(no subject)

[erastes]

So I'm writing a vampire piece, and it doesn't have to be complicated, like. So why am I making it complicated? It could easily have been 10k words of sex, lust and blood, instead of which it's turned into Mr Emo long-life wailing about all the ephemerals he's loved and lost and he hasn't even blessed my fingers with the sordid details.

Which means what, exactly? Blinking research. I can't even toss off (excuse the pun) a porny vampire tale without bogging myself down with "When did Queen Elizabeth die?" "What's an authentic Egyptian name?" "Who ruled France is 1620?"

*Kicks Emo Long-life. Hard.* Just stop bloody rabbiting and start humping will ya? See this steak? Oh. ok then. This stake?

Talking of research - come on over to LUST BITES where we are discussing the merits of lice and fleas over non-historical accuracy. How sexy WERE scurvy dogs, exactly?

I read Sandman Season of Mists last night. Very nice. Thistlerose you were right, it did stand on its own and didn't spoil book 3 for me. Wasn't so impressed with the art work in this one, particularly for Lucifer - but the last few panels were priceless. Love the dysfunctional Endless. Looked like a Christmas in my house, a few years ago, that is.

Comments

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

*points at the serious author; laughs; wants to read that vampire tale*

On an unrelated note, I couldn't find Standish anywhere when I wanted to read it, complained to Mom about it, and was told that she had taken it after she was here for dinner the other night. o.O This morning, she informed me that she is "very angry with that author friend of yours," but she wouldn't tell me why; she just muttered something about your having been "mean to him." She's engaged in the story, which is lovely, and she did know your novel was homoerotic in nature when she liberated it, which amazes me because Mom's firmly entrenched in the traditional romance market. I just thought you'd like to know. :D

*wants book back*

[tharain.livejournal.com]

::laughs::

Isn't it a hoot when Moms (or anyone)( does something unexpected like this?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'm out of the habit of writing fantasy, I think.

I went cold when you started your mother story, I thought she'd confiscated it and was going to tell you to tell me off for sending you porn.

Am delighted she's reading it, and I had to laugh at how she thought how mean I was being.

Thank you for letting me know!

xxx

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I totally getcha.

It should have been a sexy little story, just some fluff. Then it required research and thought and historical accuracy and religious accuracy, and mythological accuracy and and and...all of a sudden, I have a rakshesa teaching a djinn about the techniques in the Kama Sutra...

I shoulda just filed the numbers off Illugi's Saga.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Heh - I'm so glad this isn't just me - it's encouraging to see others have the same probs!!

thanks, hun!

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

I sympathise. I wrote a stupid piece of fanfic ,in which I happily swallowed the camels of William Bush being actually Dr Who and the Hornblower lads going in the TARDIS to link up with Torchwood, but then strained at the gnat about whether there are bollards outside the Hilton hotel in Cardiff.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I heard about this fic - I think Bush being the Doctor is QUITE feasible!

*laughs about the bollards, though*

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

"Emo Long-Life"

::snort::

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh he so is. His partner is the sensible one. This one was BORN wearing a frilly shirt.

[liebesdammerung.livejournal.com]

Haha! I am perusing around Lust Bites and laughing myself silly. I love this site!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

They are a lovely bunch of writers, and very very welcoming.

[dastier.livejournal.com]

It could easily have been 10k words of sex

sorry to butt in, but vampires can't have sex, at least not as the active participant, because they're, well, dead O.o

when i was a devoted goth, i remember *endless* disputes about the subjects [can they? can't they? can we imagine them as able to?], and the general, most sensible answer was 'no'. don't know how you're going to handle this tricky subject in this story, i just got retrospect about the memories of the time when it seemed so damn important *g*

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Actually, according to old legend, they can. In some mythos they came back solely for sex, all night, every night, until the widow died of exhaustion. Then they started on anyone else.

The post-humous erection is a well documented fact. And once circulation ceases, the blood has no way to get out of the erectile tissue. Perma-erection, orgasm without ejaculation, all of which fits with the dynamo-style cited above.

[welshbard.livejournal.com]

It all depends on how your vampires work. Hamilton has vampires unable to get a erection until they feed, whereby there is blood to circulate. Makes for some very interesting situations.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

The ebook brigade would go out of business overnight if they had to obey that law!

*G*

And if you took the dead thing on, they wouldn't be able to speak, too!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

This is why your stories are going to be around for a long time, when the formula fluff is forgotten. One writer on my fanfic group said she read an article in a writer's magazine that advised historical romance wannabees to just throw in old-timey words because nobody really knows that stuff anyway. I've read (the first few pages of) a lot of 'hysterical' romances done just that way.

It's more work. I think it's worth it. After all, if you wouldn't want to read your own book, how can you expect anyone else to?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Aw you are too nice to me. I agree about the old timey words. I can't remember who the hell it was, but smart bitches were RAVING (in a good way) about someone who was writing in Old English in a romantic novel and when RWDay and I explored it wasn't at all, it was exactly the big old words inserted. It was horrible.

[welshbard.livejournal.com]

1. 24th of March 1603
2. Kemnebi (means "black panther")
3. Louis XIII

Just in case you didn't have that.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh you are sweet. I have the best flist.

*smooch*

[rmanley.livejournal.com]

Holy hell, you pimped me!

And I've yet to hear from the publisher about my novel! *cries*

To add to the chorus at Lust Bites, hear hear. Accuracy is all about respect not only for the readers but also for the historical period you choose to write about.

YOu know, now that I think about it, I don't know if there were any short stories that were written during the Regency, but there were tons in the Victorian era. Anyway, those short stories are just absolute gems. I think I learned just as much about life in a crummy middle-class household and traveling by coach in one of Thackeray's short stories as in one of Dickens's novels. Victorian writers were sticklers for details.

Heck, even the Victorian ghost story anthology I'm reading now is like a historical textbook, and I'm taking copious notes.

[tharain.livejournal.com]

the Victorian ghost story anthology I'm reading now is like a historical textbook

I'm reading MR James at Project Gutenberg. LOVING it, and soaking up the language. Don't even start me on EF Benson ghost stories.

[tharain.livejournal.com]

OMG. I know just how you feel. When working on my book, I spent hours researching things, down the the phase of the moon on a given date in timeline, though no actualy date or year is given.

That little short story I want to knock off? I spent an hour last night researching Cornish place names, their derivation, and their meaning. And it isn't important! Let's not talk about "How would two Englishmen address each other ca 1904, if they were in their late twenties or early thirties, and had known each other since university." "When would they have started university?" "Would an English boy ca 1889 refer to his father's second cousin as 'Uncle'?"

Oh. My. GOD. Give me contemporary fiction PLEASE.

How do you do this???

::bows before you, humbled::

[erastes.livejournal.com]

For each book I think I have another book of reserach , that's for sure. Pages and pages of cut and pasted stuff, moon phases, weather in certain times of the year, how long did it take to get to X place by coach, postal history, what's a Felze? Austro-hungarian wars, Newgate, pages and pages of bloody Newgate....court transcripts, maps maps maps.

Can you blame me for not wanting to do a sequel? And I still didn't research enough, really.

As to the young men, they'd call themselves by their surnames, as they did at school. It would take a while to get them to call each other by their first names. (Have you read the Charioteer btw?)

And the cousin thing - probably "Cousin X" I would say. I'm using Dickens for that - Uncle PUmblechook is always Uncle Pumblechook, no matter who refers to him.

But its FUN! (For a magpie mind like me, that is...)

[julesjones]

Well, I *tried* to post a comment at Lust Bites. Unfortunately I'd forgotten that blogger is a great steaming pile of horse manure, and likes to throw away your comment two or three times before letting you post. And as I was stupid enough to type it into the box on the blog rather than in a text editor, and I can't be bothered to type it out again from memory...

[julesjones]

Belay that. I finally persuaded it to cough up with the text I'd put in.

[unity-of-hours.livejournal.com]

Hey, I don't' suppose I'd be able to get an invite to post over at Lust Bites message board, would I?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

If you mean to just comment, you don't need an invite, but to post a blog entry (like my piece) then you need to contact the ladies who own the blog, Mathilde and the others. I only post as a guest - that is I write the article and email the copy and pictures to Mathilde.

[aeeee.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I know this is rather late, but little_details might be of help to you. If you've seen it before, my bad.

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with it in any way, nor am I a member. I can't even remember if I've ever commented.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you - and hi!

I joined that comm last year and after researching something intensively but coming up with no answers I tried little_details and was most aggressively refused a post by one of the mods kutsuwamushi who told me that I should bloody research before asking such trivial questions.

As I was a 1. serious novelist and 2. known for research, I was really offended, and pointed these points out to her.

Since then I found that I'm not the only one this has happened to,

I'd never had such an unpleasant thing happen to me in community before, and it left a nasty taste in my mouth.

This was my question: Would a baseball stadium have a hot tub? Would it be a big thing set into the floor? Is the water warm?

Do they have charity games of baseball? You know, with random teams of veterans and rookies? Or would a pro-am game be a better idea?

And this is my post discussing the "answer" I got.

"Up themselves" is all I can say!

That being said - it was very nice of you to think of me, and to attempt to help me in my morass of research doom. Thank you!

xxx