Random assortment

[megwrites]

1. I just want to say a big "bless you" to all those authors who put up sample chapters on their sites, and actually start with the first part when they do this. I've come across several authors who want to pull an excerpt from, say, chapter 20 or chapter 10 or some such and I'm like, "THIS DOES NOT HELP ME". The thing is, to understand your book, I need to read it in order. Thus, I need to start from page one. And while chapter 20 may be a page turner, if the first 19 chapters are boring as hell, I'm not going to invest. Which is why I like to start at the beginning. To make sure that your book is giving me a reason to want to read on.

2. I have a really, really evil trouble starting post in my head after seeing some news around the writersphere about a couple of paranormal romance series being discontinued for bad sales according to their authors.

But one in particular really made me want to say some inordinately snarky things. It's not that I relish a fellow writer not meeting with success when they work hard and put their hearts on the line, it's that when said writer pens a book that basically says from front to back, "Sorry, people like YOU aren't good enough to be in this book. People like YOU are too ugly for a Sexy Tiems Paranormal Romance Like This, come back when you're beautiful", I'm not sad to see it leave the shelves. And I feel just a little bit vindicated to know it failed.

The thing is? I'm used to mainstream romance and paranormal romance hating me by exclusion. I'm used to being told I'm not pretty enough because I've got covers and covers and covers of books about skinny heterosexual white chicks staring at me to let me know what is pretty enough. And I've sort of learned to deal and find the hidden gems and live with eternal optimism and not expect too much.

But this book didn't just settle for exclusion, it went right on to face slapping. This one book actually made me leave not just the romance bookshelves (and abandon all the other books I was going to preview and consider buying) but the bookstore. It was during this winter when I was going through a lot of bad mental stuff and there I am, looking for something exciting and fun to read because damn but I needed some relief and *bam*. Hit in the face with the things that have, at times, my made life completely miserable. Things I have to push back against on the daily or cave in to self-harm.

For the moment, I'll table that post because I'm not looking to get into internet drama over it, but one day I may make the post about how writers need to think twice (and thrice) before they decide ignoring big parts of their potential audience is the way to go - because as recent news would seem to bear out, that bigotry isn't working out so well for some people.

3. It being poetry month and me not wanting to post any of my own poems right now, I'll post my favorite Pablo Neruda poem:

Sonnet XI
by Pablo Neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Comments

[holyschist]

I have a very...ambivalent...relationship with UF/PNR, and I find myself horribly curious as to which series makes the biases of the genre so explicitly face-slapping.

[apis_mellifera]

This. Ambivalent is a really good word to describe how I feel, too.

Four years ago I was at a panel which was mainly composed of urban fantasy authors. One of them said, "I'm writing fantasy--why shouldn't my world be full of beautiful people?" (she was talking about a character who was a GOBLIN) and it really rubbed me the wrong way.

[holyschist]

I also have issues with the overwhelming straightness of most UF, among other things (and authors who act like they're going to go there and then go "Teehee, don't worry! Protagonist is still straight!" /bitter)

One of them said, "I'm writing fantasy--why shouldn't my world be full of beautiful people?"

Because that would be boring, unless we're redefining beauty outside of its narrow conventional definition? And even then, that would be boring (and probably villain-less).

[apis_mellifera]

Well, I'm sure her villains are ugly. I mean, that's a defining characteristic of a villain, amirite?

[holyschist]

Oh no, villains can be sexy but eeeeevil!

Or we talking actual ugliness and beauty of character?

[apis_mellifera]

I was thinking actual ugliness. It just seems to me that if all her good guy characters are pretty, then it just follows that all her bad guy characters are ugly.

I read a book a couple of weeks ago where most of the villains were ugly, lower class, and fat. I was SO ANGRY (the book had some other issues, too).

[megwrites]

Please anti-rec me this book so I can avoid it! It sounds dreadful.

[apis_mellifera]

The Falling Machine, Andrew Mayer (it's out in June). It was badly written and I really don't think it was even edited--there were sentences that MADE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. And some really strange stylistic choices that were distracting at best.

[holyschist]

Yeah, I don't know--with an author like that, they could go either way, for "Their outer ugliness reflects their inner evil" or "sexy villains!" But it just seems like a ridiculous, offensive, stupid attitude to take to writing.

I read a book a couple of weeks ago where most of the villains were ugly, lower class, and fat.

UGH. I am furious that the Bitter, Evil Cripple is still such a common trope, as well.

[apis_mellifera]

I think it's a really lazy thing to do, too. Writers are getting paid to make stuff up--can't they be more original than that?

[holyschist]

Don't get me started! Apparently my expectation that writers should think about what they write and do their research is ~unreasonable~ because a writer's only job is to write, and thought and research are not part of that. Or something.

[apis_mellifera]

So I probably shouldn't tell that on the VERY SAME PANEL there was another author--who writes SFR--who said, with a completely straight face, that she doesn't do any research because her job is to be an entertainer and she can't be bothered because women who read SF don't care about the science?

[holyschist]

ONLY IF YOU WANT MY HEAD TO EXPLODE WITH RAGE.

(I love "hard" SF in theory, except that most of it has nothing whatsoever to do with science, so "hard" tends to stand in for "meaningless jargon and lack of character development." But argh, argh, I feel SF should so much be the literature of ideas and the nature of what it is to be human, not a bunch of jargon and fluff. This is not incompatible with romance! Also I laugh bitterly at the idea that male SF readers care about the science, given the average level of science in the manly hard SF books.)

[apis_mellifera]

My jaw *literally* dropped when she said it. And there was indignant squeaking.

SF should totally be the literature of ideas and what it means to be human and I think the very best examples of the genre do just that. It's just that those examples are often few and far between. Then again, examples of really awesome romance novels are also few and far between. Sigh.

[megwrites]

I also have issues with the overwhelming straightness of most UF, among other things (and authors who act like they're going to go there and then go "Teehee, don't worry! Protagonist is still straight!" /bitter)

This to the power of 100000000000000!

I got more than a little pissed off at Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking (I hate that book with the fire of a thousand burning suns) for just this issue among so many others. She sets up just a little bit of chemistry between Ivy and Rachel, but then she spend the rest of the book telling us that Rachel isn't "like that" and aggressively reinforcing just how heterosexual Rachel is. Because it would be the worst thing in the world if Rachel were bi or lesbian. Heavens forfend the Sexy Witch du Jour should be queer. Ugh.

I'm right there with you on this.

[apis_mellifera]

YES. Except, you know, she drags it out for like FIVE BOOKS before Rachel FINALLY tells Ivy that she only wants to be friends. Poor Ivy. Who is awesome and deserves SO MUCH BETTER than that.

I actually really liked those books when I started reading (and then reviewing) them. Now I think Rachel is entirely too stupid to live and I'm getting really fucking tired of her leveling up at the end of each book.

[megwrites]

You are officially more patient than I am about it then, because I thought Rachel hit the "too ridiculous to live" mark half way through the first book. I think somewhere around the scene where Rachel is in a cage, trapped in an animal form, and yet still checking out a guy's ass and rating her captor for hotness my eyes went into pinwheel mode they were rolling so hard. See, they're doing it even now. I CAN'T MAKE THEM STOP.

Plus the entire thing about the "big scary black guy" being after the poor little white woman that she set up with Denton was sketchy in the extreme.

I did like Ivy and Jenks and I wish the book had been about them. Ivy really merited her own books. There were some glimmers of interesting plots or characters in Dead Witch Walking but you know, too much Rachel, not enough anything else roller derby.

[apis_mellifera]

I get paid to read them, which does help. A little bit. I think, though, at some point I'm going to hit LKH levels of irritation and have to find someone else to review them.

Jenks and Ivy are my favorites, for sure. And I do like the sort of post-apocalyptic world she's got going on but it's becoming really clear to me that she's rapidly running out of plot--the series was supposed to run seven books and she's up to nine now.

[holyschist]

KIM HARRISON. I still feel kind of betrayed by that.

(I loved Ivy SO MUCH, dammit. And she does deserve better than Rachel, but if she wants Rachel, I wish Rachel would get over her "I am STRAIGHT even though Ivy makes me heart ~flutter~ BUT NO I AM STRAIGHT" bullshit and then maybe I'd start reading the books again despite the leveling-up and how boring I find Al.)

[holyschist]

Haha, it's like you're IN MY BRAIN. Kim Harrison got my hopes up for an actual bisexual heroine and then destroyed them in the most obnoxious way possible. And then I kind of gave up on the books entirely, for assorted reasons. (And her guestbook was full of relieved readers who just wouldn't have been able to "identify" with a bi Rachel. WTF, if I can read books with straight male protagonists, I should think straight women could read books with queer female protagonists. But I generally hate the idea that characters must be "identifiable" and just like use in order to be "identifiable.")

I keep getting really enthused about a new UF series for about three books, and then really bitter when it turns out to be the same old crap. *siiiiigh*

[megwrites]

WTF, if I can read books with straight male protagonists, I should think straight women could read books with queer female protagonists. But I generally hate the idea that characters must be "identifiable" and just like use in order to be "identifiable."

I am beyond tired of this kind of bullshit logic being used by authors, editors, and marketing folks to justify excluding people from books or even the covers of books about them. It's the same thing they say when they put a white face on the cover of a book about a protagonist of color or what not.

I just want to scream the same thing you did, and then point to all the protagonists and characters that are NOT like me (the trans or non-binary ones, the ones of color, the non-U.S.ian ones, etc) that I have loved and adored and fangirled all my damn life.

I'd thank these folks not to justify their own prejudices and fail by assuming that me (and other readers) are so narrow minded and bereft of basic empathy that the mere sight of someone who isn't JUST like us will send us running.

[holyschist]

See, I want to believe that it's about the publishers etc. underestimating readers...but then I see the same crap in reviews, and I just get discouraged. I am sorry I am so FREAKISH and IMPOSSIBLE TO IDENTIFY WITH. And, IDK, maybe I could be a person worth knowing even if you don't "identify" with me?

Apparently I take book representation overly personally or something.

(I don't generally "identify" with those straight male characters, but I don't generally identify with characters--and when I do, it's usually about personality, not identity. But apparently readers like me are unicorns.)

I'd thank these folks not to justify their own prejudices and fail by assuming that me (and other readers) are so narrow minded and bereft of basic empathy that the mere sight of someone who isn't JUST like us will send us running.

THIS.

[megwrites]

Apparently I take book representation overly personally or something.

That's because it is personal. How people are represented in books (and other media for that matter) is definitely personal, especially when you have a marginalized identity that books either want to erase or villify. It totally is personal.

Books matter. They influence people, they transmit cultural information, they stick in people's brain - and using those books to prop up stereotypes and completely ignore people is totally personal.

I don't generally "identify" with those straight male characters, but I don't generally identify with characters--and when I do, it's usually about personality, not identity. But apparently readers like me are unicorn

There's a post in there about what it means to identify, but know that you're not the only unicorn in the herd. I'm there, too.

I also think we oversell this idea that a reader must "identify", especially when I think by identify people really mean "be interested in and sympathize with". Sure you need a character people can be interested in and possibly sympathize with, but that's not the same as identifying with. I mean, I can sympathize with someone who is having issues with their children and parenthood - but I'm childfree. I have no kids and never plan to. I don't identify with parents, I'm not one. Their experiences are vastly divergent from mine, but I can be interested in their struggles and empathize with their experiences if I'm reading a book.

[holyschist]

Yeah, I know. *sigh*

There's a post in there about what it means to identify, but know that you're not the only unicorn in the herd. I'm there, too.

I also think we oversell this idea that a reader must "identify", especially when I think by identify people really mean "be interested in and sympathize with".

I would read this post and cheer.

[apis_mellifera]

I wonder if some of this attitude--especially in PNR/UF--comes from mainstream romance which is a highly segmented market which is supposedly full of readers who often only read a scant handful of types of romance and which, historically, has had pretty specific guidelines for what types of stories are appropriate and what kinds of people should be in them. I'm just sort of throwing this idea out there--I could be completely full of it.

I tried to read a HQN Presents a while ago and couldn't because it had a domineering alpha hero who rapes the heroine (the alpha thing is to be expected in a Presents title; I wasn't expecting the rape). And it was published in 2009.

[megwrites]

Wow, I only saw that one quote and it really gets my hackles up. Especially because the idea of saying "why shouldn't my world be full of beautiful people" is really that person saying, "why shouldn't this world only reflect what I find to be beautiful and exclude anyone who doesn't meet that criteria?"

Ugh. And seriously? A sexy goblin? *headdesk*. I may have to give up on humanity after that one.

[apis_mellifera]

I believe she described him as having silver skin. What is this I don't even. He was a potential love interest of the heroine, IIRC. I think writing a book set in a world that has nothing but beautiful people in it shows a certain failure of imagination on the part of the writer.

I'm sorry you've had authors come into your space and argue with reviews. That's not cool.

[megwrites]

I'll private message you about that. I really, really don't want to start any drama right now, mostly because I have had authors come to my LJ/DW in the past and argue with a bad review and I really don't want to have to go through that again.

[holyschist]

Understood, and you don't have to, of course! I'm just nosy.