Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Writer's Block?

I haven't been writing. That bugs me, but I go into this dormant state every year at this time, so I should be used to it. I've been writing reviews, and doing my weely blog entries at Oh Get A Grip, so it's not as if I haven't produced anything, but it's not paying stuff.

Part of the problem is that I have to finish working on a novel that I've fallen out of love with and I'm so sick of it that I don't want to deal. But part of being a writer is dealing with it even when it isn't fun anymore. Adding to the problem is a new novel that's flirting with me, and I'm all swoony over it. I would love to work on it, but I know better, because at some point, I'll hate it too.

Time to grit my teeth and get back to work on the novel.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Erotica Fatigue?

True Blood season 3 started last night. I was thankful, oh so thankful, that they didn't begin this season with Sookie screeching as she did last time. I hate that deer caught in the headlights look followed by the pause (I will commence screaming in 5,4,3 ...) and ending with her mouth open and sirens blaring. The next scene with the manager from the restaurant was wonderful. And then... nothing. Downhill at avalanche speeds.

Maybe I have erotica fatigue, because Eric pounding his new dancer made me glance at my watch. Things got promising for a moment there with Bill (The most boring vampire to ever walk the night. My method for dealing with his screen time is to down a shot of vodka every time he lowers his chin and tries to look menacing. It doesn't make him any more interesting. It just makes me care at lot less about how dull he is. If you need some variation - and god knows you crave it when Bill's around - try drinking every time he lowers his chin and says Soooookie.) Anyway - things got promising there for a moment or two with Bill and Sam, but in one of the biggest cheats since Bobby showed up alive in the shower on Dallas, the writers made Sam wake up before the boys got a chance to even touch. If Sookie gets to fantasize about Eric to the point of naked writhing, I demand equal suds and studs for Bill and Sam. Fair is fair.

Sadly, Eric's butt, Sam's chest, Bill's chest, some Jason skin, and a pair of sweaty, bouncing implants weren't enough to distract me from dismal storytelling. Maybe I'm erotica fatigued, but really, True Blood folks? Really? Do you think I'm that easy? At the end of the show, all I could think was "Okay, so that scene with Bill and Sam didn't lead Sam to find and help Bill, so what was the point?" Obviously, to piss me off, and turn on everyone else, but what a waste of potential storytelling time! Yes, I know that there were many story lines to move forward in this episode, and all the characters are being repositioned for this season, but please, if you're trying to distract me from crap storytelling, you're going to have to crank up the sex a lot more. I'm jaded like that.


P.S. True Blood folks - you're doing a great job with the story lines and characters of Lafayette and Jessica (probably because Jessica is original to the show and Layfayette didn't survive the first book so you can do whatever you want with him), but would you stop dressing Pam like a cheap floozy and get rid of the gloopy pink mess she wears on her lips? Oh, and Queen Sophie? I can't tell which is worse, her screen presence or the lines you write for her.

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Golden Crown Literary Society Award

Via Lara Zielinsky, just found out that the Year's Best Lesbian Fiction '08 anthology (Bedazzled Ink), which include my story Words Like Candy Conversation Hearts was named as one of the Golden Crown Literary Society's Best Non-Erotic Anthologies! Whoo-hoo!

Where the Girls Are was a Lambda Literary Finalist, and Coming Together: Against the Odds (I believe) won an EPIC Award for best anthology, so anthologies I'm in are on a roll this year. Yay!

Saturday, June 05, 2010

Violet Blue rocks!

I'm a feminist, and I watch porn.

I'm an adult. I don't need to have the world sanitized for my protection. It's bad enough when the government, Steven Jobs from Apple, and religious folk play the nanny. Now I have to endure the meddling of feminists* too?

*I'm not sure how they can call themselves feminists when they're trying to control my access to porn. It's misogynistic.

Violet Blue started Our Porn, Ourselves, to defend women's right to watch, enjoy, use, and produce sexually explicit material. Visit her site, and show your support for a woman's right to sexual self-determination.

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Busy Month

I traveled a lot this month. Mid-month, I was in New Orleans for Saints and Sinners.

I've been reflecting on my Saints and Sinners experience for a couple weeks because it was not as fulfilling of an experience as it has been in the past. The same issue arises every year, and it bothers me every year, but this time I can't set it aside.

There's an erotica panel every year at Saints and Sinners, with the same three people on it every time. They invite one new person to join them, but truly, it is their panel. It's not that those panelists aren't qualified, but they say the same things every year, and what they say is, "I don't read erotica because it doesn't interest me." My other favorite quote from two years ago was, "I don't read erotica because I only read good writing." This from erotica writers. I'm used to those slams from literary writers by now (and had to endure them during two master classes this time) but don't give much credence to the ignorant pronouncements of anyone who hasn't read my work before judging it. However, it appalls me to hear it from the erotica panel. Can you imagine the outcry if someone at a mystery panel said, "Genre novels are crap compared to literary novels, so I wouldn't be caught dead reading a mystery novel even though I write them?"

Further disappointment came from the erotica reading, which featured the same writers who sat on the erotica panel. Why not spread some of the love? How about maybe inviting writers who had stories in one of the Lambda Literary Award finalist anthologies in the erotica category, or an editor of one of those nominated anthologies? But no. Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to put those anthologies out on the bookstore table. Not one of them. So I came away a bit frustrated.

I'll go to Saints and Sinners next year, and I'll continue to contribute (quite a big check, actually), but for once, I'd like to come away with positive feelings about how erotica is handled.