Various saved up writerly rantings
Aug. 12th, 2008 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erastesI've never been one to insist on any sort of female solidarity; I don't see why - just because I have hidden plumbing - and am apparently from Venus - that I should back another woman up or join some mythical sorority. Part of that, is, I suppose, because we don't have the whole sorority ethos over here, and I for one would find that deeply disturbing if we did. I never wanted to join "women's club" - I always wanted to storm the bastions of the men's clubs, create one big happy unisex club. That's the ideal.
I don't really get on with women en masse. I have a few close female friends but activities that make them happy, hen nights, Chippendale parties, window shopping, hours on the phone, children - leave me cold and often nauseated. I don't dislike women, but I just don't have a lot in common with the larger proportion of them. I quite dread going to huge conventions like the RWA, because I'm sure I'll wilt into a corner. Send me to a computer games convention though and I thrive.
Why this wibble? Well, there's a column over on ERWA that my Google Alerts picked up talking about the tired old subject of women writing m/m but in this instance, it's not the same-old tale of a man saying how women shouldn't do it because "gay: u iz doin' it wrong" - this time it's a woman accusing us/m/m writers/me of gender treachery and "hate" because we aren't writing about women, and are shunning our sisters. Hence I am having to express my views here, because there is no option on ERWA to discuss the opinions with the "columnists."
She says that the reasons why I write it (and yes, I'm saying "I" because I'm pretty steamed about it) is not self-evident to her. Well - tough, sister. I don't know why people continue to write clichéd vampire fics, or Mary-Sue bodice rippers. The reasons why people like rape fic is not "self-evident" to me, but yanno? People write them, people read them. That's their prerogative. And no. The fantasy genre has no influence on my writing other than I came to m/m from Harry Potter fanfic. What I write is historical fiction. Emphasis on the historical. So yes, I am trapped in the pillory, as you describe it. And damned proud of the hard work I put in, too.
Most of the article I just don't even understand, perhaps I'm just too dim to do, but phrases like "Squicks expressed as explanations of reality are a different can of worms," just go over my head. What does it mean? I'm clearly not a college professor. But what's the difference between some m/m writers not liking to write or read het sex and some writers of het writers not liking to read gay sex? Why do we all have to like the same things?
And I'm expressing a hatred of women because I decide not to write about them? I'm sorry? What? How does that work? Do I express a hatred of black people by not including them in my fiction? Am I anti-Iraqi because none of my stories are set there? I'm a bigot now? By the same token - surely that means that all het-only writers are haters of The Gay?
I find the entire article incomprehensible, and the final paragraph just compounds my confusion. What is her view?
I'm pleased to see that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lee_rowan has also posted about this matter, as it was very personal to her, as Ms Roberta attacked her specifically by being a lesbian and that post is here.
There will be a (much better written than mine) rebuttal to that column up on Speak Its Name in a few days, T J Pennington is working on it right now.
I just spotted some sales figures over onvalarltd's LJ and was slightly shocked by them, it's very brave of Angelia to post them, but they convince me, were I to need convincing, that ebookery (on an exclusive level) is just not for me right now. I had nothing much to compare my publishing experiences with, but Standish which has been print only has been selling in larger figures than those figures quote for Ellora's Cave - whereas Chiaroscuro, which is ebook and nothing else has been deeply disappointing and earns peanuts. I read recently that EC was boasting that some of its authors were regularly making six figure sums per paycheque. I'd like to believe this, but that would mean they are selling hundreds of thousands of copies, surely. Wouldn't this be huge literary news, if so?
And good god, covers don't get any better do they? Who are Torquere using? Their kids?
I don't really get on with women en masse. I have a few close female friends but activities that make them happy, hen nights, Chippendale parties, window shopping, hours on the phone, children - leave me cold and often nauseated. I don't dislike women, but I just don't have a lot in common with the larger proportion of them. I quite dread going to huge conventions like the RWA, because I'm sure I'll wilt into a corner. Send me to a computer games convention though and I thrive.
Why this wibble? Well, there's a column over on ERWA that my Google Alerts picked up talking about the tired old subject of women writing m/m but in this instance, it's not the same-old tale of a man saying how women shouldn't do it because "gay: u iz doin' it wrong" - this time it's a woman accusing us/m/m writers/me of gender treachery and "hate" because we aren't writing about women, and are shunning our sisters. Hence I am having to express my views here, because there is no option on ERWA to discuss the opinions with the "columnists."
She says that the reasons why I write it (and yes, I'm saying "I" because I'm pretty steamed about it) is not self-evident to her. Well - tough, sister. I don't know why people continue to write clichéd vampire fics, or Mary-Sue bodice rippers. The reasons why people like rape fic is not "self-evident" to me, but yanno? People write them, people read them. That's their prerogative. And no. The fantasy genre has no influence on my writing other than I came to m/m from Harry Potter fanfic. What I write is historical fiction. Emphasis on the historical. So yes, I am trapped in the pillory, as you describe it. And damned proud of the hard work I put in, too.
Most of the article I just don't even understand, perhaps I'm just too dim to do, but phrases like "Squicks expressed as explanations of reality are a different can of worms," just go over my head. What does it mean? I'm clearly not a college professor. But what's the difference between some m/m writers not liking to write or read het sex and some writers of het writers not liking to read gay sex? Why do we all have to like the same things?
And I'm expressing a hatred of women because I decide not to write about them? I'm sorry? What? How does that work? Do I express a hatred of black people by not including them in my fiction? Am I anti-Iraqi because none of my stories are set there? I'm a bigot now? By the same token - surely that means that all het-only writers are haters of The Gay?
I find the entire article incomprehensible, and the final paragraph just compounds my confusion. What is her view?
I'm pleased to see that
lee_rowan has also posted about this matter, as it was very personal to her, as Ms Roberta attacked her specifically by being a lesbian and that post is here. There will be a (much better written than mine) rebuttal to that column up on Speak Its Name in a few days, T J Pennington is working on it right now.
I just spotted some sales figures over on
valarltd's LJ and was slightly shocked by them, it's very brave of Angelia to post them, but they convince me, were I to need convincing, that ebookery (on an exclusive level) is just not for me right now. I had nothing much to compare my publishing experiences with, but Standish which has been print only has been selling in larger figures than those figures quote for Ellora's Cave - whereas Chiaroscuro, which is ebook and nothing else has been deeply disappointing and earns peanuts. I read recently that EC was boasting that some of its authors were regularly making six figure sums per paycheque. I'd like to believe this, but that would mean they are selling hundreds of thousands of copies, surely. Wouldn't this be huge literary news, if so?And good god, covers don't get any better do they? Who are Torquere using? Their kids?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-12 02:21 pm (UTC)(And now you can tell why I didn't stay an English teacher...)
Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-12 02:32 pm (UTC)That said, I despise chicklit, which I suppose means I'm a self-loathing estrogener.
Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-12 02:41 pm (UTC)I've got a friend who dropped out of a master's program in English a while back, and we were talking recently about how far too many academics who claim to be 'experts' on writing can't string a coherent plot together or create a character anybody gives a damn about. It's all navel gazing self-absorbed garbage. I can't access the ERWA thing because work is blocking it, but judging by the quotes I'm seeing from it, this woman is one of those 'those who can't, teach' types we were talking of.
Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-12 02:59 pm (UTC)Alan Hollinghurst, I'm looking at you (and I loved The Swimming-Pool Library, too, until you became the critics' darling).
I am, I must say, a Kazuo Ishiguro hor. :D
Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-12 03:10 pm (UTC)When writers start writing for the critics or believing their own PR (yes, JKR, I'm talking to you here), that's when things start to go wrong, IMO.
Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-12 03:15 pm (UTC)Bingo!
Must... resist... an Anne Rice reference...
Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-12 03:47 pm (UTC)heh heh heh. I know what you mean. Memnoch the Devil is the first book I actually considered burning in a ceremonial cleansing ceremony (i.e. to ceremonially cleanse my poor brain!)
Merry
Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-12 04:31 pm (UTC)Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2008-08-13 03:22 pm (UTC)I'm female, I'm straight, I'm happily married and lustful for my equally passed-youth's-first-flush husband, I love reading and writing m/m because it appeals to me, I don't see I need to say more than that, or explain why, unless it's to someone I trust and who is genuinely, respectfully interested. I like apple pie, I like beautiful things, I love shoes and I have been known to read and enjoy chicklit. But I don't like Fashion (with the capital letter) or Gossip or many other stereotypically girlie things, just for their own sake. I feel comfortable with a few good friends, I don't like all women unconditionally just because they have similar, feminine plumbing, but then I don't like men unconditionally either because they don't. Most of my good friends have a similar background and/or have the same core attitudes toward life and its citizens. I may have noticed their plumbing, but I haven't bothered checking their reading list as a resume recently.
I despise being categorised, and I don't want my fellow authors and readers to be, either. I don't want to go into battle about it on a daily basis, but I will if I'm personally challenged. But for me, your comment summed it up: Write what you like, read what you like and leave everybody else the hell alone.
And I'm so sorry to have vented like this all over your LJ *lol*.