(no subject)

[erastes]

You know your brain is dead, when...

You watch a documentary about conscientious objectors and then you get madly inspired....

*thinks*  Oh - wouldn't it be lovely - a soldier who falls in love with a conscientious objector......

Then of course, it hits you like a mallet - er hello!  Renault did that, and far better than you could manage even with twenty brains...

imbecile!

I'm better pain-wise today, but I was right about the ear infection as today we have dizziness!  Lovely!  I still look like Pimple-kid though.  This'll teach me not to have spots as a teenager.

Comments

[the-sea-to.livejournal.com]

Your mind and my mind are worryingly alike.

made me giggle on the manthology group - we thought exactly the same way!

Back to converting useful buildings into Chain Restaurants!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Humour is the only thing that keeps me sane. That and cheese on toast.

:)

[queeredfiction.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you're feeling better ... and I beg to differ on not doing a story, just because there's another example - however lauded - out there! No one could do an Erastes version of the tale except you! ;)

Hope you're spinning your way back towards 'hale and hearty'.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, the pain is better, but I've lost my appetite (not a bad thing!) and i'm dizzy. Yuk.

Thanks for the kind words, though.

[rwday.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're not feeling well. *hugs*

Don't discount the idea just because someone else did it 'better' than you believe that you can. I don't think that's even true - you'd put your own special style and touch on it. There's room out there for many, many books on the same themes and subjects. Except shapeshifters. I think we've had about enough of that. ;)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Never discount the chance that Erastes might one day burst onto the shape-shifting scene with erotic cockroaches!

Very sick - well, sick for me, anyway. Horrid psoriasis, which i can't spell and have to use spell check for.

:(

[rwday.livejournal.com]

If you wrote erotic shape-shifting cockroaches, I would read it. I'd rather read the CO thing, though. Roaches are icky, even gay ones.

I think diseases ought to be easy to spell. Nobody likes to think when they're sick.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I think diseases ought to be easy to spell. Nobody likes to think when they're sick.

Totally with you on that score.

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

I adore the idea of erotic cockroaches...their love could become a desperate and tumultous fight for survival against the pest-control man, in between heart meltingly tender scenes of passion as they click gently together underneath the skirting-board.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Rule 34, according to webcomic xkcd.

[fiona-glass.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you're not well; ear infections are really, really nasty. Uck.

And I'm forever dreaming up wonderful plots and then realising someone else (and better) got there first. Maddening, isn't it? ;)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I should have gone to the doctors when I first got the symptoms, but I'm too bloody stoic. Blame my mother for that - she taught us to stiffen the old upper lip and just get on with it... Bah.

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

I think you should do it. So your story wouldn't be like Renault's - but maybe it'd be like yours... :D

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Aw - it'll definitely go in the ideas file, that's for sure!

Thanks!

[tharain.livejournal.com]

LOL REnault did is soooooooooooo beautifully. It remains a literary turning point for me: the first book I read that had gay characters. Seriously. IS there a better way to start. It skewed my entire view of being gay: I became a romantic.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*laughs at how you might have been if you'd read Tales of the City first*

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh and sympathy for the sick person plz?

[tharain.livejournal.com]

Oh and sympathy for the sick person plz?

*pats hand and proffers virtual chicken soup*

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Now get off line and go and write!

*whips *

[mongrelheart.livejournal.com]

Sympathies on the sickness! I've been coughing & hacking myself. And ear-dizziness things are the worst. Feel better soon OK!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you! *spins*

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

I just thought- which is the more interesting and challenging? A soldier who falls for a conscientious objector, or a conscientious objector who falls for a soldier?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

yes - now that would be interesting!

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

I trained in drama improvisation as part of my film and drama degree many years ago, and got to reading books by Keith Johnstone ('Impro' and 'Impro for storytellers'). He encourages people to always look for conflicts to create drama - the greatest conflict having the best potential for creating drama and for effecting changes/development in characters. The reverse of course of what most of us do in our actual lives, which is to avoid/minimise conflict.

To me having the conscientious objector fall for the soldier immediately implies a conflict of love over ideology, since the objector is trying to take a stand on an issue where the soldier may not actually believe in war, but could be fighting for many reasons. The objector has an implied strong view, where the soldier does not, so the greater conflict would affect the objector not the soldier. If we are then asked to identify with the objector as the main point of view, we get involved with the ideological struggle more.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes, you had me thinking a lot about the conflict this would involve while I was in bed yesterday - Renault doesn't use this lynchpin in The Charioteer, the CO doesn't seem to object that his friend was a soldier and it doesn't seem to affect either of them, but I can really layer on the angst !!

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

hmm-I am rather surprised Renault missed that opportunity since to me it sounds like the whole point of writing a story featuring that sort of relationship! How could it not affect them? *sigh*.