Love in Dark Settings

( Background to my entries )
( REVIEW: Recommendation of Clare London's Freeman )
( Blog-writing self-consciousness )

"On the first Saturday of November the skipjacks of Tilghman Island were dressed for a ritual. The ritual was the Chesapeake Bay Appreciation Day skipjack race, which marked the beginning of the oystering season. This was to be my first season dredging oysters aboard a skipjack. . . .

"By 10:30 A.M. seventeen working skipjacks had gathered off the beach at Sandy Point. The Bay rippled with a light southwest breeze, and [Captain] Bart sent [his first mate] Bobby into the push boat to shut off the Cadillac. The skipper paid out the main sheet, motioned for me to take the wheel, and let Ruby Ford sail with the wind abeam. I turned the wheel tentatively to starboard what seemed two or three full turns, but the skipjack held her heading and drifted in the current with 1200 square feet of sails fluttering overhead.

"'Honey, come over[.]' Bart's right arm waved to starboard.

"Slowly his message sunk in: 'Turn the wheel, stupid.' I did."

--Randall S. Peffer: Watermen.


( About the trip )
( Talbot County, Maryland )
( Lewes, Delaware )
( Dorchester County, Maryland )
( Your turn now )

"'You have been reading some of that Vulcan-human pornography that you Terran medical staff are abnormally interested in.'

"'Only a little,' McCoy protested feebly.

"'In the first place, for Vulcans sex is a necessity only once every seven years; in the second, the Vulcan male sex organ is neither unusually thick nor unusually long; while it is green, it does not possess tentacles, and in no way does it resemble a towering pillar of green flame. In fact, given our different species, the male sex organs are very much alike, except that in Vulcans the organ is more withdrawn within the body. Now if your curiosity is satisfied, shall we go to bed?' Spock snapped."

--Jane Carnall: Through a Glass Darkly.

( Background to my entries )
( A local meeting of slashers )
( Making further changes toward simplicity )
( Fade to black and pacing )
( What I've learned about simplicity in the past six years )
( Looking at my decision the morning after )
( My Muse goes into editing mode; plus, Guy Gavriel Kay and cellphones )
( Income )
( Noah's Ark redux )
( Iced tea as culture )
( Swine flu )
( How much posting I've done at Web forums since 2000 )
( A memoir on the history of original slash )
( Review of Star Trek (spoilers only for the trailer) )
( Too much fic to read! )
( The Eternal Dungeon editing continues apace; plus, Prison City research )
( Update on how I'm doing in keeping off the Internet; plus, a thank-you note for reader posts/e-mails )
( Scheduling the next couple of weeks )

"The Internet arrived as an incalculable blessing. We should never forget that. It has allowed isolated people to communicate with one another and marginalized people to find one another. The busy parent can stay in touch with far-flung friends. The gay teenager no longer has to feel like a freak. But as the Internet's dimensionality has grown, it has quickly become too much of a good thing. Ten years ago we were writing e-mail messages on desktop computers and transmitting them over dial-up connections. Now we are sending text messages on our cellphones, posting pictures on our Facebook pages, and following complete strangers on Twitter. . . .

"And losing solitude, what have [we] lost? First, the propensity for introspection, that examination of the self that the Puritans, and the Romantics, and the modernists (and Socrates, for that matter) placed at the center of spiritual life - of wisdom, of conduct. Thoreau called it fishing 'in the Walden Pond of [our] own natures,' 'bait[ing our] hooks with darkness.' Lost, too, is the related propensity for sustained reading. The Internet brought text back into a televisual world, but it brought it back on terms dictated by that world - that is, by its remapping of our attention spans. Reading now means skipping and skimming; five minutes on the same Web page is considered an eternity. This is not reading as Marilynne Robinson described it: the encounter with a second self in the silence of mental solitude."

--William Deresiewicz: The End of Solitude.

( Background to my entries )
( Now on my list of must-read books )
( Back in the days before the Internet ruled OK )
( Cautiously optimistic about a possible breakthrough in my fight against my Internet addiction )
( Continuing on track )
( Prison City research )
( More progress )
( The death of real-life media )
( And yet more Prison City research )
( Marketing )
( My moronic mania, and how I'm taking advantage of it )
( Prison City research. Again. )
( I need a break )
( Offline )
( Clearing clutter and getting editing done )
( Simplifying my reading )
( REVIEW: Recommendation of Blake Nelson's Gender Blender )
( Catching up on the news about my life of simplicity this month )
( Steady progress with The Eternal Dungeon )
( Making progress in clearing my inbox )
( And an odd sort of progress with my leather fiction )
( Interlibrary loan and Prison City research; plus, a decline in literature )
( Deciding which POD printer to use, and deciding how to lead my life )

Look, we made the New York Times! Plus, Publishers Weekly and CNET and the Associated Press and The Guardian and The Denver Examiner and the New York Daily News and Los Angeles Times . . . Well, just do a Google News search on "Amazon." There are currently 773 articles listed there.

Many of the authors being mentioned in the news articles (such as Erastes, to whom I handed the directorship of the Erotic Authors Association, after I burned out on that job) are slashers.

Lesson: Do not tangle with slashers. We rule the literary blogosphere.

It all started with this post by slasher and gay romance author Alex Beecroft. Then this post by Mark Probst, a gay romance author, caused a lot of stir because it suggested that Amazon was censoring GLBT titles. (Also note this back history.) The first person to respond to his post was a slasher, Vashtan, and he stated that he was going to announce the news on Twitter. Which he did, but (as she was kind enough to point out in response to my post) slasher Storm Grant was the one who "named it #amazonfail and started to thread on Twitter that is 200,000 tweets and still growing." That was how the word spread.

The latest news on what happened is at meta_writer, especially this post. Note that Amazon has issued a statement saying it was all a mistake. Everyone is now having a lively time being cynical about that statement.

Dusk (feeling a bit disconcerted, because I read Mark Probst's post before this news hit the mass media)

Edited at 2:20 to add Storm's information.

Edited at 2:46 p.m. to add: Storm Grant has pointed me to this interesting post by Leah Braemel, chronicling the development of the twittering and pointing out that heterosexual titles were affected too. (I shouldn't neglect to say that it was a very specific section of the slash community that blogged and twittered about this: the authors who are writing small-press gay romance.)

Edited at 3:28 p.m. to add: Vashtan has replied to my post with more information about how the news spread. (His snigger is in response to my speculation about what things were like in the storm.)

Edited at 3:48 to add: Lee Rowan adds more information about how the word was spread, as well as a link to Erastes's round-up post. The groups that Lee Rowan mentions are the gay historical fiction groups started by Erastes (and possibly others too, but as far as I know, Erastes who was the one who started the gay historical fiction community).

Edited at 5 p.m. to add: As Mark Probst points out, Channel 4 in the U.K. covered the story (skip to 7:54 in the video). Notice that Alex Beecroft's book cover was shown by Channel 4. Alex has posted briefly at this blog, and gay romance reviewer Elisa Rolle has given a rundown here on how matters developed on her end.

Edited at 5:15 to add: By the way, is everyone here aware that this isn't the first time that Amazon has played the heavy? But here's the interesting thing: the slashers/GLBT folk did a much better job of spreading the word about their problem than the self-publishing community did about theirs.

Edited at 5:57 p.m. to add: If your book is still not listed at Amazon, Alex Beecroft offers suggestions at the bottom of this post.

Edited at 7:25 to add: Some much-needed humor.

"I want . . . to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world, as a woman, as an artist, as a citizen.

"But I want first of all - in fact, as an end to these other desires - to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact - to borrow from the language of the saints - to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible. I am not using the term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. . . .

"[But] the life I have chosen . . . involves food and shelter; meals, planning, marketing, bills, and making the ends meet in a thousand ways. . . . This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul."

--Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Gift from the Sea.

( Background to my entries )
( Lessons recently learned in my goal toward simplifying my life )
( Learning my Muse's pattern )
( Reworking Prison City )
( Monthly totals )
( A short exchange between my apprentice and me )
( It snowed. Dig out the car. )
( Looking ahead to April publishing )
( Going for the long stretch )
( Serious thoughts about prioritizing my life )
( My Internet addiction's effect on my writing; plus, Aristotle's thoughts on this topic )
( The 1960s and gender roles )
( Sorting my schedule and clearing my clutter )
( Childhood science fiction, male-male subtext, male-female friendships, and female romantic friendships )
( This doesn't seem to fit the modern spirit )
( Synchronicity )
( What happens when my Research Muse gets wild and crazy )

He was 33.

Maculategiraffe is the author of the marvellous Slave Breakers series. When we're reading our favorite stories, we often fail to think of how much we owe, not merely to the authors, but also to the family members who encourage the authors to write. Here's an occasion to remember one such gentleman.

As for Maculategiraffe: When her husband worsened at the end of February, amidst all her worries, she posted two new stories at her blog. That is a true writer.

"We had a master who was nicknamed, I never knew why, Marchand. And, one day, a boy who was doing translation paused at the French word marchand. 'Please, sir,' he said, 'I don't know what marchand means.' There was no laugh, not even a titter. We were all too surprised. The master's face did not alter. 'It means merchant, Smith,' he said, 'and you will stay behind afterwards and speak to me.' He received six of the best [strokes]. And it was, no doubt, such a master who made the historic retort to the boy who, during an hour that was devoted to the discussion of Old Testament history, inquired what 'harlot' meant. 'A harlot, Jones,' the master answered, 'is a lady who finds herself in unfortunate circumstances, and you will take two hundred lines.'''

--Alec Waugh: Public School Life: Boys, Parents, Masters (1922).

( Background to my entries )
( Going easy on my writing schedule )
( My Muse darts in )
( Public schools and canes and Harry Potter )
( Monthly totals )
( Why I hate my Internet addiction; plus, team sports )
( Looking forward to next summer's publication schedule )
( Why I love my broken wireless connection )
( My Muse's amazing run )
( REVIEW: Recommendation of Alec Waugh's The Loom of Youth )
( REVIEW: Recommendation of Ernest Raymond's Tell England )
( Romantic friendships, male and female )
( Next summer's schedule (yet again) )
( REVIEW: Recommendation of E. F. Benson's David Blaize )
( School-life research )
( Small-town news )
( A new idea for distributing my fiction )
( More thoughts on my omnibus edition )
( My 2008 e-book sales figures )
( Trying to get myself back on track )

"Two years in Internet Crime had taught Dave that you could learn a lot about a man by looking at what he named his variables, a thought that was so incredibly nerdy that he felt socially inept just for having it."

--M. Chandler: Shadow of the Templar. The quotation in my userpic this time is also from that series.

( Read more... )

( Domain stats and comms )
( New Year and new plans )
( Good news about the bat )
( Freddie Mercury and my singing voice )
( Freddie Mercury and flagging )
( Jesse )
( And Jesse arrives )
( My Muse's squatter rights; plus, the origins of my new prison series )
( The Chesapeake Bay, the Oyster Wars, and how this all fits in with my new prison series )
( Serendipity )
( Getting back into the work mode )
( Retrofuture shortcomings )
( REVIEW: Recommendation of M. Chandler's Shadow of the Templar )
( Cutting to the chase )
( Another day, another no dollar )
( Inauguration Eve )
( Inauguration Day )
( Off the Web again )
( Tedium, i.e. proofreading )
( Schedules, writing, and determination )
( Papers and arts and crafts )
( Feudalism, caste systems, and all that jazz )

"We should have a Slavefic Tropes wiki! . . . Like . . . You Know, That Thing Where the kindhearted but inexperienced master leaves the broken slave alone all day in a house full of food, and when he gets home the slave faints from hunger at his feet - and when he wakes up, the master is like 'what the hell, kid, I left a seven-course meal for you in the kitchen!' and the slave is like 'But master, I didn't have permission to eat!' You know, that thing! And we could have links to all the fics where that happens, and variations (like 'I didn't have permission to jack myself off' and 'I didn't have permission to sleep anywhere but in the refrigerator')! . . .

So we could index the character tropes, like the Oliver Twist sweet trembling orphan slave, and the Artful Dodger mischievous cruisin'-for-a-bruisin' slave, and the You Can Beat Me Up, But You Can't Break Me Down defiant and angry slave, and so on. And the slave trainer master, and the reluctant master ('I never wanted a slave, for slavery is morally repugnant, but due to circumstances totally beyond my control I am FORCED to have a criminally attractive and sexy and submissive slave kneeling at my feet,' with subtropes for 'AND OH WOE IT IS TERRIBLE' versus 'and um, actually it's quite hot, as it turns out'), and the cold scary master with an eventual heart of gold, and the spoiled-and-entitled-but-goodhearted young master. . . .

"And there could be indexes for plot tropes, too, like the Oops, There's My Core of Steel moment when the sweetest most obedient boy in the world suddenly discovers there is one thing he Cannot And Will Not Do, Not Even On Pain Of Death. And the Did I Hurt You Darling moment, when the gentle master finally gives way to his passions and nails the slave to the mattress, and afterwards he's like 'shit, shit, I didn't mean to, are you okay?' and the slave is like blissed out in a puddle all over the mattress and going 'um, YES?'"

--Maculategiraffe, of course. And, er, yeah, I've done the Did I Hurt You Darling moment. But hey, at least it was prisonerfic.

Topics in this post: Author envy. Recommendations of two slavefics. Old Guard. My Muse drops in like a kamikaze attack. When micromanagement isn't enough. Law Links. Keeping to the schedule (mine and my apprentice's). Captive of my Muse. Miscellaneous reading and writing topics. Weekly totals. That darned water-engine research; plus, Christmas preparations and writing plans. Those reins of power again. Review of Jane Carnall's Keptverse. New comments my writings; plus, prisonlit. Negotiations and dependence. Review of Jane Carnall's MirrorM*A*S*H and its sequel. Christmas and typography and Olympia 1949. In service to my Muse. I've got to get myself offline now. Yes, now. Demanding bunnies. Monthly and yearly totals. Borrowing a character and promising to give him back afterwards, only slightly worn.

( Read more... )

( Review of Poisontaster's A Kept Boy )

( Review of Maculategiraffe's The Slave Breakers )

( Review of Jane Carnall's Keptverse )

( Review of Jane Carnall's MirrorM*A*S*H and its sequel )

An update on the situation concerning the bat who apparently fell out of the eaves of our carport, straight into a trash pail:

After making a ton of phone calls ("I thought you had a phone phobia?" Doug commented grumpily. "This is a life-and-death situation," I replied)-- After making a ton of phone calls, I found a local bat rehabilitator who was willing to come out - on Christmas Eve! - and take the bat home to care for it. Both the wildlife center and the bat professional I consulted today said that the bat would be in safe hands with her. She came by just a short while ago and seemed very nice. I still don't know how the bat will do - it seemed very weak - but she said she'd let me know how things went.

Anyway, due to me spending much of yesterday and all of today on the bat rescue operation, my holiday gift story isn't ready yet. (That's right: let's blame the bat for me waiting till the last minute to do final editing.) I figured you guys would understand if I spent Christmas Eve getting assistance for a helpless critter rather than proofreading your present. I hope to have the story up on Christmas Day (my time) or, at worst, the day after.

In the meantime, Happy Yalda/Solstice/Yule/Hannukah/Christmas/Kwanzaa/New Year's.

We've had bats living in our carport eaves for years, and one of them has fallen into an empty garbage can next to our door. I tried calling both the town animal shelter and the county animal shelter, but everyone seems to be away for Christmas. I talked to the local wildlife rescue center, and they said they'd be glad to take care of the bat . . . but we'd have to get the bat there, and Doug isn't keen on serving as chauffeur for a bat.

I put a cloth over the top of the can, with space for the bat to breathe and escape; I'm hoping that will help keep out the cold. What I'm wondering is whether we're likely to cause the bat more problems by moving it than by leaving it alone. It looks as though it's just hibernating, but I don't know whether it's in danger where it is. I do know that you're not supposed to disturb bats when they're hibernating; unfortunately, we go in and out of the doorway next to the garbage can occasionally. And our car is right next to the garbage can.

I've looked at some bat preservation Websites, but they don't have any advice to offer about this - they all seem to assume that anyone finding a bat on their property will want to move it. I want to know whether I should move it.

"Really, she must try and concentrate on [her protagonist's] alibi. . . . And she had not properly worked out the speed of the steam-yacht. One ought to know about these things. Lord Peter would know, of course; he must have sailed in plenty of steam-yachts. It must be nice to be really rich. Anybody who married Lord Peter would be rich, of course. And he was amusing. Nobody could say he would be dull to live with. But the trouble was that you never knew what anybody was like to live with except by living with them. It wasn't worth it. Not even to know all about steam-yachts. A novelist couldn't possibly marry all the people from whom she wanted specialised information."

--Dorothy L. Sayers: Have His Carcase.

Topics in this post: Internet addiction (a subject heading I'd hoped not to have to use again) and the state of the publishing industry. Reins of power. Prison literature. Doug back safely. Figuring out my upcoming schedule. Winter grocery staples list. Back to our regularly scheduled program. Internet troubles again. Getting beyond misdeeds. Proofreading. Recommendation of Patricia A. McKillip's Alphabet of Thorn. Interregnum. Fighting off the Internet fiend and low spirits . . . and how my Muse helps.

( Read more... )

( Recommendation of Patricia A. McKillip's Alphabet of Thorn )

"The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."

--Mary Heaton Vorse.

Topics in this post: Weekly cycle. Pleasure and torture - design and finances. The art of avoiding the obvious (turn-of-the-century toilet paper). Editing and proofreading. A reason to love het: Mary Stewart. Overwhelmed. Not again. My Muse and death. Re-examining fundamental principles in my publishing work. Publication schedule redux. Victorian water engines and evil things to do with them. Changes in my diet. How to spend a holiday. Happy (late) Thanksgiving! Progress in scanning. Soaring upwards with writing counts . . . and staying there. Monthly totals. Bits of progress on chores.

( Read more... )

( Recommendation of Mary Stewart's The Moon-Spinners )

( Progress report on my writings: November 2008 )

"Every morning between 9 and 12 I go to my room and sit before a piece of paper. Many times, I just sit for three hours with no ideas coming to me. But I know one thing. If an idea does come between 9 and 12 I am there ready for it."

--Flannery O'Connor.

Topics in this post: Research from the sources, step #1 to kicking an Internet addiction - get a research assistant, a quick kick-start, my magical formula for writing fiction, accessibility on Election Day, anachronisms and ethics in historical fiction, my Muse pops in again, scanning breakthrough, putting that bachelor's degree to work, a splendid week, past the danger, trying to keep on track, review of Scribe's "Roman Enslavement," why historical research isn't as boring as it could be, and my Muse saunters in, simplicity itself, another three thousand words, strong winds and smooth sailing on the writing sea, hard BDSM the slash way.

(No writing progress report till the end of the month. But you'll see in this entry that I'm doing well.)

( Read more... )

( Review of Scribe's Roman Enslavement )

"I've been writing fanfiction since LONG before I knew the word or that anyone else was doing it; I called it 'here, let me fix that for you.' ('The totally awesome and obviously gay Helen from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall escapes her abusive husband only to end up with the poncy, insufferable, domineering and judgmental male narrator? Here, let me fix that for you.' *scribble scribble torrid lesbian romance*)"

--The ever-quotable Maculategiraffe.

Topics in this post: Geeky list of software I own, calculating publishing times, Internet round-up (libraries), organization - what a novel concept, e-book delays, reviews of the Hulu site and China Beach, okay - one more e-book, unexpected lyrics, slow progress, documentaries redone the way they should have been done in the first place, the economy and the elections, what to do when you want to combine two versions of a manuscript, the endless saga of The Three Lands, my Muse continues, winter schedule preview, the voodoo effect, winter reading preparations, how I write stories, Internet round-up (The Dark is Rising fans), my dissatisfaction with pro SF/F, on course, update!, various headaches - Internet addiction and Website navigation and CreateSpace's slow publishing process, record-keeping, looking at my formidable number of unfinished manuscripts, why I hate research (and why I love Google Books), heading off-Web.

( Read more... )

( Reviews of the Hulu site and China Beach )

( Progress report on my writings (for those of you who want me to just cut to the chase) )

"The fears of authors that they'll get 'pirated' are almost always just plain silly. With the exception of a tiny percentage of very well-known authors like J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, the real problem authors face is that only a very small percentage of their potential customers have even heard of them - so how likely is it that the ravening hordes of electronic pirates are out there plundering their titles?

"About as likely as a piano singer in a roadhouse bar in Oklahoma discovering that a pirated tape of her performance is selling like hot cakes all over the country. Just like they did to Maria Callas! - a delusion of grandeur upon which she piles more folly by demanding that the management of the bar has to physically search every customer who comes in to make sure they aren't carrying concealed recording equipment.

"Sound silly - almost insane? Yet, that's exactly what DRM [Digital Rights Management] amounts to."

--Eric Flint, The Opaque Market.

Topics in this post: Reasons to write more and to organize better, sales!, the circular file, another e-book out of the way, and my Internet addiction sinks its teeth in, looking ahead with Loren's Lashes, one more e-book down - four to go, Internet round-up (publishing), next summer's publication schedule, easing into a regular schedule, review of Lucius Parhelion's "Acquisitions and Mergers: The Four of Wands," my old journals, bits and pieces of news, Kindle sales figures for June to September, reading original slash and DAISY/braille books, seminars for my apprentice.

( Read more... )

( Review of Lucius Parhelion's Acquisitions and Mergers: The Four of Wands )

"This is a question I've gotten [as an author] a few times . . . and always somewhat to my alarm. But I may have finally clued in that it isn't an actual question so much as a request: i.e., less 'Does Holden take no for an answer when it comes to sex?' than 'I'd like to read a scene in which Holden takes no for an answer when it comes to sex.'

"(At least I hope so, and that the question isn't actually 'So, I like the fic, but there's one thing I've always been mildly curious about: does Holden rape the slaves?')"

--Maculategiraffe.

Topics in this post: Reworked publication schedule, juggling too much, "we have normality," e-book plans, I want to turn in my Muse for a kinder taskmaster, more progress in publishing, Doug gets a job, another day of e-book publication, one e-book out of the way - six to go, paying homage to the Great Pumpkin, more e-book covers done, fall slump - plus, why novellas rule OK.

( Read more... )

"At the midpoint of the twentieth century, everyone knew that sex had no place in science fiction. Our field was like a George Bernard Shaw play, which is to say that an alien, reading (or watching) it could learn everything there was to know about human beings except that we come equipped with genitals and an urge to use them."

--Mike Resnick: Straitjackets.

Topics in this post: Quiet crisis journalism, renewed productivity, Hurricane Gustav collapse, retro-futuristic prisonfic, Ack! Four days till the memorial events!, Internet round-up, three days to go, Obama, typography, more Internet round-up, retro-future visions, what a send-off, after the send-off.

( Read more... )

"GROUND RULES:

"1. No character-bashing, pairing-bashing or het/slash/whatever-bashing in your comments, period. All characters, pairings and show eras welcome. If you're sick unto death of reading about [insert name here] and [insert name here] doing [insert activity here], well, life's a vale of tears.

"2. Someone writing a story that does horrible and painful things to your favorite character is not considered 'character-bashing.' It is rather considered 'one of the defining purposes of this community.'"

--Community information for solid_leather.

Topics in this post: The light at the end of the tunnel, when gay writing gets really bad, nutrient calculating, the offline roots of my Internet addiction, my advice to writers on how to get readers to visit your site, Internet round-up, monastic science fiction, "Whipster" and an anniversary, fall cleaning and winter reading, closer to the deadline, down to the wire, no no no!

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