May: Back to the Writing Board

The Month So Far:

Okay, so the month hasn't been overly long, yet, but I missed posting last month, so you get this one for free.

This week, I'm back to writing Out of the Blue. Quite the accomplishment. I felt especially accomplished once I looked back at my February post and realised I was on 19,000 words then. I just passed 21,000 yesterday.

-.-

This morning, I had a visit from a side character who doesn't get introduced to the story until 20,000 words in, but I think he might end up being another of my favourite characters. At 8.30 this morning, he decided he just had to share this with me.

I'm loving this series of books. I'm getting a lot of short stories out of it that I can throw at publications.

Speaking of, I've had a small one this week, a section of a larger piece, at this blog: http://littleravenpublishing.com/2014/05/02/featured-writer-nicole-field-nee-fergusson/

**

And books. I've been reading so many and I feel quite snowed under by my current set. The only problem with borrowing from a library is that they have to be read within a certain time.

This month, I had a bit of a difficult time figuring out which was the most truly amazing and stand out book I'd read since last month. Philippa Gregory and Laini Taylor are hard acts to follow. Still, I think a compelling argument can be made for the first book in Catherynne M. Valente's series The Girl Who Circumnativated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. 


This could be seen as a children's book. Certainly, the subject matter of a 12 year old girl getting pulled out of her own life and going through a fairy tale-esque adventure could be seen as aimed at kids. And I would be right behind that, except for the lyrical writing.

It is at times lyrical, whimsical, self-referential and literary. The narrator herself is almost a character in the story, but not in such a way that it takes away from the narrative or others characters. Every part of this story is planned in such a way as to make it all look effortless and, again, that is just another part of its charm. By the second chapter in, I wanted to quote every line.

These little illustrations at the beginning of each chapter were just the cherry and icing.

I'd only read Palimpsest by Catherynne before, but somehow The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland made me immediately run out and grab Deathless, which I've been vaguely meaning to read since it came out in 2011.

On Erotica, part 2.

Sometimes, it just so happens that book fans as big as me get to meet some of the authors that they most enjoy reading. Even when those fans live in a place so far away as Australia.


As it happens, I met Tracy O'Hara for the first time during the WorldCon held in Melbourne a couple of years back. She was excited to see her books featured in our book store, happily signed them and then stuck around talking with me and my co-worker for around half an hour before she went to the next panel she was in.

(I also got to meet writers Erica Hayes and Catherynne M. Valente!)

((This was also the con where I managed to score a signed copy of Charlaine Harris' Dead in the Family the year that it came out and before there was quite so much drama about her writing.))

Her 'Dark Brethren' vampire series is my most favourite, written in a style similar to Ms Harris and Patricia Briggs.

Tracy O'Hara herself is a lot of fun to talk to, and we've kept in contact over the years on Twitter as Australian writers and aspiring writers sometimes seem to do. So when I saw this interview reblogged on her feed, I knew it was bound to be good.

Erotica is not Porn: Novelist Encourages New Erotic Writers.

“Fifty Shades of Grey is not the best example of erotica. It's just the one that managed to break through here. Erotica is only a new publishing phenomenon here in Australia. In the US, it's been a best-selling and profit spinning genre since 2000,” Ms O'Hara said.
(Read more)


Now I've written about erotica on this blog once before. Then, it was to quote Julian Barnes' Telegraph article, in which he stated most modern authors feel obliged to write sex scenes if they want to see themselves published. I myself could certainly relate to this in past publishing experiences.

But Tracy's post is another side of the coin, if you will, an empowering view of the writing of erotica and separating it from the more derogatory title of "porn".

“They are stories which contain graphic sex scenes but narratives also centre as much around the mental and emotional journey of the characters as they do about the physical side of things.”


What Tracy suggests seems to be that physical aspects happen in real life and if your story is about the goings on of romance and real life characters, why not include erotica as a segment of that story? It doesn't need to be gratuitous, it doesn't need to be there, but it's an option to be considered.


Earlier in this month, I read one of Francesca Lia Block's books called The Elementals which had some graphic content. It forwarded the story, the relationship between two characters. I've also enjoyed reading her short story anthology Nymph, though that is a collection of erotica, which is not exactly the same thing.

Just before posting this, I reblogged a comment on Twitter stating that the only hard thing about writing erotica is figuring out good reasons why the characters are engaging in smutty activities.

My latest project is a joint anthology of m/m retold fairy tales, which is fantastic cause it's been a long time since I wrote anything other than het (hetrosexual pairings), but it's fun as well because some of the tales are heading towards erotic content. But they also centre as much around the mental and emotional stories of the characters, so I guess that's okay. ;)