Love in Dark Settings

Doug and I went to a Friday night lecture tonight (December 4) at my alma mater, St. John's College in Annapolis, that was entitled "Why Plato Wrote." Friday night is the only time of the week when lectures are held at St. John's; all of the classes are discussion classes, in which the students and tutors (i.e. instructors) talk about the Great Books that everyone has read. So of course, immediately after the lecture, the lecturers are forced to undergo a Q&A session with the students and tutors.

In the Q&A, the lecturer mentioned Plato's Phaedrus, in which Socrates talks about whether writing can be helpful. Socrates has, you will see, a generally poor opinion of writing.

( What Socrates and Robin Hobb have in common )

The reason I spend so much time encouraging story discussions and fan fiction about my stories - I realized tonight - is precisely because I graduated from a college that honors discussion as playing a central role in keeping books alive. When a reader posts a piece of Eternal Dungeon fan fiction, or when readers at my blog discuss my stories amongst each other (with me keeping out of the way as much as possible, because "any of the bystanders could have explained those poems better than their actual authors") . . . that is when my stories become, in Phaedrus's words, "living speech."

Any thoughts, folks?

"Just like music, Hollywood's first reaction to [piracy] will be 'Well, that's just not fair. That's jumping the turnstile, that's breaking the rules. We have to shut that down, because if you remove that option [i.e. piracy] then people will be more patient.' You won't remove that option, and you're losing valuable time if you focus on removing that option at the expense of improving that option and bettering that option, beating that option.

"The music people used to say, 'How can you can compete with free?' And now you ask anybody in digital music and they'll tell you, 'I'm just trying to compete effectively with free.' They've embraced the very condition that up until very recently they said they would reject. I'm telling you, you are going to compete with free. Sometimes you're even going to win, once you make the commitment to living in the marketplace as it is and not as you wish it were or as it once was."

--Eric Garland.

( Background to my entries )
( Writing: Terrific e-book self-publishing news from Smashwords )
( Writing: More thoughts on Smashwords )

Meanwhile, if any of you have published through Smashwords, I'd be interested to know whether you've had good experiences with them. Have you had any bad encounters as a result of their adult content policy? Did you have any technical problems in getting your e-books onto their site? How have your sales been?

I pressed my Muse hard and persuaded him to finish writing Law Links (The Three Lands) today, November 8. I began writing that novel fourteen years ago, almost to the day: November 15, 1995.

By coincidence, this year happens to be the thirtieth anniversary of the original draft of the first Three Lands story I wrote, Blood Vow. In honor of that, I thought I'd show three versions each of two scenes from the novel, so that you can see how my writing has ceased being absolutely dreadful progressed.


( The first appearance of the Chara in 'Blood Vow,' just after my 16th birthday. Spoilers for Part One of 'Blood Vow.' Warning for bad teenage humor. )
( The same scene re-written one year later )
( The final version of that scene, age 45 )
( The first appearance of Lord Carle, in a passing reference, as part of a flashback )
( The second appearance of Lord Carle. Warning for a horrible simile. )
( The final version of that scene, age 45 )
( Journal entries about 'Blood Vow,' 1979-1995, with major spoilers )

On September 11, Doug and I visited Rock Hall in Kent County, just north of Tilghman Island on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It's an old watermen's community, and though the watermen have nearly been squeezed out, there are a couple of museums there that have watermen's devices. Then, two days later, we took a return trip to Dorchester County - in particular, to Hoopers Island.

( Rock Hall )
( Interlude in Lewes, Delaware )
( Hoopers Island )
( Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge )

I'd love to go back to Hoopers Island in late October, which is when my character walks across the upper island - I'd like to know what wildlife is out, and how much bird noise occurs then. (Dorchester County is part of the Atlantic Flyway for migrating birds.) But that would be pressing Doug's patience, so I'm going to have to use my imagination to fill in the gaps.

Now I just have to convince him to take that much-delayed trip to Southern Maryland. "We just got back from Hoopers Island!" he said when I tentatively pointed out on Wednesday that I had only ten days left before the research portion of my year ended.

I've written for my own entertainment since age nine, started writing for student publications at the same age, and have worked professionally as a writer since 1988. You can read a description of the genres I've written in. My fiction writing ranges from friendship fiction to erotica (and sometimes is both). My nonfiction writing has ranged from children's history articles to Web directories on gay history.

My accounts of my writing life are found in my Daily Life entries. They may contain references to, or link to, mature subject matter. Sections of my Daily Life entry that relate to writing are labelled "Writing" after the relevant dates within each post.

"When my husband and I were first dating and I found out he hadn't read the Narnia books as a kid, I insisted he read them. He really enjoyed most of them despite being extremely leery of organized Christianity, but when he finished the series, he said, 'I dunno. For the first six books it felt like the Christian symbolism was kind of gently caressing my subconscious... and then in the last one, it suddenly tackled me to the ground and started dry humping me while screaming "who's your daddy?"'"

--maculategiraffe.

Topics in this post: Storms, heat, publishing historical fantasy print books, haircuts, my mother's 1966 letters, slash convention, review of my leather fiction, slavefic, the fan fiction community.

( Read more... )

"Some people and groups push e-books as democratising the publishing industry, toppling the tyrants of literary culture and saving the environment at the same time. . . . When any writer asks me: should I epublish? I say that epublishing [is] an answer, but only if you are asking the right question."

--Emily Veinglory.

Topics in this post: Internet roundup, original slash, reading fantasy, reading historical fiction, natural gardening, word usage, self-publishing e-books, self-publishing POD books, Internet addiction (breakthrough!), my mother's 1967 letters.

( Read more... )

( Review of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Other Wind )

( Review of Diana Gabaldon's Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade )

"There is usually no precise equivalent of [Ancient Greek's] 3rd person imperative in English. Euclid often uses it in expressions which are translated by 'let there be' or 'let it have been drawn'. In the Septuagint translation of the Bible, God uses the 3rd person imperative in the first five and one-half days' work: genêthêtô phôs, Let there be light or Be there light. Perhaps an English example of the 3rd person imperative can be found in the stage direction Enter the King.

"What the commands of mathematicians, God, and playwrights have in common seems to be this, that the mere act of speaking suffices to bring about the truth of what is being said."

--Alfred R. Mollin and Robert B. Williamson: An Introduction to Ancient Greek.

Topics in this post: making booktrailer videos, fan mail, making cover art, early childhood reading, editing fantasy, reading science fiction, researching historical fantasy, prison tourism, prison history, memories of watching Doctor Who in the 1970s, editing and laying out leather fiction, wordage.

( Read more... )

( including A Writing Meme )

"When the female sea horse spots her mate each morning, they engage in an elaborate greeting ritual, wrapping their tails around a branch of coral or a blade of sea grass and rubbing their snouts together, seemingly quivering with joy over their reunion. Then they entwine tails and glide across the ocean floor. A biologist friend of mine once remarked that she wished her husband would be half that affectionate when he didn't want sex."

--Stephanie Coontz: Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage.

Topics in this post: Internet addiction, self-publishing e-books, writing fantasy, braille, history of transsexuality, history of marriage, text-to-speech, reading historical fiction, Easter, Digital Rights Management, wordage (and how), sneering at bad gay porn stories, admiring good gay porn stories, Earth Hour, history, writing historical fantasy, print-on-demand (Lightning Source and Amazon's CreateSpace), self-publishing print books, April Fool's Day, audio books.

( Read more... )

"Writers of the past had absinthe, whiskey, or heroin. I have Google. I go there intending to stay five minutes and next thing I know, seven hours have passed, I've written 43 words, and all I have to show for it is that I know the titles of every episode of The Nanny and the Professor."

--Michael Chabon, as quoted by Wired Magazine.

Topics in this post: Internet addiction, partial sightedness, publishing print books, publishing e-books, text-to-speech software, audio books, MP3 players, publishing online fiction, memories of 1970s and 1980s music, mania, wordage, writing historical fantasy, slash fiction.

( Read more... )

"I tried out a local writers' group last summer, but the problem was there were two poets, a non-fiction writer and several short story writers. And they really, really didn't want actual critique. People handed out copies of their stuff and other people pointed out a typo or the same word used twice in a paragraph. That's not critique, that's a circle jerk proofing."

--Storm Grant.

Topics in this post: slash fan fiction, writing historical fantasy, Internet addiction, Harry Potter, braille, partial sightedness, schedule, military fiction, sexism in literature, redemption in literature, office supplies.

( Read more... )

"So all right, you're perfectly safe [on safari in Botswana], and you're trudging along through the tall grass, and the sun's beating down, and the soil in many places is quite sandy, so it's uncertain under your feet, and then your guide says, 'Oh boy!' And you look over and there across the ridge you see a tree, and under the tree there are five little heads, and those are lions that were supposed to be all the way on the other side of the area. And they're watching you, and you're on foot in your hiking shoes and your hat, and there's your guide who has this gun with only one bullet in it because they're not in the business of shooting the animals; they use the guns just to fire warning shots. There's nothing between you and the lions. . . . Nothing happened, of course; we came back to the camp and they said that lions never hunt people on two legs, lions don't attack people, and that's all well and good, but you don't really know whether the lions have been told this."

--Naomi Novik in an interview with Strange Horizons.

Topics in this post: booktrailers, Age of Sail / Regency fiction, alternate history military fiction, small presses, partial sightedness, writing and editing historical fantasy, religion in alternate history, fan fiction, dinosaurs, turn-of-the-century history and fiction.

( Read more... )

[In the midst of a romantic discussion with a woman:]

"'I wish there was some place we could go,' I said. I was experiencing the masculine difficulty of making love very long standing up."

--Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms.

Topics in this post: my readers, Internet addiction, fanvid history, writing and editing fantasy stories, military films and shows and literature, illness, partial sightedness, transatlantic weather, writing style, leather, slash.

( Read more... )

"Here at Red Sage, we admit to a certain fondness for the alpha male. He's powerful. He takes what he wants. And he makes that one special woman want what he takes. Whether he's charming or ruthless, passionate or stoic, the alpha male makes a great romantic partner for today's strong, modern woman." --Red Sage Publishing.

"The strong modern women who wants to be 'taken' that is. As opposed to us throwback archaic weak dominatrices." --Emily Veinglory's comment on the above.

Topics in this post: literature and films on the Boer War, World War One, and World War Two; researching and writing historical fantasy, e-text archives, booktrailers, schedule, Internet addiction, income, mentoring, military terminology.

( Read more... )

"Diana Gabaldon will write an 'original story' to be set in the world of the Outlander series including favorite characters such as Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser. The illustrator is Hoang Nguyen and will be 192 pages in length. The publication date is 2009. . . .

"Seriously, the Outlander story in manga form? I think it's only successful if the love story is between Lord John and Jamie . . ."

--DearAuthor.com.

Topics in this post: Boer War, wordage, prison history, leather.

( Read more... )

"Writing is the fine art of placing the seat of one's pants in the seat of one's chair."

--Sinclair Lewis.

Topics in this post: simplicity, Internet addiction, book collecting, natural history, fan fiction inspired by my stories, Christmas, reading prison literature, reading fantasy literature, reading original slash, reading BDSM fiction, blindness, text-to-speech, braille, research on Victorian and Edwardian history, New Year's Eve, wordage, schedule, Epiphany, Boer War, and genealogy.

( Read more... )

"I said that these blindness games will be valuable to you as a writer. But their main value to you can be in another way. For writing doesn't depend as much on the images you see with your eyes, or the sounds you hear with your ears, as it does on your 'inner eye,' your 'inner ear,' the understandings you have inside you that you glean from all your senses, including your heart. The more you learn about your own inners, the deeper understanding you will have about yourself and about everybody. You'll be seeing with your heart, and then if you write it down, fine. The writing will be the richer. But the writing's not the most important thing in the world. The understanding is."

--Jacqueline Jackson: Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail: A Book About Writing among Other Things.

Topics in this post: simplicity, Internet addiction, braille, blindness, self-publishing printed books, self-publishing e-books, authorship, scanning books, Christmas.

( Read more... )

"A colophon is a section of a book, usually at the back, that describes the book itself. It usually tells you what typefaces were used, what country had to be colonized to build the plantations to make the paper, and how big the drum of ink was."

--Jeff Harrell, "Colophon," in The Shape of Days.

Topics in this post: domain statistics, self-publishing audio books, self-publishing e-books, Harry Potter, fan fiction, friendship fiction, cover art, music, Digital Rights Management, blindness, mentoring (briefly), original slash, marketing books.

( Read more... )

"Monospaced fonts, which are common on typewriters, always look better set ragged, in standard typewriter style. A typewriter that justifies its lines in imitation of typesetting is a presumptuous machine, mimicking the outer form instead of the inner truth of typography."

--Robert Bringhurst: The Elements of Typographic Style

Topics in this post: self-publishing e-books, Website design, family, typesetting, computers, wordage, blindness, mentoring, book design, American society.

( Read more... )

"The great book purge continues. Seventeen boxes of books are out of the house, and ten more bookcases are in to help hold the books that remain. Those who have visited before will be amazed to hear that we now have room for a dishwasher and stove in the kitchen. (Yeah, okay, the books are a lot higher priority than in most households.)"

--Parhelion in this post.

Topics in this post: mentoring, self-publishing e-books, my fantasy tales, typesetting, family, computers, Internet addiction, blindness, Website design.

( Read more... )