megwrites: A moon rising above a darkened landscape in front of a starry night sky. (moonrise)
[personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 02:49 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 07:51 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 07:54 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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).

Date: 2011-04-05 08:08 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] apis_mellifera
Well, I'm sure her villains are ugly. I mean, that's a defining characteristic of a villain, amirite?

Date: 2011-04-05 08:32 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] holyschist
Oh no, villains can be sexy but eeeeevil!

Or we talking actual ugliness and beauty of character?

Date: 2011-04-05 08:36 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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).

Date: 2011-04-05 08:48 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 08:43 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 08:56 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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?

Date: 2011-04-05 09:07 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 09:10 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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?

Date: 2011-04-05 09:25 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.)

Date: 2011-04-05 10:08 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 08:17 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 08:42 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 08:34 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.)

Date: 2011-04-05 08:31 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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*

Date: 2011-04-05 08:46 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 09:25 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 09:08 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 08:13 pm (UTC)
apis_mellifera: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2011-04-05 07:58 pm (UTC)
holyschist: Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom" (Default)
From: [personal profile] holyschist
Understood, and you don't have to, of course! I'm just nosy.

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