Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
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Writing Questions for Josh
K.Z. wrote: "For example, I'd love to see all my Poppy Z. Brite "Liquor" books with matching covers and spines"I don't need a box, but I like the matching covers. My ''Liquor'' books are not even of the same height!
Antonella wrote: "My ''Liquor'' books are not even of the same height!"Nor mine! (I guess readers can be as loopy as writers, eh? :-D)
Antonella wrote: "K.Z. wrote: "For example, I'd love to see all my Poppy Z. Brite "Liquor" books with matching covers and spines"I don't need a box, but I like the matching covers. My ''Liquor'' books are not even..."
I agree, I like matching covers and all that, but I'm not a fan of boxes. I can see the appeal, but it's not for me.
I'm looking forward to the coda collection.
Sammie wrote: "yay on codas being released for posterity. I understand how they don't fit on neatly with some of the books. thanks"Yay too (or two?)
I must also have that reader OCD. Though I don't need a boxed set, I HATE it when cover styles change partway through a series! Or when it goes hardback on book 5 and so it's now all mismatched.Though with digital it's less of a problem, I still like my series covers to look like they go together.
Plus, poor memory. If the cover changes, I may just buy that book a second time if I don't check my Goodreads books first.
Mod
I recently bought the whole series by Michael Nava and thought it would be better and cheaper in print. So I looked hard for good, used copies. I haven't read them yet, but I'm already disappointed because I didn't think to check the size of each book. They're all different and one of them is covered in price sticker goo. Why didn't I just get the ebooks with the pretty covers? Those are still being published. *smacks forehead*
Jordan wrote: "I recently bought the whole series by Michael Nava..."I've got 6 of them from Alyson Books, nice and new and looking the same. The 7th is from Berkley Prime Crime, it's in very good conditions, but it's taller than the others. I feel very OCD when I complain about such things...
Anyway, if you have got Rag and Bone from Alyson Books I'd like to swap, I'd pay your shipping expenses. Or you cold bring it over if you are coming to Bristol ;-). The more I think about it, the more I suspect it will be difficult to stay away...
Thank goodness for ebooks, eh? If the covers don't match in style it's easier to ignore. No size differences at all there. :)All of us OCD types can breathe a sigh of relief.
And yes I DO make my Goodreads edition match the cover art of the one I have... doesn't everyone? ;)
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I've got 6 of them from Alyson Books, nice and new and looking the same. The 7th is from Berkley Prime Crime, it's in very goo..."
I will have to double check when I get home to see which edition of that one I have. If I do have Alyson, we can certainly swap! :-)
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All of us OCD types can breathe a sigh of relief.
And yes I DO make m..."
I usually try to, though I don't think I did with this series. Likely I'll make changes on GR once I start reading.
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I'm seriously thinking of going to Bristol, if I can find the money to go. Getting there is the really expensive part!
Thank you for checking, dear Jordan! It would be nice to meet you in England.
I have a Q. I read a few times you said that Blood Red... was an experiment. What do you mean by that? What was experimental about it? I love that story, I gave it 5 stars. I loved the story, the characters, the mood you set, the atmosphere, Japan theme (the theme you used in Dangerous Ground too). Being a reader, I didn't find it opposite from your other work. The mystery and the love were there in a perfect union. So what was the experiment there?
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What Antonella said!
Johanna wrote: "Antonella wrote: "Thank you for checking, dear Jordan! It would be nice to meet you in England."What Antonella said!"
What they said!
LOL! I suppose I have to come to Bristol now!
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LOL. I took for granted that you'd be there, dear. :)
Antonella wrote: "LOL! I suppose I have to come to Bristol now!"Are you, by any chance, looking for roommates? ;-)
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There are character dynamics and tropes there that don't typically show up in my work -- insta love, rape and near rape -- it's all a little ultra dramatic, and I was trying to be very visual. I tried to mostly only write out scenes that would be in the manga (if that makes sense?) so in some ways there was less development and less connective tissue.
I wasn't taking short cuts -- I worked harder on that story than Haunted Heart and Parting Glass combined, but I was trying a different approach, a different focus.
Also I don't feel the characters are really my usual characters. I was trying very much for a, well...not Japanese, but for a manga-esque feel to the characters?
This is not say that I'm not proud of the story -- I *am* proud of it, I think I did what I set out to do -- just that I think those little key changes did feel very different to a lot of readers. Particularly readers not familiar with manga or anime.
I am not all that familiar with manga, I know the basics. I use to be a big fan of comics, in my early days that is, but them I moved to books and as they said, never looked back. But I did have a feel of a comic book pace in BRB. I know manga is really so much more than ordinary comic, but that's how I saw it in my head. I loved your story. Love the way you don't shy away from the real life. Not that I enjoy reading about rape and such, but if it serve the purpose in the story then, well, it should be there, right?
If you ever have a desire to write a story with similar feel, I am all for it. Or experiment. Why not? You are a very talented writer and as someone said, auto-buy for your fans (me), so if and when you feel like exploring, you do that. We'll be here :).
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I have yet to book a hotel room, though I am thinking of staying at the event hotel. I'll gladly accept a roommate so long as you don't mind me keeping the room very warm. And if you snore, warn me so I can bring earplugs. Lol.
I am waiting a bit to register even though I'm pretty sure I'm going. This will be my first international travel experience because driving to Canada from New Hampshire when I was In college doesn't really count, so I'm a bit nervous about it, as well as excited!
Calathea wrote: "Antonella wrote: "LOL! I suppose I have to come to Bristol now!"Are you, by any chance, looking for roommates? ;-)"
I will be, if I really go (90% probability now)...
Antonella wrote: "Calathea wrote: "Antonella wrote: "LOL! I suppose I have to come to Bristol now!"Are you, by any chance, looking for roommates? ;-)"
I will be, if I really go (90% probability now)..."
I hereby apply for room-mate-ship. :) (I had som much fun last time.^^)
I really hate to interrupt the conversation here, because this isn't a writing question for Josh. But, it is a question. A video question. I thought I remembered a book trailer where Josh used the Lifehouse's song, Gotta Be Tonight. I went hunting and didn't find it here at GR. I figured maybe I'd dreamed it. (not too surprising lol.) but I went to check out the videos on his website and his blog. Of the videos there I could only 'see' Lone Star. (both on my pc and my ipad) The others videos just show as blanks, even thought the book blurb and title are there. I did find a few videos hunting around on youtube. I guess my questions are, did Josh ever make a video with that Lifehouse song, and why the heck can't I see/play the other videos at the other sites? Is it just me and my lousy hardware/software? :p
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I think the idea of an "auto-buy" has to be the greatest compliment a reader can give an author. I have a handful of authors I feel this way about. Sadly they are mostly dead. :-D But when they were living, I faithfully bought every experiment and compilation and early effort and repackaging. This is not to say I loved everything equally, but I would still take an experiment from an auto-buy author over a rec for a new author -- so I am very much aware of what a gift this is.
The fact is, I'm not a hugely experimental author. There are certain themes and dynamics that fascinate me, and I'm sure I will continue to explore them for as long as I continue to write. The fact that so many readers are willing to probe and prod these same literary coordinates is enormously satisfying -- I know that I am very lucky in my readers.
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Ah. I loaded those videos through Facebook, which became much more strict about third party content. I need to have my webmaster go back and remove all those links. I think the vids are still at YouTube.
The quandary here is I've used a minute of three and four minute songs for videos -- technically pirating them. Now, I don't feel that this is "bad" pirating because it's not the whole work and credit is given, and I know for a fact many songs and albums have been sold from my trailers and playlists. BUT technically it *is* piracy.
So I've thought about pulling those vids down completely, but haven't yet made up my mind. If pirates stopped at offering samples of my work with buy links, I'd have no trouble with them. That would essentially be free advertising. It's offering the entire work for free that creates an issue.
Or does it?
Josh wrote: "Karan wrote: "I really hate to interrupt the conversation here, because this isn't a writing question for Josh. But, it is a question. A video question. I thought I remembered a book trailer where ..."These videos appear to be available for viewing if you go you your GR home page and click on videos there.
Thanks, Josh. That is an interesting problem. I have to admit, I'm one of those who purchased an album just from watching one of your videos. Which is why I was looking for what I thought might be a Lifehouse video again. (I'm wondering now if I saw that on a playlist, instead)
Josh wrote: "Goge wrote: "I have a Q. I read a few times you said that Blood Red... was an experiment. What do you mean by that? What was experimental about it? I love that story, I gave it 5 stars. I loved the..."It's fascinating because last month we had a discussion with two taiwanese manga (they live and work in america) who made a very different BL Manga than the japanese mangakas. They had a huge success worldwide and we assumed that it was because it was so different and didn't follow the rules of a "typical" BL-Manga, which overtired most western-BL-readers (at least what is getting licenced the last years). Although they had discussions with their japanese readers who complained about that (and why the protag doesn't fall in love with the person who raped him, because his body reacted.).
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You know what it was -- I just remembered -- it was a Lifehouse vid that I posted on my Facebook Fan Page when I first started talking about the story. It wasn't actually a book trailer.
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Interesting. Are the two styles very different? Would the average reader be able to tell?
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Jordan wrote: "Have you, or anyone else here, while looking for character names flat out turned any down because they reminded you too much of other people? Other people being RL people you know as well as charac..."I can't give any characters the same names as my children. It seems wrong somehow.
Jordan wrote: "Have you, or anyone else here, while looking for character names flat out turned any down because they reminded you too much of other people? Other people being RL people you know as well as charac..."Err... I think I unconsciously skip those names to begin with. That said, I used one of my best friends' name in a fanfic (and turned him into a slightly autistic 9yr old), and *cough* the bad guy in Aliens, Smith and Jones carries the name of one of my other best friends' boyfriend. That one was unintentional, though, cause he's a real sweetheart :)
Also... I'd love to use my kids' names in a story sometime. I love those names :) But... with me writing fantasy, I don't think I'll have a lot of opportunities. (Plus I'm the type to actually ask their permission as well...)
I just read in the acknowledgements of a John Morgan Wilson book that he held an auction, the winners of which got characters named after them. I thought it was brilliant. He made no guarantees about whether they'd be major characters, good guys or villians. How cool was that?
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At first I probably did. But by now I've got so many characters and books that I'm just looking for names I like.
What I find interesting is there are names I like and names I dislike. Names I would use for supporting characters but not for a main character. Names that I've used over again because, even though the characters seem different in my mind, the name just seems right for both of them. Sean and Tim for example. I've had a couple of Seans and a couple of Tims and they both seem very different people, and yet I couldn't change their names even when I realized I was repeating.
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I've done that. I did it in The Dark Tide. And sometimes I'll throw in a friend's name just as a hello. :-)
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The fact that I have yet to notice you repeating names must mean you're doing a fantastic job at making each character unique in their own special way!
At one time, I started marking my baby name book so I'd know which names I'd already used. Thankfully, I didn't get too far before I gave that up. It really doesn't make the book look good.
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Oh good! I'm reading Aliens next!
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"R is for Robert, who thinks that it's great, to sit by the fire and read until late."
I've also been working on memorizing them. It helps in certain situations, like getting rid of hiccups, to try to go through them in my head, at least the names, if not the rhymes that go with them.
Dev wrote: "I just read in the acknowledgements of a John Morgan Wilson book that he held an auction, the winners of which got characters named after them. I thought it was brilliant. He made no guarantees abo..."Oh. That does sound cool.
Josh wrote: "What I find interesting is there are names I like and names I dislike. Names I would use for supporting characters but not for a main character. "I think we all have names we like and dislike. I think it's only logical to use names you like when you're writing. If a name irks me, I wouldn't enjoy writing it.
Though... I'm not sure I'd even use names I didn't like for my supporting characters.
I do use them for villains, sometimes
Jordan wrote: "Blaine wrote: "Jordan wrote: "Have you, or anyone else here, while looking for character names flat out turned any down because they reminded you too much of other people? Other people being RL peo..."*looks at what she wrote*
I hope I didn't spoil you...
Enjoy Aliens :)
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lol, not at all! :-)
Interesting article in praise of gatekeepers in the publishing industry. http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by...
I'm guessing m/m authors would have a different take on this?
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http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by......"
I read that article last week and was annoyed by it. But I was annoyed because snobbery irritates me -- even though I am one of the biggest snobs out there. :-D
Even if you take the microcosm of m/m fiction, you cannot study the bestseller list on Amazon and not wonder what the hell is going on. So many of the books dominating the list are simply bad. BAD. Badly written idiotic stories that would appear to have an enthusiastic readership.
I don't know what to do with that.
What can you say?
Some of these people are gaming the system. But surely not everyone?
M/M is an insulated corner of publishing. What I find myself wondering is does success in m/m fiction translate to anything meaningful in the greater realm of romance? Meaning, for an individual author, yes! It does. I can earn a living writing m/m romance. But is my success so striking that mainstream would look twice?
Probably not.
That's the reality.
Gatekeepers are not democratic. But what gatekeepers do is ensure that to get through the gate there has to be a minimum of learning craft. There has to be a minimal learning of the technical aspect of storytelling.
Once you take that away...you have what we have now. But you also have readers buying and loving the broad selection of what is out there. Books that could NEVER make it through mainstream -- and I don't mean because of the subject matter.
Storytelling triumphs craft. That is for sure. But maybe craft is an artificial construct. If you think back to the earliest oral traditions...it's not about the fine points of literary style. It's about the story.
The story is what matters.
The story is what lasts.
The story IS what lasts. Several years ago my therapist recommended a book to me - kind of a self-help by way of cheesy fiction thing. I read it and went back to her saying, thanks, the message was great, but OH MY GOD THE WRITING SUCKED! And I couldn't shut up about how bad the writing was.
But now, 15 years later, I still remember the entire story and certain scenes are as clear in my mind as the day I read it.
At the same time, yesterday I was looking through my GR book list and saw some books I'd rated 4 stars - and could not immediately recall a single thing about the story.
I don't know, it seems to me that "gatekeepers" are not what's important as much as the people that preach the gospel of GOOD editing and proofreading.
That and a good story.
But now, 15 years later, I still remember the entire story and certain scenes are as clear in my mind as the day I read it.
At the same time, yesterday I was looking through my GR book list and saw some books I'd rated 4 stars - and could not immediately recall a single thing about the story.
I don't know, it seems to me that "gatekeepers" are not what's important as much as the people that preach the gospel of GOOD editing and proofreading.
That and a good story.
Mod
..."
The problem is that the takeaway for too many writers is that if the story is powerful enough, readers may bitch, but the book will still sell. That seems to be the lesson. And of course everyone believes that their story IS that powerful.
I think story is what's gotten lost in literary fiction - which is why it doesn't sell any more. On the other hand, craft enhances story, or at least I hope it does. Here in the romance world we're all writing the same boy meets boy story, with some twists and turns along the way. What makes a story resonate is not the bare-bones story but the way the author wraps us up in it.Here in m/m I think we're really dealing with two genres that get combined in the best seller list - romance and erotica. And erotica always sells better, even when it's not as well done. I haven't read most of the stories in the top 10-20, but from the covers and blurbs I always assume there's plenty, plenty sex in them.
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Q&A with Josh Lanyon
Books mentioned in this topic
Alphabears: An ABC Book (other topics)Rag and Bone (other topics)
As Meat Loves Salt (other topics)
The Well of Loneliness (other topics)
The Selfish Gene (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Julie Smith (other topics)Bernard Cornwell (other topics)
Robin McKinley (other topics)
Tove Jansson (other topics)
Astrid Lindgren (other topics)
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For example, I'd love to see all my Poppy Z. Brite "Liquor" books with matching covers and spines, tucked neatly in a box. It would please me just to look at them. ;-)