Doing nothing is hard work!
Nov. 26th, 2004 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaWhew . . . that was a tiring day. Even though all I did was a bit of cooking and heating up of food. We got up at 5 AM and headed to the mall about 5:25, but we still weren't one of the first 500 people! (There was a gift card of $10 at stake at Sears, and one of $15 at Foley's, which I managed to end up with anyhow--one of the few times I've ever beaten the system. Didn't get the Sears one, and Sears was out of what I came to get, too.) People were buying what was in the ads as loss leaders and whatever was on sale, walking around with armloads of Craftsman tools and pairs of boots. It was crazy. We got back home at 7:30 and I fell back asleep. Got up at noon and reheated a version of Thanksgiving dinner . . . though I knew better than to eat anything more than a baked potato and some crackers and ham. A food-focused day. What a crazy holiday. *grin*
I'm too tired even to do the song meme, though I may later. However, let's cover this bit of background info.
It has come to my attention that my rants may, on occasion, be sounding a bit . . . tough. Perhaps even nasty.
During a discussion with someone on my friends list who's ready to do a bit of critiquing, I discovered that perhaps I come across a little strong. I decided to paraphrase here in part the e-mail that I sent to her, explaining why some of my stuff may sound a little harsh when we're not talking in person.
She said that her work has sex scenes, saying I'd made it clear that I don't like them. (Which is, in general, accurate. I don't think I've ever met one I liked. Even in "The Competition," the film, I was like, okay, I get it, let's get the sweaty rolling around over already. *eyeroll*)
I did cover that (from the perspective of a fiction reader/writer) in a previous post. I hope I wasn't too obnoxious about it. Something like 80% of readers read primarily romance and women's fiction (I'm pulling that number out of my hat); I also read somewhere a few years ago that most book buyers are women. It's the choice for leisure reading of the majority of those who read for pleasure, it seems, so there's nothing amiss if you're doing that. If you write one because you love reading them, it's going to have a much better chance to sell than other types of novels, as well. *Most* books and virtually all films now rely on explicit scenes. It's almost expected. So I'm not your typical audience member. Who else would seek out books with math geniuses or "good" witches or autistic detectives as protags?
When I write in my LJ, it's just my unbridled musings. I speak out (er, type, actually) about whatever's on my mind or whatever I think might interest y'all. It's like sitting around with my friends from school or (later on) from college, shooting the breeze. It's not intended to be an attack on any one persuasion, but just the way I see things. It probably wouldn't sound quite so strident if several of us were sitting in the living room together with Miles Davis on jazz in the background munching on hot broccoli dip with cats in our laps, rather than reading it in pixels.
And . . . as I've said . . . I'm almost definitely undersexed in the first place.
Not that I'd necessarily change that. I can't imagine having to go back and do the entire dating/courtship ritual/going out thing all over again, given the current "world" and environment. It was tough enough back then! (In the olden days, when my suitors drove up in a coach pulled by seven white horses. Or on a motorcycle, a shiny Hawg, upon which event my dad would walk out on the patio and glower at them until they went away and came back in their family's beat-up Vega hatchback. I never got a second date with Charles R., either.)
And I'm not completely set against category, or saying it can't be useful. One ex-"category" author whose category books I enjoyed is Judith Arnold. She wrote a number of books for Harlequin years ago. Now she's doing single title women's fiction. Her _Love at Bloom's_ and the sequel are really neat books. I wouldn't have discovered her had I not been trying to learn how to write a category novel, though. The category books of hers I liked were offbeat--one was a computer nerd futuristic titled _A:/loverboy_ or something like that. Another one was about people being isolated in a log cabin over Hanukkah or something like that. Her prose could be simply transcendent and luminescent (in the book about the lights of faith, anyway.) I know I kept a copy of the computer nerd one on my keepers shelf. I also liked Jennifer Crusie's early books, especially _Charlie All Night_ and _Manhunting_ and the Cinderella one, all of which were really cute, IMHO. I would like to see her now move away from some of the sex scenes in her blockbuster best-sellers, and she would *not* like to do that (which is her call, obviously!), so I am not really a big fan of her current books--though they are best-sellers, and obviously she has a loyal and strong following. And what do *I* know, anyway? Still, a good romance can be a great subplot, I think.
So I'm not trying to put down the entire genre wholesale. I simply couldn't write that way. The stories and characters come to me differently, and they're always thinking about something other than the butt of the guy in front of them (alas, because as Tom Wolfe--the living author, a contemporary of Allen Ginsberg, not Thomas Wolfe of _Look Homeward, Angel--said the other night on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," most people actually *are* thinking about stuff like that all the time. Or they appear to be. That must be what they mean by "normal." *grin*)
That's not to say that works can't transcend genre. For example, I never have liked space opera--my family insists on watching every Trek clone and everything that's billed as "SF" on TV, so I have to shudder a lot. But John M. Ford's "Star Trek" series novel, _How Much For Just the Planet_, is a very fine novel that transcends genre. There are plenty of other examples.
But if you don't WANT to transcend genre, that's OK, too.
The best book about writing and about the myth of romance is Sarah Bird's _The Boyfriend School_. I can look at it now and see that it has some flaws, but it's still one of my favorite novels. It's a romance without really being a romance. But the funny parts are the bits about the heroine going to cover the romance authors convention. And the early bits where the "mystery man" comes into her life. Anyway, if you come across a copy, it's well worth reading. If you like humor, I mean. Bird has now done some more "serious" work that is also really good, if you like her style.
I'll close for the moment with a quotation posted by Will Shetterly on his weblog in answer to the question, "What does God want?"
"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:6-8
Until next time, y'all walk humbly and I'll do the same, to the best of my ability.
I'm too tired even to do the song meme, though I may later. However, let's cover this bit of background info.
It has come to my attention that my rants may, on occasion, be sounding a bit . . . tough. Perhaps even nasty.
During a discussion with someone on my friends list who's ready to do a bit of critiquing, I discovered that perhaps I come across a little strong. I decided to paraphrase here in part the e-mail that I sent to her, explaining why some of my stuff may sound a little harsh when we're not talking in person.
She said that her work has sex scenes, saying I'd made it clear that I don't like them. (Which is, in general, accurate. I don't think I've ever met one I liked. Even in "The Competition," the film, I was like, okay, I get it, let's get the sweaty rolling around over already. *eyeroll*)
I did cover that (from the perspective of a fiction reader/writer) in a previous post. I hope I wasn't too obnoxious about it. Something like 80% of readers read primarily romance and women's fiction (I'm pulling that number out of my hat); I also read somewhere a few years ago that most book buyers are women. It's the choice for leisure reading of the majority of those who read for pleasure, it seems, so there's nothing amiss if you're doing that. If you write one because you love reading them, it's going to have a much better chance to sell than other types of novels, as well. *Most* books and virtually all films now rely on explicit scenes. It's almost expected. So I'm not your typical audience member. Who else would seek out books with math geniuses or "good" witches or autistic detectives as protags?
When I write in my LJ, it's just my unbridled musings. I speak out (er, type, actually) about whatever's on my mind or whatever I think might interest y'all. It's like sitting around with my friends from school or (later on) from college, shooting the breeze. It's not intended to be an attack on any one persuasion, but just the way I see things. It probably wouldn't sound quite so strident if several of us were sitting in the living room together with Miles Davis on jazz in the background munching on hot broccoli dip with cats in our laps, rather than reading it in pixels.
And . . . as I've said . . . I'm almost definitely undersexed in the first place.
Not that I'd necessarily change that. I can't imagine having to go back and do the entire dating/courtship ritual/going out thing all over again, given the current "world" and environment. It was tough enough back then! (In the olden days, when my suitors drove up in a coach pulled by seven white horses. Or on a motorcycle, a shiny Hawg, upon which event my dad would walk out on the patio and glower at them until they went away and came back in their family's beat-up Vega hatchback. I never got a second date with Charles R., either.)
And I'm not completely set against category, or saying it can't be useful. One ex-"category" author whose category books I enjoyed is Judith Arnold. She wrote a number of books for Harlequin years ago. Now she's doing single title women's fiction. Her _Love at Bloom's_ and the sequel are really neat books. I wouldn't have discovered her had I not been trying to learn how to write a category novel, though. The category books of hers I liked were offbeat--one was a computer nerd futuristic titled _A:/loverboy_ or something like that. Another one was about people being isolated in a log cabin over Hanukkah or something like that. Her prose could be simply transcendent and luminescent (in the book about the lights of faith, anyway.) I know I kept a copy of the computer nerd one on my keepers shelf. I also liked Jennifer Crusie's early books, especially _Charlie All Night_ and _Manhunting_ and the Cinderella one, all of which were really cute, IMHO. I would like to see her now move away from some of the sex scenes in her blockbuster best-sellers, and she would *not* like to do that (which is her call, obviously!), so I am not really a big fan of her current books--though they are best-sellers, and obviously she has a loyal and strong following. And what do *I* know, anyway? Still, a good romance can be a great subplot, I think.
So I'm not trying to put down the entire genre wholesale. I simply couldn't write that way. The stories and characters come to me differently, and they're always thinking about something other than the butt of the guy in front of them (alas, because as Tom Wolfe--the living author, a contemporary of Allen Ginsberg, not Thomas Wolfe of _Look Homeward, Angel--said the other night on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," most people actually *are* thinking about stuff like that all the time. Or they appear to be. That must be what they mean by "normal." *grin*)
That's not to say that works can't transcend genre. For example, I never have liked space opera--my family insists on watching every Trek clone and everything that's billed as "SF" on TV, so I have to shudder a lot. But John M. Ford's "Star Trek" series novel, _How Much For Just the Planet_, is a very fine novel that transcends genre. There are plenty of other examples.
But if you don't WANT to transcend genre, that's OK, too.
The best book about writing and about the myth of romance is Sarah Bird's _The Boyfriend School_. I can look at it now and see that it has some flaws, but it's still one of my favorite novels. It's a romance without really being a romance. But the funny parts are the bits about the heroine going to cover the romance authors convention. And the early bits where the "mystery man" comes into her life. Anyway, if you come across a copy, it's well worth reading. If you like humor, I mean. Bird has now done some more "serious" work that is also really good, if you like her style.
I'll close for the moment with a quotation posted by Will Shetterly on his weblog in answer to the question, "What does God want?"
"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:6-8
Until next time, y'all walk humbly and I'll do the same, to the best of my ability.
