Love in Dark Settings

"My definition of 'porn' as opposed to 'story' (and I don't have a problem with either one, but I do think there's a distinction) is not the ratio of sex to whatever else, or sexy stuff (eg slavery) to whatever else, but basically the lack of complex characterization and motivation driving the characters' actions, in porn. In porn, you don't need any motivation beyond 'Laura is horny, the pizza deliveryman is there, grunt grunt grunt' whereas a story is like, 'Laura was so incredibly bored and sexually frustrated that morning, on account of David being on the antipsychotic medication that killed his sex drive, that when the pizza guy showed up they had all kinds of wild crazy sex. She felt no guilt; as the pizza guy drove into her, drawing her body slowly towards its peak of ecstasy, she reflected that it was surely no different from taking iron supplements when you became a vegetarian for moral reasons. She'd stay with David, of course, see him through his difficulties, but there was no sense wasting away through neglect of her own body's needs. The only trouble was that the pizza guy, be he ever so well-hung, was no more a satisfactory substitute for David, David's dear familiar body over hers, his eyes gazing down at her as they had done before the hallucinations began, the sweet married sex with no fumbling, than iron pills were a substitute for a good juicy rare sirloin. Afterwards, the pizza guy, who was younger than she'd guessed at first, with a heartbreaking little soul patch on his chin, wanted to cuddle, but Laura managed to fend him off and get him back into his uniform-- "Franklin," said his nametag, which she hadn't bothered to read before undressing him. She tipped him generously before shutting the door. Franklin. Jesus. No wonder he was up for boning bored housewives. She wondered briefly whether she'd just deflowered him, then got down to the business of getting the sheets in the laundry and the pizza buried deeply in the trash where David wouldn't see it when he got home.'"

--Maculategiraffe, in an idle moment. As one commenter to her journal put it, "Why the hell can't I write plot that easily?"

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*** 8 August 2009. Writing: "Rebirth"; plus, my Internet time this week.

Well, my design consultant's report on the Rebirth layout arrived today. However, a lot of his answers were along the lines of, "There's no easy solution to this problem." (At one point, he blithely advised me to turn off my Windows accessibility settings temporarily in order to deal with a particular problem. Oy vey - he has no idea the amount of torture that Microsoft inflicts upon me whenever I redo Windows's accessibility settings. I usually have to spend an hour getting everything set back up.) So I think I made the right decision not to try to bring out the paperback this year.

I'm feeling good about my Internet time this week. I still spent more time online than I'd have liked - six hours - but it was all meat on the bone. I took myself offline every thirty minutes, and that prevented me from losing control and doing any surfing that I hadn't planned beforehand.

While online, I got this year's True Tales issue put together. That's a load off my mind. Also, I planned my upcoming trip to Southern Maryland for Prison City research. Surfing around for historical places to visit, I found an eighteenth-century manor in St. Mary's County that I can use as a model for the estate house in my book. It's a bit small, being a Colonial Era manor, but there's no reason I can't make it bigger. It's also located too far up-river (or is it down-river? Darn it, if I'm writing a water-related book, I should know these things), but I can change that. I have a vague sort of notion as to where I'm going to move it, but I won't know for sure till I actually see the sites.

Now the trick is persuading Doug to drive me down there. Next week is out of the question; it's supposed to be in the high nineties here. It's ironic that this has been a cool summer ("cool" during a D.C. summer means the eighties), yet the first chance I get to bug Doug to take me on a research trip, the temperature soars.

So instead I'll spend this week laying out True Tales, finishing up work on the braille/DAISY editions of my books, and doing Chesapeake Bay research.

Oh, and culling books. I still haven't finished doing that.

*** 9 August 2009. Writing and Simplicity: Looking forward to next year's publishing season.

Well, I got a lot done today. I completed the layout and announcements of the next issue of True Tales and finished the layout of the last update of my Website for this year. Hopefully I'll get all of the above posted and announced next weekend, as well as uploading the braille/DAISY editions to Bookshare.org. [Later: No, I've decided that's too many tasks for one weekend. I'll just do the True Tales update this weekend.]

Since I've decided not to bring out a new edition of the omnibus till next year, the the above will be it for this publishing year, other than getting "Rebirth" ready for the printer next spring. Two Master/Other stories I'd hoped to post this year - "Two Masters" and "If Dante Had a Beta Reader" - I wasn't able to publish because two of the beta readers identified problems that will require me to do extensive rewrites. And I found that I was a novella short in my third Eternal Dungeon volume, so I'm going to need to write that over the winter. Otherwise, I published everything I'd planned to publish this year. Yay!

I don't much care for how little time is left in the year - I only have seven weeks left till my spring/summer season ends, and my print-reading eyesight is likely to give out before then. Before that happens, I need to get Rebirth ready for the printer, do all of the print research I'll need for the stories I plan to write next winter, take at least two research trips, clear out my inbox, and make an effort to get at least some of my scattered belongings organized. I've given up the idea of getting anything substantial accomplished this year in terms of gardening, nonfiction writing, and reading the many books in my private library that need to be read.

Next year, I'm not going to let this happen. I'm going to get my HTML e-books and online fiction published in the spring and will get the paperbacks published as rapidly as possible in the spring, so that I can have a full summer in which to do research, nonfiction writing, gardening, sorting my belongings, and leisure reading.

This year . . . Well, I think preparing Rebirth for the printer is the task I'll have to put off till next spring. The reason is that two of my proofreaders ran across some serious content issues that I need to deal with. (The novel had only been betaed seven times before this, darn it.) That's going to take so much time that I think I'm going to have to deal with this editing over the winter.

(Of course I'm gnashing my teeth, asking myself, "Where were these terrific proofreaders back when I was seeking beta readers for this novel?" The answer is that they slipped in the door well after I put out my last call for beta readers for "Rebirth," in 2006. This is why I do my best to wine and dine skilled beta readers. I'd be willing to give them my first-born if I had one.)

*** 12 August 2009. Writing: My optimistic plans for writing and editing this winter.

Compose (in this order):
--Law Links (The Three Lands novel). Finish 2 chapters.
--The Unanswered Question (The Eternal Dungeon novella). Finish novella.
--Mercy and Hell [working title] (The Eternal Dungeon novel). Finish 1 novella.
--On Guard (The Eternal Dungeon novel). Finish 4 chapters.
--Master and Servant (Prison City novel). Finish 2 novellas.
--Sacrifice (Prison City novel) Finish 2 of the 4 novellas.
--Mercy's Prisoner (Life Prison novel). Finish 3 novellas.
--Hell's Messenger (Life Prison novel). Finish 1 novella.

Edit:
--Law of Vengeance (The Three Lands novel).
--Breached Boundaries (The Three Lands novel).
--Right or Right (Darkling Plain novella).
--From Hell to the Stars (Darkling Plain novelette).
--Rebirth (The Eternal Dungeon novel).
--Two Masters (Master/Other novelette).
--If Dante Had a Beta Reader (Master/Other short story).
--Water in a Drought (Loren's Lashes novella).

All is dependent, of course, on my Muse, beta readers, co-writer, and Acts of God.

*** 14 August 2009. Simplicity: Stage One of my book culling ends.

Well, I finished going through my 5300+ books and magazines to remove all of the books and magazines that were obvious candidates for disposal. That turned out to be 300 books and magazines. At this point, I'm going to switch over to reading a few of the many, many books I'd identified as being in the category of "Stuff I should read to decide whether to keep." It's so late in the year, though - six weeks till summer ends, and my reading eyes will probably give out before then - that I doubt I'll reach my goal of getting rid of 500 books and magazines this year.

I've done the main thing I wanted, though, which is to make myself aware of what books I own and to give myself incentive to read them. I also identified which category of books are most important to me.

Children's novels are what I'm hugging to my chest. I own roughly a thousand juvenile novels, but I couldn't find a blessed one in my collection (other than extra copies) that was an obvious toss. Those are books that I read over and over as a child, or that I really want to read for the first time.

Alas, I found precious few candidates for Muse-friendly novels when I was scouring my fiction collection. One, to be exact. Darn. I was really hoping that more would turn up.

Anyway, I now have a healthy series of book stacks in my living room. Some of the books I'll donate to the public library bookstore, some I'll try to sell (if I can convince Doug that driving me to a used bookstore wouldn't be a waste of his time; we're still negotiating that), and the children's literature I'll eventually donate to some university or other, which is why I recorded those books' publication dates in my list.

Now on to clear the clutter in my bedroom.

*** 14 August 2009. Simplicity and Reading: Why old books deserve to be reread.

"Happy Birthday from Katharine and all the appliances at 265 Smith Avenue #4."

That's the inscription in the novel I decided to reread tonight, Thomas Disch's The Brave Little Toaster. Over twenty years have passed since I last read the book. I remembered enjoying it, though I couldn't remember why (other than the obvious reason that I anthropomorphize like crazy).

o--o--o

Even if the chance had been offered them, which it wasn't, they wouldn't have wanted to be taken back to the city every year on Labor Day, the way that certain other appliances were, like the blender and the TV and the Water Pik. They were devoted to their master (that was just in their nature as appliances) . . .

o--o--o

Squee! Servantfic!

o--o--o

Pirates, as even the newest of my listeners will have been informed, are people who take things that belong to other people. They are the bane of an appliance's existence, since once an appliance has been spirited away by a pirate, it has no choice but to serve its bidding just as though it were that appliance's legitimate master. A bitter disgrace, such servitude - and one that few appliances can hope to escape once it has fallen to their lot. Truly, there is no fate, even obsolescence, so terrible as falling into the hands of pirates.

o--o--o

And slavefic!

o--o--o

As they rode they could hear the radio in the front seat humming the poignant theme song from Doctor Zhivago.

"Listen!" the Hoover hissed. "Of all the possible songs to be singing, it has chosen one of the master's favorites. Already it has forgotten him!"

"Ah," said the toaster, "What choice does it have, poor thing? Once one of us had been turned on, would we have behaved any otherwise? Would you? Would I?"

The old vacuum groaned, and the radio went on playing its sad, sad song.

o--o--o

I can't believe that I denied myself for so long the pleasure of rereading this novel. I especially appreciated the subversive passage where a couple of squirrels are convinced that the appliances must be either male or female, and nothing that the gender-neutral appliances say can convince the squirrels otherwise.

But this is the best passage in the novel:

o--o--o

Between them, the old Hoover and the toaster knew enough about the basic principles of electricity to be able, very quickly, to wire the battery so that it would serve their needs instead of an automobile's. But before any of the small appliances who may be listening to this tale should begin to think that they might do the same thing, let them be warned: ELECTRICITY IS VERY DANGEROUS. Never play with old batteries! Never put your plug in a strange socket! And if you are in any doubt about the voltage of the current where you are living, ask a major appliance.