Let’s Talk About Writing Groups!

 Before we get to the discussion today, I’d like to thank any readers who purchased and commented on Warrior, my newly released novel. For those of you who don’t know what it is, you can check it out here. If it looks interesting and you read it, be sure to leave some feedback somewhere. I love hearing from readers.

Anyways, I’d like to talk about writing groups today. They’re an important part of any person’s development as a writer, whether they take place online or face-to-face. Why? Writing groups get you in touch with other people, writers and readers, and people are good for your writing.

We need audiences when we work on our writing. A single person is not capable of looking at their work and seeing all the necessary revisions needed. More importantly, our best work happens when we write with others, not alone.

We’ve all had that one misconception of a good writer. They’re that person who sits in a room lit by candlelight. They peck away at a typewriter for hours, agonizing over each line, and everything they write is golden because that person has something special that no one else has.

This is a false notion. All great writers have a great editor, or a horde of them, that help out during the writing process. When there’s a group of people reading your work, you have the benefit of multiple perspectives on your writing. One person can read your work and have a problem with something. You might not change it. If four people have a problem with the same thing and actually talk their way through what specifically troubles them about it, then you actually have something to work with.

Writing groups are essential for this reason. Your story will never please every single person on the planet, but it can become something incredible by working with the people around you. And writing groups are a great way to get free editing and consulting on your work 🙂

The next big reason you should join a writing group: you will read other people’s work.

Reading and responding to another person’s work will not only let you experience a broader scope of writing, it will make you a better writer. I’m serious. A 2003 study by Jay Simmons examined several classes of high school and college students over the course of three years. Their collective data showed that students who had the opportunity to respond to peer writing the most often also scored higher in writing assignments.

So do yourself a favor and get a writing group together. Make a google doc, meet some locals. If you’ve got an internet connection, there’s really no excuse for writing alone. Try out some websites like fictionpress.com or wattpad.com. If you’re not writing strictly original fiction, join the communities at fanfiction.net or archiveofourown. They’re all great sources for writers to make connections with one another.

So audience, what have your experiences with writing groups been? If any?

Let’s Talk About Attention Economy!

Yeah, that’s a pretty big, fancy phrase I’m throwing around – attention economy. Fear not! It means pretty close to what it sounds like. 

The attention economy is the coined term used by some to define the economic system of the internet. Michael Goldhaber points out in his 1997 conference presentation that the internet primarily funnels information to people. In this sense, information is a product of the internet, an abundant one.

Why do we care about this? Well, that’s what I’m selling right now, information. Hopefully it’s in an entertaining and digestible format so you, the reader/viewer/audience, can understand what’s going on in the world.

I’m not really charging for this information, though. There’s no reason to. You could go google and read up on attention economy just as easily. There’s something else I’m (and every other internet user) is after with this blog: your attention.

Attention is the currency of the internet, or so attention economy theorists claim. It’s something I’m inclined to agree with, and it’s important that you understand this economy as a struggling young writer/blogger/youtuber because it’s what makes your paycheck. That’s right. Attention is what makes the money thing happen. Why else do we pay Facebook to generate likes for our pages? If you’re an independent writer, there is nothing more valuable in the world than other people talking up your book, mentioning it to others, or generally just posting a link to something related to your work anywhere on the internet.

Generally, people need to be entertaining in order to hold onto that attention. Something boring and educational like this little blog probably won’t generate a lot of interest (sorry reader who finds this fascinating!), but is good to get out there when the creative mood strikes you.

So! What can you, an indie writer, do to get some interest generated on the internet? Well, there are a few immediate options. My favorite one is fanfiction.

Yes, fanfiction is a very good way to generate attention as a writer, and it’s so freaking fun! It also lets your readers share a fandom with you and brings you down from that “untouchable paragon” status that a lot of writers get awarded. I don’t really like being an untouchable paragon. I wrote my original fiction because no one else was writing epic fantasies with lesbians and I WANTED TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT THESE FEELS! It just so happens that along the way, someone else decided I was kinda worthwhile as a writer and rolled me up into their little publishing company. Still, you see me out here, shouting into the void at you guys, begging for your attention.

All internet celebs do this. Every blog, tweet, vlog, or tumblr post is an attempt to connect with another human, and some of us just happen to make money out of making those connections possible. More often, I see community builders getting rewarded for providing a public space of interaction. Livestreamers on twitch.tv can get donations from subscribers and people in the chatroom while they play their games. Artists solicit donations for comic panels and site maintenance. These creators, comedians, and entertainers are making an epicenter for human interaction.

So, dear writer, I suppose what I’m saying is that you should make yourself an epicenter, put yourself out there a little bit. Give people something to discuss and stop hoarding away every story you write in the hopes that some agent will pay you for it one day (spoiler alert: I kinda dislike the concept of agents). Share a short story, write a rant, post that fanfic you had an idea for, make photo collages for tumblr, be part of a community! Give your readers your attention. Have a conversation with them. Listen! They might just give you some of their attention in return.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Talk it up with me! I love responding to comments, I promise 🙂

What do you all think of this new internet economy?

Also, I’d like to thank my readers for keeping Warrior in the top 100 for lesbian romance all week now. Y’all rock. Leave a review when you’re done!

Let’s Talk About Clean Prose!

Well, I really do suck at updating a blog regularly. Let’s ignore that and get right to the point, the pen’s point if you will.

Some of you may have heard that the Golden Crown Literary Society is meeting up this weekend for their annual conference. This conference hosts the Golden Crown Literary award ceremony, a pretty big deal in lesbian fiction.

I try to read most of the books that win a Goldie, though I have some catching up to do. Currently, I am slogging through The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer, which won a Goldie in the Speculative Fiction category for 2012. About halfway through the story I set it down to check out some of the reviews on GoodReads (which I’m glad I did!) to see how others thought about it.

A lot of people had the same thing to say: I wanted to like this book, really! I think that mantra is the only thing powering me through this novel. I want to like it. Badly. Who wouldn’t want to? It’s a lesbian retelling of the story of Persephone and Hades, except without the freaky kidnapping. It’s gold! Or it should have been.

Before I continue any further, I want to say that Sarah Diemer is a good writer. The prose just fell flat for me in The Dark Wife, which made it all the more disappointing in light of its Goldie. Many of the repeated problems in the prose were minor, slap-of-the-wrist fixes that are often shot down by a writer’s extremely talented editor. Since Ms. Diemer self-published this story, I’m guessing she did not have a horde of editors to sound off ideas with. As a result, the story had some repetitive problems that many writers suffer from.

And before you start thinking that editors just rinse out the originality of a story and writers need to be free and fuck the system man its overrated you be free as a bird and do whatevah you want!, just stop. Stop right there. Because (finally) we’ve hit the point of this update.

When we write, we owe it to our readers to deliver a polished story that fully accomplishes what we wrote it to accomplish. Things like purple prose, excessive dialogue tags, too many commas, and awkward syntax get in the way of meeting that goal (unless your goal is to highlight those problems in writing).

Why do they get in the way? I’ll tell you.

One or two prose-oddities in a story are good. But what if that obtuse prose keeps popping up? What if the main character keeps having heavy, weepy, rageful, ecstatic FEELINGS on every single page? It would be like eating cake for every single meal. Eventually, you’re going to get sick of the cake.

And I eventually get sick of overly thought-out prose. I think one of my favorite things to hate on is using two verbs to describe one action. This is a nice touch when it’s an important action to highlight. It’s different, so it tells the reader, “Hey! Something interesting is happening. Wake up!”
But if every single person needs two actions to highlight one (ie, he barked a laugh, she skipped a hop, he bellowed a shout) it’s going to get exhausting. The same thing goes for adverbs: Slowly, carefully, lowered down from the ledge, Sammy walked herself down the path.

Do you see what I mean? This sentence highlights actions first, the person second, and the destination last. People consistently, pathologically arrange sentences with the person first, the action second, and any objects or destinations last. This sentence tells me that the actions are more important than the person. Used sparingly, tricks like this are useful. Used consistently, you can get some very unhappy readers.

This kind of prose distracts people by nature. It forces the reader’s brain to decipher something, and not in a this-makes-me-think-about-deeper-issues-that-resonate-with-our-chaotic-and-dissonant-world sort of way. The reader gets pulled out of the story. If that is your goal, then congratulations, get to it.

But there are stories out there that use this prose. They use it without meaning to give their readers mental whiplash. This prose highlights the author and their pen strokes, not the characters and their world. But the story is about the characters and their world, okay?

Here’s the problem. The prose keeps the reader from getting what you (dear writer) want them to get out of the story. It’s something we all struggle with, myself included. It’s also something we can fix if we just paid attention to our own damn sentences.

I think that’s the advisory for today. Pay attention to your sentences. Never just write something and call it good. Re-read it, first! Hell, I even proof-read this blog before I posted it. And I found messy sentences. Good job, me. You get a gold star.

So readers, did you enjoy anything in this post? Let me know! I want to hear your thoughts on writing creatively and effectively. Leave a comment, please.

Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby!… In Fiction.

What is your fiction saying about sexuality and relationships? Probably a lot more than you’d think, and I want to talk about the choices we make as writers when it comes to this. No, I’m not talking about how well-endowed you make your characters, or giving people unrealistic expectations about how mind-blowingly amazing sex will be on the first time, every time (but we should talk about that, too… eventually). I’m talking about the gritty stuff: the relationship. The ways in which two characters interact and how that is received by the world. I struggled for a long time thinking of how to start this conversation, but I finally settled on relating an experience to you all from my earlier years as a college student.

A friend of mine wrote an amazing short story about a young man who ends up giving shelter to a woman fleeing her abusive boyfriend. She waits at his house for a friend to pick her up, and then thanks him and heads out with her friend.

When I first read this story, I thought it was amazing. I still think it’s amazing. The emotion and the raw display of humanity in this story felt just perfect. It was a snapshot of real, gritty life, and it just captured so much about our generation (us 20-somethings) in the small details of the story. More importantly, it captured something distinctly human in the characters.

While it was well received by many people in the class, three young men took issue with something: the guy did not get the girl at the end of the story.

Let me break that down for you. The guy (a random stranger to this woman) does not “get” (as in a kiss, a good fuck, a phone number, a date) the girl (the woman who was just beaten by an abusive ex). This bothered them.

Just the thought of turning it into a love story made me go a little berserk. Why? Because the main character, the guy, and this woman were not meant to be in a relationship. For one, the story was not about that. It was about what a painful, messy experience life can be, and sometimes we can actually be a decent person for someone else.

How would letting the guy “get” the girl ruin that message? For one, it has the chance of reducing the female character to a “prize”.

What is probably the worst part, however, is that it cheapens the main character. I liked him as a character, a lot. He was written to be a decent human being, and the reader got to see him struggling in a dilemma of what the right thing to do is. For him, he questioned whether or not to call the police, whether to take the woman back to his house in the first place, and whether or not to confront the much larger and scarier guy she ran from. These are all feasibly real-life problems someone may have to confront, and this character, while he may not have been the most supportive or helpful, did try to help this woman. If his only incentive for helping her is that kiss, or date, at the end of the story, it warps his actions and the audience’s perceptions of what to expect in these situations.

What does it say about how sexuality and relationships are portrayed in media if three guys in my writing class wanted the main character to get the girl in the end? In reality, the last thing a person fleeing abuse wants is to be ravished by a stranger (think about it for a second, you’ll get the ‘creepy’ vibes). Not one of these guys in the class would (hopefully) try to get with a random lady fleeing an attacker. But for them, the story felt incomplete without that promise for intimacy at the end.

I don’t blame them. I blame the formula people establish for so many books, shows, and movies out there. Most fictional works involving a guy and a girl have them get together at the end. Hell, even the gay stories do it. The hero conquers evil and the protagonist wins the heart of their true love. It’s how it goes. It’s textbook narrative structure. I even happen to like this structure, but I think there are some social problems we need to be aware of when we write in it, and that’s what I want to talk about, after that very long-winded introduction.

I recently finished up a novel for publication (Warrior will be out in July! Lesbians and fantasy adventure awaits! Tell your friends) and when revising it, I noticed something… annoying about the main character. Can you guess what it was?

This girl cared way too much about ending up old, alone, and a virgin, and it wasn’t even in a comical way. Why did I write her that way? Why did I make the main character’s drive something as simplistic as “to get the girl”?

I can’t say for sure, but it made me realize that I was saying something with my characters. I was saying what I expected people to act like, I was showing what I expected the hero to act like. And it wasn’t necessarily the best message.

To give the short story, I found redeeming qualities everywhere, and the character was not so far gone to save her. One thing I did pay a lot of attention to in the story was the portrayal of gay and lesbian relationships (the main characters are lesbians, come on guys).

Here is where I break out the pet peeves. I am very, very tired of seeing lesbian relationships portrayed in stories where the entire plot hangs on the acceptance of that relationship as something socially acceptable.

Why? It raises the question of whether or not LGTBQIA relationships are acceptable, and the only answer to that is yes, they are. I understand a need to explore prejudice and struggle, but seeing it played out every time and in every story can make the audience feel as if there is something deviant about these sexual relationships.

And it does not have to be an LGTBQIA relationship. Portraying the female character as the passive damsel, the male character as the sexually dominating force, both of these are perfect examples of how a story’s portrayal of relationships can set a standard for those reading it. These portrayals are not a standard, they are not a norm, but we can begin to see them that way if we are not careful about how we write our worlds, especially fantasy and science fiction universes, where any construct of relationship is truly possible.

I made sexual relationships between characters of any gender a norm in my universe, save for the royalty who are expected to pop out a baby because, you know, babies need to happen. And even then, there were ways around that minor detail that the characters discussed. There are so many other ways to explore relationship dynamics between characters, however. It never just has to be, “the hero gets their true love.” Yes, that’s an important part to a lot of base fantasy narratives, but it does not have to be the defining aspect. Like the main character in my friend’s story, the quality of writing does not have to hinge on the character’s sexual conquest.

What I am trying to get at here is that writers set up what is “normal” in their worlds, and readers pay attention to that. Not every story needs to break out of these molds we created, but all stories featuring a strong romantic relationship should contain some level of awareness.

I’m going to leave my thoughts on the subject there, because any further efforts to expand have left me dissatisfied, and I’d rather tease out more meaning in conversation, if you’d be obliged, readers.

Let’s Take a Mary Sue Test!

This week, instead of calculating payments on my student loan debt, I’m going to submit one of my novel characters to a Mary Sue test, and you all get to watch. Sound fun? No? Then go read something else.

For the purposes of this test, I will be using a free litmus available here: http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm

I do not own nor did I make up any of these questions. Someone else did that, the someone who created this website, and I’m grateful for them. If you’re unfamiliar with what a Mary Sue is, be sure to visit that website and find out. They’re a potentially hazardous character type in original fiction.

Before we begin, I want to tell you all why I’m doing this. I primarily use this Mary Sue test when working on flushing out characters that I think are somewhat one-dimensional or did not get enough depth the first time I tried to write them. Creating living, breathing characters in a story is hard because we like to rely on previously established archetypes as guidelines. Everyone loves the badass cop, the innocent young maiden, the secretly badass maiden. These are all typical tropes, and while a trope is great for quick payout, the character who is that trope usually lacks any meaning or depth beyond what defines that trope. They’re flat, in other words.

I will be running Taylor Morgan from Dark Horizons through the Mary Sue test this time. Taylor has long been a favorite character of mine, and she originated all the way back in 2010 in a short story I wrote for a college class. She’s evolved since then, but her debut onto the public scene was a little lackluster, I feel. I have such a rich canon involving Taylor in my head, but I don’t think I spent enough time putting that into the story for readers to see, thus giving the audience a character who did not shine as much as the one in my head. Putting Taylor through a Mary Sue test highlights those important things about her I should highlight in the sequel, or perhaps give me a slap across the face and tell me she’s a little too boring. Either way, there’s only one way to find out, so let’s begin. If you really want to see every answer available, you can follow along with the actual test in another browser window. For sanity’s sake, I will be skipping over questions that are answered with a “no” for my character.

Part One – All Characters

1. Is/does your character’s name:

The question lists a lot of things, like is the name odd, do you want to name your children with it, does it have unique spelling? That kind of stuff. Taylor Morgan is about as plain as they would get, though, and I did not take it from my name at all, and no, I will not be naming my children after her.

2. Did you deliberately base your character’s looks on your own?

God no. Taylor is my opposite as far as looks go. Well, maybe we’re close in height, but not much else. I actually tried something different with Taylor in that I made her half Japanese, something I have no personal experience being, considering I am a pasty white Alaskan. While I mention this characteristic once in Dark Horizons, I do not really call attention to it because I have no freaking idea what it means to be part of that culture. Thusly, Taylor kind of didn’t either. And that works. A lot of people from cultural backgrounds only know the default they grew up in. Still, it sort of feels like a cheap grab for brownie points by making her “different” but not at the same time. Thoughts?

3. Does your character look like how you wish you look?

No. I love my tousled mane of curly hair. It’s very in right now thanks to HBO’s portrayal of Robb Stark.

4. Is your character depicted as effortlessly beautiful, cute, or handsome?

…Yes. Maia’s all over that shit. But it is a romance novel. It comes with the territory.

4d. Does anyone see your character’s attractiveness as a threat?

Does it count if Maia sees it as a threat to her freedom in the first book?

5. Does anyone want to adopt your character?

No. Well……… no.

7. Does your character have a great body/physique, which you describe, show, and/or illustrate in detail?

Yes, but it’s a romance novel! And Taylor’s in the army. You don’t get more fit than that.

9. Do you use poetic and/or creative terms to describe your character, but virtually no-one else (aside from your character’s love interest, perhaps)?

9a. Do you frequently describe your character’s beautiful/handsome/cute attributes or point out how sexy your character is?

Yes… I’m starting to sense a pattern here.

13. Does your character have a particularly attractive scent that doesn’t come from xir perfume, cologne, or shampoo?

Yes, though humans all smell different to Maia.

14. Does your character have a scar or other small “flaw” that is noticed by someone, but does not actually detract from your character’s appearance from your point of view?

 

Yes, and Maia finds her scars sexy. It’s an erotic novel, though. I mean… Am I expecting more of the character than I should?

16. Does your character have a particularly piercing (EG, “can stare straight into your soul”), haunting, captivating, or dazzling gaze?

According to Maia, yes.

59. How many languages does your character fluently speak?

Oh god, I have no idea!

78. If/when your character has sex, is it absolutely perfect and beyond amazing?

Yes. Though who wants to read about bad sex?

83. Has your character otherwise lost:

A close friend, check. A whole squad, actually. Taylor angsts about it for a while.

87. Does your character angst about something that she did in the past?

Yup. Kinda. Does getting your squad obliterated at the beginning of the book count?

87c. Does your character eventually learn that it wasn’t her fault? 

Yeah, or at least stops blaming herself for it.

Part Two – Original Fiction

5. Are most (if not all) characters who don’t like your character merely mean, shallow, spiteful, and/or jealous of her?

Yes, but… that changes in the sequel.

7. Does anyone who doesn’t like or respect your character by the end of the story end up beaten up, humiliated, miserable, and/or dead?

Oh for the love of… yes.

Part Five – De-Suifiers

2. Has your character ever been honestly selfish, petty, lazy, shallow, or pointlessly cruel?

And she regrets it.

15. Does your character ever seriously question the morality of her actions and/or is left with a lingering doubt that she may not have done the right thing?

Oh Taylor. Yes. She has a lot of doubt about her life choices.

18. Has your character ever misjudged someone else and discovered she was completely wrong about that person?

Yes. *coughspoilerscough*

19. Does your character ever admit to being wrong, even if she doesn’t really mean it?

Though Taylor does mean it, yes.

24. Do you view your characters more like tools than friends/children?

While I occasionally joke that my characters are my babies, they are first and foremost a means to an end. They are the story, they reason someone will love or hate it, and the only thing any book has going for it, ever. Characters are your story, never forget that.

25. Did you spend days, if not months or longer carefully and thoughtfully researching the traumas/hardships/handicaps/disorders your character has so you could write them as realistically and sensitively as possible?

Yes, I honestly do. I might not achieve this, but I do try.

End of Test

So my overall score, according to the website, was 7. This is considered a “safe range” by the site’s little blurb, but I’m not so sure. What this quiz highlights for me is that Taylor gets talked about and viewed in terms of her physical appearance a lot, and while she does suffer from various traumas and has a complex past, it’s not necessarily pulled to the surface, yet.

Dark Horizons was an erotic novel, however. It’s supposed to focus on the physical. That is to be expected of a story that features the characters banging more than anything else.

So why did I subject Taylor to this test?

Because I like her as a character. She’s grown on me a little bit, so much that I hesitated before answering that my characters are less like children and more like tools. As Rae and I start writing the sequel to Dark Horizons, I keep wondering what I can do to flush out Taylor and give her the same liveliness that she has in my head. I know characters are tools to convey a good story, but the most beautiful characters often become “people” that you can identify with, and Taylor isn’t quite there, yet, though I think she can get there.

What I hope this exercise has shown you all is that writers, even published authors, need to stop and reflect on their characters. We try to write these unique people into the world, and we struggle to keep them from being too cliché or too boring. Often, we don’t see what is salient in our characters until we step back. I didn’t think that Taylor’s physical attributes would be the most profound characteristic she possessed until I plugged her into this test. If you’re a writer looking to work on improving a character, do yourself a favor and use this test. It’s a fantastic source for writers everywhere, especially those of us working in genre fictions like fantasy or science fiction.

If any of you are interested in seeing this Taylor character (and reading about raunchy lesbian sex in a sci-fi setting) you can read all about her in Dark Horizons, or not. It doesn’t matter to me.

Leave a comment! We’ll chat it up! What did you think of the test?

Exciting News!

Well, this happened a little while ago, but I suppose I should make some official announcement for it.

I am happy to say that I am now publishing with Desert Palm Press, a small publishing company devoted to quality lesbian fiction. My new book coauthored with Rae D Magdon will be released in March for purchase through Desert Palm Press. I’ll have more details about that closer to the release date, but for right now, let’s talk about small press publishing.

It’s a tricky business, getting published. I found it to be so tricky that I took the quick route and self-published. Despite my wild success at that (our book did fabulously; thank you all, my amazing, wonderful fans!), people were more excited to hear I got a book deal from a small, independent publishing press than they were to hear about how well my self-published book was doing. Why is that? Why is there something immediately more special about be acknowledged by someone else who lives off of judging writing?

Some would say it’s an honor, but I think there’s some monetary prestige built into it.

Now, I haven’t made an insane amount of money off my writing. I didn’t do bad, mind you, but I wasn’t JK Rowling or anything. Neither will I be with this small press. The way I see it, I’m taking a slight pay cut to reach a broader audience (and work with some wonderful writers and editors, never discount that experience). Yet why do people value this move in my career more than when I was doing all the work myself? That was pretty impressive, mind you.

I think there’s a nasty association of wealth with “publishing”. If you’re in with a press, you’re gonna be rolling in it, or at least that’s what the urban myth tells you. And people are welcome to believe that and to benefit off their writing. They should, actually.

What bothers me is when a writer loses sight of what they’re writing about and focuses on just money. This is a fairly idealistic, rose-colored argument, but I like to think that writing, good writing, should be about the conversation between a writer and a reader, not the overall monetary gain at the end of the day. I bring this up mainly because I see writers fall into the trap of seeking the perfect publisher for their story, but then never sharing anything because they’re worried they’ll miss their opportunity for “the big break.”

When a writer holds back from an opportunity to have readers see their work, whether it’s at a local contest or in a national magazine, they’re allowing themselves to think that the amount of “good” writing they can accomplish is finite. We as writers have so much to say and so much to give. That is simply human nature. Share your ideas. Share your drafts. More will come. Part of the publishing process is spending time in those little nooks and crannies of writing. Publish with the local anthology. Apply to that short story contest down the street. Get yourself writing to interact with others, not just a faceless agent. That is what the writing process is about, communication, a dialogue between writers and readers.

I suppose I’ve waxed poetic long enough, already. Before I end this post, I’d like to let you all know that if you’re looking for some interesting lesbian fiction, check out what Desert Palm Press has here: http://www.desertpalmpress.com/

AJ Adaire is fabulous, as are Stein Willard and SL Kassidy. As always, thank you to my readers who support my fiction, wherever they find it. If you’re curious Rae and I are releasing a sci-fi romance in March. I also have a fantasy novel on the table, but that will be released some time this summer. Chronicles of Osota deserves my full attention, which I cannot give in the middle of completing graduate school.

Lesbian Romance Book Reviews!

Back again? So soon? Yes, I am still free from the clutches of my other job, so I intend to provide more content for you all before I once again am sucked into the labors of a 9-5 job. Anyways, I have been spending my newfound free time goofing off researching by reading some romance novels and not-so romance novels. As a treat to my readers, I would like to leave some short reviews on these and explain what I found nice about them; perhaps highlight some takeaway points for aspiring writers. And, of course, they all feature lesbian couples as the main interests.

Book One – A Place to Rest by Erin Dutton: This was the first novel I uncovered for my romance reading frenzy. I found it at a local bookstore, and picked it out mostly because it sounded relaxing. The synopsis on the back details the conflict for the main character, Sawyer, who finds herself attracted to the new pastry chef of her family’s restaurant. Sawyer’s pregnant sister ends up requiring help running the family business, and romance soon blossoms between her and Jori (the aforementioned pastry chef).

What do I think of it? It was cute, sweet, and low on the drama level. Positively predictable in terms of the happy outcome, but charming nonetheless in a low-stress way. I picked it out right before I went out to breakfast, and spent a few hours in the café with a cup of coffee while I read through it. Honestly, it was the best morning I had enjoyed in a long time. This is also probably an excellent indicator that I’m getting old. I actually enjoyed reading a book out a breakfast by myself. I reveled in it. My teenager self would have thought me pathetic. But I don’t care. It was bliss.

Anyways, back to the novel. I ended up giving it a five-star review on goodreads, but many people will disagree with that rating and give it four or three, which it is probably more deserving of. What I liked about this story was that it provided something soft for me to read while I was coming down off the stress-tornado I had been battling just a few days before. If you are looking for a cute story about two women in love with minimal sex scenes, this is a good one to go with.

Book Two – Sequestered Hearts by Erin Dutton: Another book by the same lady. I liked the first one so much that I looked up some other books of hers on my nook and downloaded this one. The story features a journalist and an heiress / famous painter, and while the beginning of the novel is the most slow, painfully enraging thing to crawl through, the rest of the story became quite enjoyable once the characters attempted functioning outside of the private cabin they first got to know each other in. Overall, I found it deep, and a bit more of an emotional rollercoaster than the first one, but just as enjoyable. The characters were interesting once they got over their bout of stupid in the beginning, and their relationship development was interesting.

What I found interesting about this novel was that it played with a specific medical disability, but awkwardly introduced it in the beginning, though the premise seemed promising enough. What I would liked to have seen was a slower build-up in those initial pages, but for plot reasons the characters shared a kiss early on, which felt more forced than anything. What I’d like to emphasize here is that emotions need to be earned between your characters. The smooching can’t just start because you feel like it’s as good a time as any. You cannot also rely on it as a plot device at the expense of the characters, but I highly advise against this. Character’s actions and their believability must come first before anything else. Without it, how can we ask a reader to suspend everything else just to pay attention to what we have to say?

Overall, still a wonderful story if you want a romance novel with lady love.

Book Three – Battle Scars by Meghan O’Brien: I have read some works by this author before. In truth, this has been sitting on my shelf for a while and my partner has been pestering me to read it. After being less than impressed with O’Brien’s book Infinite Loop, I tended to stay away from her romance novels. Her erotica novel Thirteen Hours is brilliant, by the way, if you want something decently readable and basically just a bunch of sex scenes. Battle Scars proved to be a pleasant surprise with deep characters and an engaging dynamic between them. Ray is a veteran coping with PTSD, and Carly is a veterinarian. Their paths cross, and you can guess what happens from there.

Honestly, this book is probably the most tightly written compared with the previous two, and the stakes are the highest between the two characters, causing it to be  bit more intense of a read, but if you’re looking for something still on the fluffy side, it’s definitely a lighter romance novel, despite having stronger tones than the previous two. And there are adorable puppy dogs in it, and someone drew fan art of said adorable puppies with the main characters.

And a Comic? Alabaster by Caitlin R. Kiernan: Ever since the 5 issue Alabaster series ran with Dark Horse, I have been buying the Dark Horse Presents comic anthologies religiously to keep up with the “Alabaster: Boxcar Tales” featured in each volume. The Alabaster series follows Dancy Flammarion, a teenager with issues. In the first comic (waaaaaay back), she’s almost eaten by a lovely werewolf lady, who she kills. The werewolf woman comes back as a ghost, and the two quickly settle into the routine of busting up the antics of other monsters, killing the baddies, normal things that werewolf ghost / monster hunter duos do.

*Spoilers*

I know it sounds weird, but the story is intense. This is literature, not fluffy romance. It just so happens to feature a soul-crushingly, desperately longing unrequited love story between these two later on in the series.

And might I just say, I called it? It’s a beautiful story, and if you’re willing to track down all the loose Dark Horse comics (or digitally download them) it makes for a wonderful read, and you’ll feel better for it after, because the story is complex and leveled with metaphors I have a hard time keeping track of sometimes, but when it all comes together, it’s worth it. If you want some comic book lesbians that aren’t Batwoman (don’t get me started on the rage I feel about JH Williams leaving), this is a good series to check out, and it’s not too long, featuring only a handful of issues or short entries in anthologies.

*End Spoilers*

No More Books! That’s all I’ve read between last week and now. Not too bad, actually. Just wanted to provide some material there. What I’d like to say about these books in terms of writing is that they do a damn good job because they show organic relationships between the characters. With some very brief exceptions, nothing feels forced between the characters. They were created to naturally flow with their decisions.

This is what good writers do. You should never force your character to do something that feels off, or like they would actually do, for the sake of the plot. One way to tell you might be writing your character into this problem is if you keep writing around a scene, or tweaking everything else in the story to make this one cool idea you had fit. Think about it for a few days. Give yourself some distance, and if that idea still seems crucial to your story, look back and see how you can earn whatever it is you’re trying to make the character do.

Before I end this, I’ll offer a quick update on projects. Chronicles of Osota: Warrior is scheduled to release in January, still. I don’t have an exact date, but it will happen. I should resume normal updates on my side projects (ie, the free-to-read stuff posted on the interwebs) sometime in the next day or so. Just trying to catch up on everything. Leave a comment if you have questions or thoughts. What is your favorite lesbian romance novel? I’d love to read some more before the break is over. It helps me improve my own writing when I read a wider range.

Less Is More

How many times have you heard that little piece of advice, hmm? A lot probably, but I want to talk about it again in relation to some of my recent activities. But first let me say, “hi, how are all of you? How have you been? My handful of regular readers, I’ve missed you!” Sorry for vanishing, but I was sucked in by this torrential force known as academia. While I was away I wrote articles for journals, arranged to go to a conference in Canada (and hopefully lead a panel), and learned more than I ever needed to know about Utopianism. Brain = full. Now to cherish my month of pseudo-freedom by goofing around on the internet.

But this is not goofing around. This is serious business. In my time away, I also sent a short story out to some different anthologies. It got rejected every single time, sadly, but I plan to keep trying. Recently, I got caught up talking to a colleague who used to run a journal in my field. He heard that I was sending this story out and failing to get in, and said I should read it for a class one day. That translates to me reading a reject story to fifteen of my peers and one brilliant pioneer of science fiction studies. No pressure, right?

So I sent the story out to some friends for some quick edits. The two that got back to me said the same thing, “We need more.” The emotion was not translating on the page, and they wanted to see the character’s feelings.

I struggled with this kind of feedback, because I always hated writing about my character’s emotions in excess. Nobody wants to hear what you have to whine about, protagonist. Shut up and do what you’re supposed to do. Your actions will convey the emotions. I always made sure to show something happening rather than say, “She felt sad” because really, how much more imprecise can you be after “sad”? Sad means something different for every single person, so I always try to show the emotions through physical actions. A person jumps. They frown. They have a nervous tick I describe comically. There’s something to tell what kind of pressure or elation that character might be feeling, and it certainly does not take place in the form of an adjective.

Now, this isn’t a hard rule. Of course the simple adjective gets out every now and then. It’s necessary for good writing to be varied. But I was having a hard time seeing how I could bring the emotions of these characters to the forefront without explicitly saying, “Character Y was pissed off”.

But I tried anyways, and I read the story to the class. Some of the changes I made worked really well. I changed the beginning to show the terrifying enemy my protagonist faces. It was an emotionally charged scene. It really sucked a reader in… And then there were some scenes that flopped. I added some inner dialogue from the protagonist like my readers suggested. It felt flat when I read it aloud, though. There were literally moments when I was reading when I thought, “Why the hell is this in here?”

At the end of my reading, the professor, my colleague, was impressed. He asked, “And have you published this, yet?”

So I explained to him the tragic tale of rejection after rejection I had faced. Before I started submitting it places, I had won some local readings with it, so I thought it would actually stand a chance. After the class ended, the professor gave me some advice, “You know. It’s really quite good, and this is coming from someone who reads a lot of fiction. My only suggestion for you would be this: less is more.”

So, this man who edited a national journal had found some value in the story. Granted, he’s probably more fond of me than an anonymous reader, considering we work together. But his comment makes sense. I was trying to add more where the story really did not need more. I added to the beginning, and that worked out, but nothing else really needed extra. In fact, there were some scenes I could have done away with entirely. They were dull. They did not contribute emotion or meaning, and so the readers who wanted me to add more reacted against these scenes.

What I think I am trying to convey is this: sometimes, the answer to bringing the emotion is cutting out the vapid and empty parts. It’s easier to tell more with less of a story when the parts there express so much already. This might seem like a ramble, or a really long way to say “less is more” but I think it is some valuable tips on writing that every reader or author could benefit from. I also thought it was the perfect way to resume regular updates, which I sincerely hope will stay regular.

Before I go, I want to fill my readers in on my schedule. Over the next month, I will be finishing a novel with my coauthor, Rae D Magdon, for publication within the next few months. I will also be working on my story Chronicles of Osota: Warrior, a fantasy novel to be released some time in the next few months. For those of you who are fans of my fictionpress or fanfiction.net stories, I will be updating those as well, hopefully. Anyways, happy holidays, and please comment if you have any thoughts to share on the craft of writing, this topic, or anything else you with to discuss.

Writing Lesbian Characters

First of all, a huge thank you to my readers who have helped make All The Pretty Things a huge success. Rae and I would be nowhere without you all.

Now that thanks are out of the way, let’s get on to talking about writing.

So, mainstream media is slowly seeing an introduction of more and more lesbian characters. On the whole, I think this is a good thing. When I was a teenager, I often felt angry at the lack of lesbian characters in mainstream media because I had nothing to relate to. In reality, there were quite a few. The television shows Degrassi and South of Nowhere were accessible for me, though late in the game considering I was entering young adulthood before these shows moved anywhere within my sphere of knowledge. And at the same time, those shows still did not really have a “lesbian” character. They had female characters that exercised their right to heteroflexibility from season to season. To be fair, I hear South of Nowhere ended on a better note concerning it’s “lesbian” characters.

Still, this whole conundrum points to a sticky situation with the inclusion of lesbian characters into shows, mainly that most of these main character are not true “lesbians”. And then we get into the whole discussion of the fluidity of sexuality – down with labels! And yes, this is all good, but at the same time, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth when I am hard-pressed to find within the mainstream media a good example of a straight-up lesbo couple, or just two women in love. I think the best example that comes to mind is the long-standing relationship between Vastra and Jenny in Doctor Who.

But am I even entitled to push for the inclusion of more lesbian characters in mainstream media? Why can’t Rizzoli & Isles be a couple? Why not Myka and Helena? Why can’t we indulge in these feels rather than tease? I know lesbians only make up a small portion of the population, but I believe less than 1% of television characters represent a healthy homosexual dynamic, and while many dramas present a certainly less-than-healthy heterosexual dynamic, there are still vastly more well-written, wonderful heterosexual couples that I adore, and all I’d like to see is perhaps a handful more to add to my Vastra/Jenny ship, the only canon pairing of a lesbian couple I think I absolutely love, and one of those happens to be a lizard woman from the dawn of time.

My coauthor recently told me how she just wanted a film company that took the summer blockbusters and replaced all the sexy main male characters with sexy female characters instead that did the exact, same thing. A little unrealistic, I know, but I think this desire brings to light a very important concept. Having “lesbians”, or just two women in a  relationship, does not necessarily make the romance function any differently from the heterosexual counterparts. Perhaps that is what I’m getting at. It’s not that the entertainment industry needs more girls kissing, it’s that it needs more genuine relationships. Knock off these shallow, 3-5 episode teasers where a female character has her “lesbian” phase.

Come to think of it, Willow and Tara and Xena and Gabrielle were also good examples of two women portrayed in a relationship. While the romance was muted with Xena and Gabrielle, there was a definite, serious treatment of the relationship, and the same goes for Willow and Tara, side characters in the long-running Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.

But these characters have been retired from the media scene. We need new characters. We need to keep pushing the envelope. Lesbian characters, like every other character from any walk of life, deserve a spot in media. Any character that breaks the norm deserves a spot, and not a fleeting appearance. I’m just pushing the lesbian thing because I happen to be plugged into that scene. I think it largely informs the way I write. I create fantasy, adventure, and sci-fi novels with lesbians in them specifically because I want more books to read with these exact situations in them.

And of course, none of this is to say that something is no good without a lesbian character. There are works of literature, art, and media that I adore with no mention of lesbian characters whatsoever. The writing is just good enough on it’s own. These movies and stories can be thought-provoking, deep, wonderful, and loved for their portrayal of the love between a young couple regardless of any one person’s gender. But when it’s all said and done, I’m not always going to read or watch the deeper stuff. Sometimes I just want what everyone else has. I want the entertainment factor. I want plain. I want predictable. I want a silly romcom or 20-book sci-fi series that I can consume like junk food. And maybe I want it specifically because the audience that caters to light lesbian reading is so small. Maybe denial of a genre has made me long for it more. Or maybe I see it as a point of pride to achieve integration into the mass market of media.

Like this rant? Hate it? Leave a comment!

Legit Publishing

So a little over a week ago, I published All The Pretty Things with my coauthor Rae D Magdon. We went through Kindle Direct Publishing figuring that it would be the fastest, easiest way to reach the few fans we managed to collect over the years. Fast-forward nine days and we’ve sold over 500 copies and are listed as #1 seller for kindle sales in Lesbian Romances. Crazy, right?

We did all of this ourselves, though. We didn’t send out query letters. We didn’t talk to agents, didn’t pursue publishing companies, didn’t do anything my writing professors advised. It was just us and the supportive community of the interwebs. Now the question is: are we legitimately published?

I think the answer is yes. I think this new form of indie publishing has gotten a bad reputation from the abuse of anyone using it, but I think if a professional approaches it in the right direction, it is just as legitimate as any other form of publication. That being said, I think indie publishing opens up authors to some shortcuts I do not advise them to take.

To begin with, there’s no one but you running the operation when you self-publish to an online format. That means that if you’re not looking for help, no one is going to edit your story but you, and that is not acceptable. I don’t think authors should go out and pay for a book doctor, but I think now more than ever writers need to network with one another and exchange resources with one another. Writers in groups will get access to five or six competent editors, some of them more often than not with degrees or real world experience. Someone asked me one day if I thought there was a loss of quality in writing through the self-publishing route. I think as long as a writer is working with other quality writers and editors, they have the potential to be just as high quality as a book that was published through a company.

Honestly, indie publishing is going to become a serious form of getting your book out there, just like kickstarter can be a legitimate form to fund serious projects. If writers get lazy, their work won’t sell. It’s as simple as that.

But it’s a hard gig. I sit here panicking once every few hours that I’m not doing enough to make sure it stays successful. I got into writing and publishing because I wanted to reach a wide audience. I wanted people to read my stories and find something worthwhile in them, and waiting to see what will happen in the next few months is tough. It’s the toughest thing I’ve had to do as a writer.

So, I hope I’ve provided some food for thought. If you like what I said, or disagree, go ahead and comment. I’m always happy to have a conversation about writing. And if you like lesbian romances, you might consider checking out the novel All The Pretty Things. You can comment on it through goodreads or amazon if you feel like. If not, Rae and I are always providing new and interesting fanfiction, always for free.