Too Many Characters

Jolene Hui (I will always think of her as Princess Hui) turned me on to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I liked it, although Stieg Larrson's narrative style reflects his background in journalism rather than a literary voice. I could live with that simply because of his character Lisabet Salander. I know a few artist who are very much like her, so I had no problem believing anyone could be (something) like that. What I found harder to forgive were the other characters. Scores of them, and each of them with far too much personal history that added nothing to the story.

I see this problem a lot with new writers. They let their casts run into double digits, and each person has a single personality trait to define them. This sort of works in movies, because even you you forget a name, you have a face to remind you that 'oh yeah, that's the neighbor who wears her mink while she prunes her roses,' and you only have to keep track for a couple hours. In a book, you might have to flip back chapters to remember who Jennie is. That pulls you out of the story - always a bad writing mistake. Plus you begin to wonder why, if she's not the proverbial gun in act 1, does Jennie even exist. Can't someone else say her lines? The answer is almost always yes.

I'm supposed to be keeping my word count up on my current novel because it's running under the usual minimum for the genre, but I realized that my cast was getting unwieldy, so in this rewrite I lopped off at least five characters and consolidated two. That translated to about 2700 words being slashed. Not the direction I'm supposed to go, but I like a tightly written story, so I'm just going to have to figure out another way to add words without padding the word count. I promise you that I am not going to tell you the life history of Jennie - unless she shows up in her mink in the last act with a pruned head in her hand.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

This Week on Oh Get A Grip

This week on Oh Get A Grip, my imagination turns to the story of Onan, and why it may just be a huge misunderstanding. That's right - we're talking about solo sex.

Heart Eater

"Don't let someone take and eat your heart."

Remittance Girl challenged us to create poetry, a story, visual art, mixed media, or whatever we wanted to illustrate this unique moral. Read my entry (erotica) Piquant here.

Tonight! Lambda Literary Finalist Reading in Los Angeles

Come hear me read- because watching me read is really boring.

Lambda Finalist Reading (LA)
Monday, May 10, 2010 at 7:30pm
Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont
Los Angeles, CA
View Map


Lambda Literary has partnered with libraries, bookstores, and festivals across the country to celebrate finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards. All readings are free and open to the public.

Featuring: @Jim Morrison, @Dexter Flowers, @Stacie Cassarino, @Ariel Schrag, @Dayle A. Dermatis and @Kathleen Brandean.

Hosted by @Noel Alumit and @Tony Valenzuela.

http://www.skylightbooks.com/http://www.lambdaliterary.org/readers/events/04/02/lambda-finalist-reading/

Interview on ERWA

Writer Ashley Lister interviews me on ERWA. Read it here.

At Lot Of Stuff Coming Up

Monday (I think it's Monday) May 10th, I'll be at Skylight Books in Los Feliz for the Lambda Literary Awards Finalist's reading series. No, I didn't enter my novel (complicated tale behind that) but I'll read from my short story Don't Fuck With Country Girls that appears in Where the Girls Are.

Then that Thursday I head to New Orleans for Saints and Sinners GLBT Literary Festival. So looking forward to that. Hope to meet Cecelia Tan from Circlet Press for the first time. Planning to hang mostly with Mel Spencer and DL King, although I'm also looking forward to a few moments with Jeff Mann, Sean Meriweather, Steve Berman, Trebor Healey, Greg Herren ... I wonder how I'll ever make it to the classes. But this is my once a year chance to enjoy their company.

I have a bunch of stuff out on submissions. I can't remember ever having this many stories out at the same time. Why I don't feel as if I'm writing, I have no idea. But if something sells (okay, one already did. sent back the contract yesterday. but it's for a different pen name.) I'll keep you posted.

Send a Big Yohoo Out To The Army!

Thanks for visiting my site, Army dudes!
According to Bling, Usaisc stands for USAISC: United States Army Information Systems Command


From my blog traffic site:

Headquarters, Usaisc (164.66.192.21) [Label IP Address]


Anniston, Alabama, United States, 0 returning visits


Date Time Type WebPage
22nd April 2010 10:00:58 Page View washingtondc.craigslist.org/forums/?act=su&handle=MoodIndigo
kathleenbradean.blogspot.com/
22nd April 2010 10:01:02 Page View No referring link
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22nd April 2010 10:01:44 Page View washingtondc.craigslist.org/forums/?act=su&handle=MoodIndigo
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Which means they're spying on either the bisexual or queer forums on Craigslist and following threads. Or someone there is goofing off at work. Tsk tsk, soldier.

Something You Never Suspected About Me

On Oh Get A Grip today, I dissect a few scenes from the movie Strictly Ballroom, and confess to a past you'd never suspect.

Twitter Smut

I've been on Twitter for a while. I try to post a short story every day. The 140 character limit is daunting.

Tonight, Stan Kent (of Shoe Leather fame, and host of the monthly In the Flesh erotica reading series here in LA), DL King (writer, editor, and the creator of Erotica Revealed), Jeremy Edwards (writer), and I attempted to co-write a story on Twitter.

There were advantages, such as being able to tell the story in more than one Tweet. But it was an experiment, so we had a few problems. Once we hit our stride, the flow improved, but it's still hard to write when you're taking turns. You can't plan anything, because by the time it's your turn, the story is in a different place. You have to build on what came before. It was exhausting. But fun. Stan is going to read it (eep) in front of an audience at this month's In the Flesh.

We're not the first writers to try using Twitter for collaborative writing. As artists, we're driven to explore mediums, and we learn from the ideas of others. So I call it a success.

Wrong Turns

Somewhere along the way in my short story, I took a wrong turn. It only came apparent when I couldn't write the final scene.

I've written a lot of smut. You'd think by now that I could bring it on home with three humpy, horny vampires primed to jump in the sack and shoot like the fountains of the Bellagio. But no. I couldn't get into it. And I don't mean in a sexual way. I just couldn't type the words.

Every story is a path. It leads somewhere. I thought I'd led my characters to the bedroom, but instead, we were all looking at a dead stop and couldn't figure out how to get around it. Some writers might blast through the wall and make it happen. I retrace my steps. Some paths are false ones. I have to figure out where the misstep happened and get on the right path.

The problem, I finally figured out, was that several thousand words into the story, I switched gears. This short story is part of a connected universe of short stories and novellas. My mind slipped into novella mode, which brings in too much story, too much plot, and way too much talking. Nothing kills short story erotica like characters yakking away when they should be, to put it politely, fucking their brains out.

Oh, how I hate to delete several thousand words. There are writers who tell you to save it, to squirrel away that bit and maybe use it later, but to me, every word has to flow organically through the characters, and trying to force a scene to match up to words written for another situation and other characters doesn't work. So I just erase it. Several days of work, obliterated.

But I was back on the right track. How can I be so sure, considering that I was fooled before? Everything fell into place. It wasn't the sex scene I expected, but it was the right one. And best of all, it effortlessly flowed to the ending sentence I'd hoped for but refused to force. That's how I know.

Greg Herren on Oh Get a grip Today

Greg Herren is the guest blogger on Oh Get a Grip today.

It was my week to pick the theme. I chose Writing WHERE You Know. Writers are often admonished to write what they know (a mistake, I believe) but nothing infuriates a local more than reading a story where the writer got their hometown all wrong. Greg has seen a lot of that. He lives in New Orleans, and many of his stories are set there. His off-the-record tales of editors who tried to "correct" his localisms are as frustrating as they are funny. But writers who don't bother to do their research and get NOLA wrong drive him nuts.

I can understand that. I'm not a native of Los Angeles, but I love my city. So many times I see this casual disdain for LA in stories by people who don't have a clue about the real thing, so they attack the stereotypical LA. The problem with that - aside from ignorance and sloppy writing - is that the LA they're attacking doesn't really exist. Not that LA lacks real problems. So write about those. And fer chrissakes, stop using reality TV and Melrose Place as primary research tools.

Let's See How This Works

The dreaded synopsis.

I write book reviews which often include a synopsis. I have no problem writing them for other books. So why can't I seem to write a synopsis for my work? I have no idea.

I'm trying a new approach. As I edited my latest MS, I stapled the chapters and wrote a one line summary of that chapter on the first page. Theoretically, if I string those together, they should form the bones of synopsis. (My last chapter summary is "J&E finally get it on.") It's pure action though. No character detail. So it has to be fleshed out. But I'll report back to you if this helps me write a coherent synopsis.

Coming Together Against the Odds

Forgot to mention that Coming Together Against the Odds won the EPIC Award for Best Erotica anthology.


Mixed feelings. This line of anthologies for a cause (all proceeds for Against the Odds went to Autism Speaks) is a great idea.

But...

BEGIN RANT

I'm so over EPIC. Getting southern here for a moment, but Bless Their Hearts, the membership consists mostly of romance writers, and they make sure the other genres know it. The obsession with RWA on the EPIC lists is annoying as hell to those of us who don't write romance and aren't desperate for RWA's attention/recognition. Plus there's one very dominant queen bee member. I delete her many daily emails (she's an expert on every subject that comes up, so she has to reply to everything) unread and cringe whenever I see her name. Plus I'm irritated that they use the contest fees to pay for their conference. That's just wrong. No one should have to contribute another writer's vacation because the poor dear couldn't afford it otherwise. This is probably my last year dealing with them. I've lost my patience.

END RANT

On the other hand - Saints and Sinners is only a couple months away!

Some Things

I've been working on a novel, so my blogging suffers.

New post up on Oh Get A Grip.

A nice mention of my story in Best of Best Women's Erotica 2.

I'll try to get back on schedule soon.

My First Post at Oh Get A Grip

Read it here.