Various saved up writerly rantings

[erastes]

I'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 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?

Comments

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

People first, gay second is a privileged position. I see where you're coming from, but I think we're arguing semantics.

As Naomi said, we tell stories. The sexuality of the characters may or may not play a large role in the story. Sometimes they're too busy saving the world from eldritch horrors, fighting for their lives or just doing a job that goes bad.

But the act of writing and publishing such stories is political. By presenting such relationships and activities as normal, we are slowly but surely working on people's minds, opening them to acceptance.

I live in an area where teenagers are forced into ex-gay brainwashing camps, where just going to Pride is a militant act. Where "Marriage=1 man + 1 woman" was written into our state constitution by a 4 to 1 margin (5 to 1 in the neighboring state).

Writing any character who is not the "default value of human"--that is white, straight, protestant and male--is an act of subversion.

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

I understand completely where you're coming from, I'm allegedly an Irish Catholic, I went to catholic schools and I had a sponsorship, though i didn't take it, to catholic university to study theology. I did lit somewhere else instead.
I know which part of hell I am apparently going to end up in, I know which demons are going to apparently poke which parts of my body and with which sharp objects. I was raised by strict irish catholic parents and went to school with nuns. at the top of this email when i recieved it was an advert for mormonism, the irony did not elude me
I am not gay, I suppose at a push I'm bisexual but asexual is probably closer, and that is not my choice, it's an accident of genetics and it is a terrible thing that anyone percieves it as anything other than it is. What the camps do is breed self hate and loathing and rage because there is nothing to persuade them, at best they'll do what they think is right and end up thoroughly miserable for the rest of their lives, making everyone around them miserable.
If we wanted to be political, to be subversive as you argue then why are we writing happy endings, why are we writing boy meets boy, and not stood there on the battlefield with Gore Vidal and James Baldwin and those authors who wrote about the struggle,
why not write about how the camps treat these children and condemn them to a loveless life and self hate, or about the things a man will do to hide the fact that he's gay up to and including murder. Even Annie Proulx did that. THat is political, we're writing entertainment. Do you think that one person who read your book took to arms after it, or clenched their fists and said that's wrong, or did they smile to themselves after reading it because that was the cathartic reaction you wanted.
if you want us to be political then be political, stand up and do your research and read around the topic and write a story that makes us want to act, not smile to ourselves that love will out in the end.

If you want a place to start reading, I recommend James Baldwin's Giovanni's room.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

By writing happy endings, I'm making the statement that everyone deserves one. I'm not falling into a "dead queer by the last chapter" stereotype. Even Annie Proulx did that.

There's standing in the trenches, which we've done. Then there's the quieter work. Like Julian May presenting same sex marriage as no big deal in her Milieu and Pilocene books, which was a serious eye opener to me in my childhood little fundy town.

As for the ex-gay camps, that's not my story to tell. There are people who have lived through it that are talking and writing. Peterson Toscano's Doin' Time at the Homo No Mo Halfway House is more brilliant than anything I could create.

By writing m/m, f/f, m/f and everything in between as being of equal worth, we're standing up to those who say "gays are subhuman parasites out to infect us and recruit our children." It's assimilationist as hell, true. But for now, assimilation is the proper posture.

As for the effect, my mother is starting to soften on the whole gay marriage thing. She won't be marching with us any time soon, but she is seeing my characters as people worthy of their happy endings and not just as "oh god, another gay book?" Other readers? I don't know. They aren't talking.

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

my own background with american literature is primarily political, I am Irish as i said and for some reason the vast majority of the books americans write that we consider worth reading are political, even if its subtly so like On the Road (slashiest book I ever read)
the irony is that the political ones are the ones that are remembered, whether its the absence of one's own ethnicity or sexuality. Truth be told are you going to sit down to read Toni Morrison or Richard Wright for fun, no, you read them because they have something to say
one of my favourite books in all the world, whcih i don't think you can get in the us, is an m/f about a rape and it's effects on a relationship, it's probably the most haunting work I've ever read as we both see the birth and death of a relationship happening at the same time as it is told half in flash back. It is a book passed around by women, not men, as empowering and ends with the woman, Chloe, taking a female lover because she can stand it where her husband couldn't. Chloe deals with the rape and gets on with her life, Nicholas couldn't. The book is called Love Remains if you're interested. It is political but on a purely human level.
That is what i try to write, and i fail at it, badly often, i want to write about what a character feels when they look at something, the first thing that goes through their head when they wake up in the morning, the face they pull at that first mouthful of coffee, so i set my boys up and let them loose, I give my characters no less freedom than i believe every person should have.
Everyone deserves a happy ending, but not everyone gets one and I know what you mean about "dead queer by the last chapter" but who said anything about dying, often they just have to realise that they are wrong too.
Portray them as human and they will have flaws and hidden facets and warm the heart, even if they fail and fuck up and break down. portray them as anything else and you're doing them, your characters, a disservice.

no one has the right to tell another person what to do or think or feel, and i have my own little circle of hell put aside for my opinion on organised religion there. I wanted to believe but the church kinda put me off.
I don't necessarily write happy endings, I don't write sad endings either, or pyrrhic endings, I look at all the options and go so - tell me what happened and take that ending whether it's happy or sad or whatever

a novel is a form of essay in which a character is presented with a choice that he is unable to make at the start, throughout the course of this he is given those abilities that he can at the climax choose.
we don't always choose the right thing, maybe yours shouldnt either.

If you want to bring this over to my journal, and save poor Erastes that's fine too

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

i want to take this opportunity to apologise now I'm no longer the ranting old man in sack cloth eating locusts and wild honey
I do stand beside what i said that if you want to write political write political and that does not necessitate a character death ending
I want to apologise for the one i took. I promised myself i would never bully someone into doing something the way i was, because that worked so spectacularly in my case, and because of the fall out I had to reexamine my own work and i was found hypocritical and lacking. that's why i want to apologise, I shouldn't have taken that tone, I do believe you should have the courage of your convictions and that you don't need to stand in the trenches to change the world but that you must stnad up and be counted, but i didn't mean to say it the way i did and infer you were wrong in your attitude.
so I'm sorry.
I wouldnt wish what happened to me with that method on anyone and yet I did it myself.
So again, I apologise.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing at that image. It did feel a bit like a jeremiad.

Apology quite accepted. And my apologies too, for coming off like Activist Dyke Writer (A licensed subsidiary of Activist Dyke Mom) and getting hostile.