing plays.
The Three Virgin Martyrs - Just the sassiest martyrs that you ever see. The Romans try to set them on fire, but that doesn’t work, and eventually after being all like “screw you guys, I’m going to heaven” the last one is killed with an arrow, and goes to heaven.
Governor Dulcitius - Fancies a bit of Virgin Martyr action, but because all nuns know that lustful men are indiscriminate, he accidentally has sex with some pots and pans instead (???) gets pot grease all over his face, and all his friends laugh at him. Oh and his wife turns up and tells him he looks stupid.
THE TAIN BO CUALINGE
Queen Medb (Maeve) - Decides she wants a bull, tries to buy the bull, her ex husband is all like, “You can’t have the bull” so she starts a war to get the bull. She fights in the war, gets shit done, and even though they lose the war, she gets out alive with the bull when she gets her period so bad that it frightens away the enemy’s great hero who is like “ewww, menstrual = gross”. Also her period is so big that it carves a valley in the land. True story.
Fergus Mac Roich - The hero of the tale (supposedly). Is v. easily seduced by Medb, who then gets her husband to steal his sword. Feels very conflicted about fighting for Medb because, y’know, she’s kind of being a dick just demanding to have that bull, and so instead chops some mountains rather than people because… y’know… man-rage.
SO studio execs of the world: read well, and see how strong female characters were being written. Medievals have been doing it since the 6th century. Catch up.
July 8, 2014
J.K. Rowling and the art of the self-fanfic
“Fanfic” – that loaded word that conjures up for most people (admittedly me included) visions of Fifty Shades of Grey (at least it’s better than Twilight) and the satiric masterpiece/worst fan-fiction ever, Potter/Vampire mashup My Immortal (sadly this work of twisted genius has been removed from its original post, but there is info and choice quotes here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6829556/1/My-Immortal) – is on the rise. And it’s not just teenagers on the internet imagining themselves entwined with their favourite fictional characters anymore.
That’s right, the mistress of children’s fiction herself, J.K. Rowling has written what is basically fanfiction of her own book! (Does that count? I think so!) She has written Potter in the future, only online, based on the characters she created in the books but with no intention of publishing. http://www.today.com/books/read-j-k-rowlings-new-post-latest-harry-potter-gossip-1D79887288. I would call it fanfiction. Not to denigrate it – to celebrate it!
There’s no greater compliment for an author, I think, than when others become so involved in your imaginary world that they take it on and want to write it themselves. I, for one, would be delighted to one day stumble upon fanfic of The Guinevere Trilogy. I even described my own novels, to a dear friend who laughed at me (of course) as ‘Malory fanfiction’. Well, it ticked all the boxes. I had borrowed someone else’s world. I had reimagined it my own way.
And do we imagine that authors, after the work is done and sent to the publisher, stop imagining the characters they created? The worlds they made in their minds? No, of course not. There’s more. There’s always more. The more energy you pour into a book, imaginatively speaking, the more you have left at the end. It whizzes around in your head. You write more. You think more. You self-fanfic.
I for one am delighted that through Pottermore, J.K. Rowling is being a pioneer of the self-fanfic.We live in a world now where adding is easy. It’s no longer Caxton’s creaky old printing press with its moveable type. It’s modern presses, it’s ebooks. We can add and add. Less isn’t more, if you love a story. More is more, and more Potter more writing and more everything I say!
July 1, 2014
Death of the Author: What do we do when we find out our heroes are villains?
Like many in the fantasy writing scene, I was shaken this week by the revelation that Marion Zimmer Bradley, author of The Mists of Avalon, Arthuriana icon, and long-time supporter of fantasy writers in general has been accused by her daughter of child abuse. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/27/sff-community-marion-zimmer-bradley-daughter-accuses-abuse.
It sends you reeling to find out something like that about someone who you consider a personal hero. The close relationships that we can have with literature – with the world imagined by someone else, the characters – can give us a false sense of knowing who they are. But they’re not the same. They’re different. People have been tweeting and writing saying they won’t read her books anymore. That’s not something that I personally feel – in the post-Barthes age, though, it’s easy to insist on this separation of author from work, and it’s something that has dogged not only literary scholarship, but a popular understanding of how literature works.
When I trace back through my literary heroes, it’s hard to find one who isn’t involved in some kind of sexual or social horror. T.S. Eliot was bosom friends with the noted fascist Ezra Pound. Geoffrey Chaucer was charged with rape. My beloved Sir Thomas Malory, author of my greatest inspiration Le Morte Darthur was a convicted rapist, cattle rustler and attempted murderer with a penchant for beating up peasants on his land and stealing from monasteries. Arthurian scholarship is dominated by anxieties over this. Reconciling the author Malory, who in his work appears to be so horrified by the idea of rape, with the life of a man who was a convicted rapist himself, on more than one count. William Shakespeare is notable as a behemoth of the English canon of literature who isn’t associated with some atrocity in his lifetime. (That we know about yet. Although he did steal that theatre and sneak it across the Thames).
I’m afraid I’m not here with answers. Only questions. Only doubt. I’m not going to stop loving The Mists of Avalon. I’m certainly not going to not read it again. It’s one of those books I come back to time and again. But, I can’t pretend that this hasn’t shaken me. That I don’t feel a little differently. Is it harder, when it’s now, when it’s immediate? Malory and Chaucer’s sexual crimes are distant, historical. We can write them off as the product of another age. But they still make us anxious. Perhaps they should still make us anxious.
I don’t know. I want to believe that the work is separate from the author. That it belongs, in its own way, to each individual reader. But why do we read literature? It’s not just individual. It’s not just escape. We’re sharing a little something from inside someone else’s head, and when we learn that that place was somewhere darker, more unpleasant, more unsettling, more horrifying than we thought it was, that upsets us. When we think we have made a connection with someone it turns out we knew only as an illusion.
(Alyssa Rosenberg has written a wonderful piece over at the Washington Post about her conflicted feelings rereading it, much of which I strongly agree with: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/06/27/re-reading-feminist-author-marion-zimmer-bradley-in-the-wake-of-sexual-assault-allegations/)
June 25, 2014
The Beauty Myth and the Beauty Industry : Why unrealistic standards of beauty are not going away.
Recently, this article has been doing the rounds: http://www.takepart.com/feature/2014/05/15/famous-paintings-photoshopped-to-look-like-fashion-models. It shows women in famous paintings, photoshopped to be the same size that fashion models are today. It’s sad, and it’s poignant, and most of all, it’s infuriating. How has the idea of beauty become so warped?
Well, there’s a simple answer to that. Money. $$$. Capitalism. The main difference between those famous paintings and the fashion editorials we see is that the famous paintings aren’t selling anything. What’s the easiest way to sell someone something? Make them think they need it. Make them think everyone else has it. These gorgeous thin models look wonderful in these clothes, and different from you, so you should buy the clothes, and the gym membership, and the expensive diet shakes, and the epilators, and the razors and the home waxing kits and the hair bleach and the diet books so that you can look like them.
Fashion spreads want us to want to change. Those paintings see the beauty that is there.
I can honestly say, a trip to the art museum has never made me feel fat. Never made me peer at myself in the mirror, never made me squidge bits of myself thinking how soft is too soft? An afternoon reading any women’s magazine does. Why? Cos they’re adverts. And it is disgusting.
There’s big money to be made telling women (and men, but to a lesser extent) that they’re undesirable. And now, with the magic of PhotoShop, no cosmetic, fashion, diet or fitness brand need ever go out of business, because PhotoShop will be there to make the models’ legs longer, breasts perkier, stomachs flatter and eyes larger.
However aware we are of it, we do become influenced by what we see. By what is held up as beautiful and desirable. It’s a sick industry, fuelling itself off insecurity. I know it’s bullshit, but whenever I see photographs of thin women with impossible figures eating cakes in women’s magazines, a tiny pathetic part of myself buys it, and I feel like I am unattractive. I feel a little more likely to buy that lipstick, or that dress that will make me look thin. Making women feel awful = making money in the fashion and cosmetics industry. And I feel awful for knowing a part of me can’t help but be vulnerable to it.
Next time I feel that way, I’m taking my sweet ass to the art gallery.
June 21, 2014
JUST UNTIL WEDNESDAY “A CHAMPION’S DUTY” FREE!!
Download your free copy here:
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/CHAMPIONS-DUTY-Guinevere-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B00JD35Z3W/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kinc_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0X87J93E3V4JV1HD1G27
US: http://www.amazon.com/CHAMPIONS-DUTY-Guinevere-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B00JD35Z3W/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
From the Amazon blurb:
The second stunning title in this fabulous, ground-breaking retelling of an epic story
Feeling increasing trapped in Camelot, Guinevere finds solace in Lancelot and their illicit affair blossoms. But gossip grows in Arthur’s court and only by accepting the quest for the Holy Grail can Lancelot place himself above suspicion. But in his absence will Guinevere survive the increasing danger she finds herself in from all around her, and will Arthur’s love be enough to save her from harm?
Praise for A CHAMPION’S DUTY
5* “I don’t know what I can say about this book except declare my undying love for it! I had high expectations when starting this book and I wasn’t disappointed! It can be read as a stand alone novel as part of the trilogy and if I were you I would read the first before reading this because you will learn to love the characters and the story and by the time you are finished you will be dying to read this book.” Book Reviews by Em
5* “If you want scandal, lust, and feeling the pain of love, this is your book. I think anyone who enjoys a good romance, legend, or medieval story will enjoy this novel.
A Champion’s Duty focuses on the relationship of Lancelot and Guinevere. In book 1, Guinevere was forced to marry the “boy” King Arthur. Toward the end of the book, you could see a relationship forming between Guinevere and Lancelot. Again, this book puts the reader through an emotional roller coaster. Most of us have felt the humiliation of someone spreading rumors about us, some of us have loved when we know it’s wrong, and many know the feelings of betrayal.
Mix all the emotions with sword fights, knights, and a quest for the Holy Grail, and you’ve got the greatness of A Champion’s Duty. I can see how it may be appreciated even if you haven’t read the first book, but I suggest you read that one too or you’re missing out. Collins has a gift and I eagerly await book 3 and anything else she creates in the future!” Serendipity Reviews
4* “Camelot, and the life of its inhabitants, come to life in this book. It feels like a real place, and a very captivating one too. Collins really writes beautifully. The story flows so easily, and the plot is so engrossing, that you’ll devour A Champion’s Duty in no time. Now, I can’t wait for the third, and last, part!” History and Other Thoughts.
June 17, 2014
Giving It Away: Something For Nothing is the New Economy of the Arts
Soon, I’m giving one of my novels away for free.
This was the publisher’s idea. The guys in charge of making the money. I’m not in charge of making the money. Don’t get me wrong, I like money, but I sure as hell didn’t write this stuff cos I thought it would make me a millionaire. I wrote it for fun. To please myself. For the enjoyment of imagining my way through a whole new world. Not for cash. Cash is the publisher’s job.
But we live in a society now – and an economy – where people expect stuff for free. Not science stuff. Not technology, or medicine, or advanced weaponry. Arts stuff. Free music. Free films and TV. The irony is, most of the people illegally downloading this stuff are people working in the arts, cos they can’t afford to buy it. We expect our arts students to self-fund PGCEs and graduate research degrees and pay our science students stipends on which they can live like kings.
And, honestly, I don’t know how I feel about this. Again, I will say, don’t get me wrong, I like money. I want money. I need it to live. But, still, shouldn’t art (and the arts) be something of a gift from us, the people we make it, to anyone generous enough to give their time to it in return? Artists need to live, sure, but I would rather the government’s (poorly managed, but that’s another issue) money went into medical technology, free healthcare and the welfare state than subsiding the arts industry. (Arts study is, again, another issue).
But, the crazy thing is, we’re not – as artists – encouraged to give our work away for free because it’s altruistic. It’s because that’s the way to make money. Give ‘em a little bit for free, and they’ll come back for more. With music, as well, (thankfully not with novels) it’s often a case of, put it free on YouTube and at least make some money from the advertising, or people will get it illegally, and you’ll make nothing at all.
I recently chastised my partner – a musician – for downloading free music. “Don’t you want to support your industry?” I cried. “Wouldn’t you want people to pay for your work?” My partner shrugged and said, “No. I wouldn’t mind people having it for free, if they were interested.” And, in the main, I don’t mind people reading my novel for free. I only wanted to share the story anyway. I never had making money at the forefront of my mind, only sharing the world I had imagined. (Although, HBO, if you feel like calling and offering me a TV deal, then you know where to find me).
I hope lots of people do read A Champion’s Duty while it’s free. I hope they enjoy it. I don’t think I’ll ever really understand this strange place where art and economy meet. I’ve never been very number- (or money-, unfortunately) minded. I wish that we lived in a society that valued the arts more. That supported the students of the arts. That supported free arts for those who couldn’t afford it, in such a way that the government rather than the artists picked up the slack.
I’ll dream of that day. Until then, I’d rather give away something for nothing, and have someone have the chance to share the imaginary world I have created, than to miss that chance. Art, after all, is all about sharing experience.
