wordage!

[julesjones]

predatrix finally remembered to phone me back on Skype, after a week of failing to do this, and words happened on the current joint project -- a contemporary m/m set in Ipswich. 1200 words, including the following, which may have to be revised if someone on my flist doesn't wish to be namechecked. Because the real world leaks into the writing process...

He was reading something with a purple swirly cover, so probably fantasy. Some of the publishers nowadays practically colour-code their stuff: purple for fantasy, silver for SF or dark red for horror.

I was reading a [censored for spoiler reasons] fantasy series which I was hoping would turn out to be as homoerotic as some of the reviews on Amazon seemed to suggest. The first twenty pages certainly had hopeful signs that something might develop, but if it was there it wasn't being allowed to get in the way of the story.

Comments

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Come on, we need to know which fantasy series. And how come lots of people are on Skype without me knowing? I need to have more people that I can wonder about phoning, even if I'm not that good at actually calling any of them.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

(see my slightly blushing comment below)

[julesjones]

Since desperance is happy to out himself, it's his Outremer series -- I reviewed Volume 1 here:
http://julesjones.livejournal.com/134445.html

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I might have to keep an eye out for that one.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ah, those reviews... "I thought I was buying a fantasy book, I didn't realise it was homosexual pornography! It should have a warning on the cover!" etc. Umm, no, actually...

G'wan, you can out me if you want to. I don't want to commit spoilerage here, 'specially as you're into vol 2 now - but the plan was to be, yup, in parts homoerotic without being actually physical about parts; as you said in yr comments on vol one, it's a romance.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

*smirk* at the reviews. I'm expecting similar if I can ever get my damn novel published (must get arse in gear and start querying it now I have a semi-permanant address). Unless, of course, people want to argue over the genre instead (contemporary fantasy vs detective story with supernatural elements and all that).

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Sounds fab; and yup, they will squibble over genres, because that's what people do. And, yup, if there's any queer content at all, someone will fulminate on Amazon, because that too is what people do, and there's no doing anything about it.

[julesjones]

I'm terribly disappointed that nobody has fulminated over The Syndicate yet. Where's my free publicity?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ooh, d'you want me to go and fulminate? (No, Chaz, Jules wants you to go and buy the book...)

[julesjones]

No book buying required. Particularly as it might distract you from writing one (as indeed this entire conversation is probably doing). :-)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh yup, it surely is. As did the nipping-out-to-buy-a-sack-of-rice that I've just indulged in (it's not like there wasn't rice in the house, y'know? Just, not exactly the right kind of rice, the kind I particularly wanted...). Today is all about not-quite-writing.

[(Anonymous)]

Can I fulminate here? I was terribly shocked to learn that "The Syndicate" had gay content. Shocked, I tell you. Fulminate, fulminate, fulminate.

~RM~

[julesjones]

[inspects signature]

You've obviously got far too much time on your hands. I must write more material with which to keep you occupied.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Thanks

My main beta reader has pretty much convinced me that it's a detective story with supernatural elements, which is probably a better slot for it in terms of the market anyway.

And the bitching about content will no end of amusement for me, because I'm sure some people will read the first few chapters and conclude that 'all that gay stuff' is in the past for the hero (in spite of the hints I've dropped) and then get taken aback by his answer when his new female sidekick quizzes him on it. Which wasn't exactly deliberate, but I like the idea that that reading is possible now it's occurred to me.

[julesjones]

I'd actually made the decision to buy the books about five or six months ago, but had put it off because I'd been attacked by a novella with a tight deadline and didn't need any distractions. And even though I bought them in early January, I didn't start reading them until after I got home and got over the jetlag. Then I started thinking, "Is it just that I read everything through slash-coloured glasses?" not that many pages in.

And when I'd finished, and was writing the review, I looked at the reviews on Amazon, and said, "Oh yes, those reviews were one of the reasons to buy the series, weren't they?"

[snickers]

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Then I started thinking, "Is it just that I read everything through slash-coloured glasses?" not that many pages in.

We (that's matociquala and I, inter alia) don't think it qualifies as slash if it's what the author intended; but come, let us not sit upon trifles. If moronic review/rants can lead to a happy outcome (book sales! yippee!), then clearly even morons have their uses. I probably shouldn't have prickled, even as much as I did. But the series had already been out in the Uk for a couple of years before it reached America, which made it all the more conspicuous that while not a single UK review so much as mentioned the gay content, every single US one - even the favourable ones - felt obliged to append an Awful Warning for the delicate. By the time we hit the Amazonian Attitudes, I'd just had enough. By a distance.

[julesjones]

Well, initially the book was something of a Schrodinger's Cat for authorial intention. Then I got to a scene further in, and thought, "No, I wasn't imagining it," and at that point it failed the authorial intention rule. :-)

And yes, I did notice the divide between amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. It reminded me indirectly of a conversation with Mary Gentle on rasfc, when I was trying to describe the content of The Trashy Porn Novel That Grew to her -- "It's definitely Channel Four rather than late night BBC2, but it's not Channel Five." Which in combination with Nipplegate says quite a lot about the difference between the UK and the US re: sex in general.

Since I'm busy pimping on a big romance forum today... I wouldn't normally ask this, but is Outremer a romance (albeit one with horror elements) or a romantic novel? If it doesn't give the HEA, I'll still cheerfully mention it, but I'll have to make it clear that it's not in conformity with genre romance expectations.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Without spoiling, this is quite hard to answer; but if we have six characters and two of them end happily together, three end in a situation they can deal with for now, and one is heartbroken, which side of the great divide does that place the series? (It's really more complicated than that, because ambiguity and uncertainty are my friends, but I tried to boil it down...)

[julesjones]

I'll put it as romantic but not pure romance, then. There are enough of them that will read that if they know what they're getting; they just don't like starting something in the expectation of HEA and getting something else.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I've said it before, I know, but it is my Great Insight into Human Nature, so I shall say it again: People are strange, y'know?

All this wanting books to meet all the expectations that they start with, what is that all about? Me, I like a happy ending as much as the next person, and I'm as romantic as the one after that; but I do kinda like to be surprised sometimes, in both departments. If a book does nothing but the obvious, well, hell, I can do that in my own head, I don't need to spend hours reading someone else's description of it. (I make an exception, obviously, for Georgette Heyer, simply for the pleasure of her company; but not for many others. Um, that might be 'not for any others', if we're talking pure & predictable romance...)

[julesjones]

Hmm. That was... interesting. Now I get to think about how to pimp it to my (alas small) mailing list without spoilerage.

Knowing some people, they will merely declare that the two came back for the third after the last page, after quite a lot of arguing.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

*g* I like to think so.

Also, thank you for all the pimping you've been giving the series, I really appreciate that. Don't like to comment on every review, it might look a little conspiratorial, but I am hugely appreciative.

[julesjones]

You may be a friend but it's still an honest review. :-) I had enormous fun reading it.

It's interesting - I can see why some people might not like the series for the same reason I like it (and I'm talking about issues of craft, not Teh Gay). It's character-driven and very rich in descriptive detail, and not everyone likes that. But people who like it are going to *really* like it.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

But people who like it are going to *really* like it

Yeah, I think that's right; it's always been right, about my books. The problem, obviously, lies in finding them. I have devoted fans, who've followed me right across the range from crime through horror to fantasy and beyond; just, not very many of 'em...