Miscellanea
Jan. 24th, 2014 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frogs_of_war I read (listened to) a book this week with a stalker as the male lead: Murder in Thrall by Anne Cleeland. The main character is a first year cop in London and her boss (DCI?) is a well breed (repressed) Lord. She is a huge enough character (and interesting in all the right ways) that she can carry the story. It's all from her POV except for a sentence or two before each chapter starts. At first I thought those bits were from the murder's POV (like in some mysteries), but realized after three or so chapters they were from her stalker/boss(/maybe-dirty-cop)/boyfriend-then-husband's POV. He's the type that always gets his way, but he never uses force to get it. The only weirdly written bit was when she first mentions that they'd been married last Wednesday (he pulled out the rings—the day after he first brought up that they should wed and after he told her he was stalking her—and she sighed and said yes then the scene changed to him going home with her), but the whole thing was rushed for her (she'd spent the last three months convincing herself that he didn't like her) so maybe she just didn't want to think about it.
Amazingly the whole thing worked. You wouldn't think so, but it did.
Right now I'm listening to Hell on Wheels by Julie Ann Walker and I've got to say that I'm not fast forwarding her love scenes (so far at least). They are very well written. Not she this and he that, but feelings and emotions and complicated sentences. I'm trying to figure out how she does it.
I thought I had a great idea: post chapters of Be My Queen while I spend all my free time rewriting Gestures. I'd use the comments to keep me connected and motivated while I bled all over the page, as it were. But that hasn't seemed to work. At least not here. I was going to make a little questionnaire to figure out if it was the het or the trans that was the problem, but at this point I no longer care.
I'd like to think that I was someone who wrote what I liked. Period. But Peregrine's sister Meri's story is both femslash and het/trans when her live-in girlfriend comes out to her. I don't see myself bleeding all over those pages if I'm the only one who will enjoy them. I know how the story goes. It's written in my head. I'll spend my time writing something that will be read. Or I'll find a new audience for it. I wonder how disappointed the twenty-three people reading BMQ on FP would be if I pull it and tried to find a publisher. Someone has to be publishing GLBT (not just G or L) books.
Amazingly the whole thing worked. You wouldn't think so, but it did.
Right now I'm listening to Hell on Wheels by Julie Ann Walker and I've got to say that I'm not fast forwarding her love scenes (so far at least). They are very well written. Not she this and he that, but feelings and emotions and complicated sentences. I'm trying to figure out how she does it.
I thought I had a great idea: post chapters of Be My Queen while I spend all my free time rewriting Gestures. I'd use the comments to keep me connected and motivated while I bled all over the page, as it were. But that hasn't seemed to work. At least not here. I was going to make a little questionnaire to figure out if it was the het or the trans that was the problem, but at this point I no longer care.
I'd like to think that I was someone who wrote what I liked. Period. But Peregrine's sister Meri's story is both femslash and het/trans when her live-in girlfriend comes out to her. I don't see myself bleeding all over those pages if I'm the only one who will enjoy them. I know how the story goes. It's written in my head. I'll spend my time writing something that will be read. Or I'll find a new audience for it. I wonder how disappointed the twenty-three people reading BMQ on FP would be if I pull it and tried to find a publisher. Someone has to be publishing GLBT (not just G or L) books.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 08:37 am (UTC)You should write what you want and like and post. There was a time when slash and trans fic didn't get written or published. Things change as people get used to seeing them.
*smiles* There was a time when the romance genre wasn't published. Richardson's "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded" and Austin's "Sense and Sensibility" were shockingly scandalous.
Be like Salinger, write even if you don't think it will be read. But write and please post.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-27 06:38 am (UTC)Really I should have started the story from Lavender's POV. I just couldn't figure out how since her part doesn't start until after Diego's been drooling over her for several minutes.
I would like to be that kind of person, but so many stories swirl in my head all day long, bumping into each other and fighting for attention, that I want the ones I actually do get written to make some impact. I know virtue is it's own reward and all that, but who says no to a little extra something?
I'm not sure what policies publishers have about posting things. I got a link to a LT3 call for this exact kind of story. If I decide to send it in, would you like to look over the story before I send it? I have a beta, but ever extra set of eyes helps.