Vixenwriter

I’ve watched this whole Frey debacle WRT A Million Little Pieces being a memoir or an outright fabrication with increasing interest and horror.

In the first place, I get that there’s pressure on authors to market themselves a certain way. I really do. But that is not what this is about.

Oprah and Frey and Frey’s publisher are all very quick to tell us that memoirs are not about a true recollection of events. Hmm. They aren’t? Because while I would agree that everyone sees the past through the lens of their own lives and biases and remembrances can be faulty or certainly differ from others’ memories of the same event - one either went to jail for three months on a cocaine charge and got into a fight with cops or one got pulled over for an open container and did no time. There is not an issue of different memories here, this is an outright fabrication and that’s what fiction is for.

Memoirs are not meant to be fiction. That’s what “fiction” is for. Writers face issues of truth and marketing and the temptation to spice things up to make themselves more marketable all the time. But in truth, this is a matter of Frey lying and getting caught.

Does that mean A Million Little Pieces hasn’t touched people? No. But the inescapable reality is that he lied. Saying that one just lied a little and therefore did not lie but simply “embellished” the story would have been true if it had indeed been embellishment. But Frey has passed embellishment and embraced fraud.

Sadly, I must be jaded because while I’m annoyed at the situation, the the only thing I can get really het up over is that he’s slapped the face of people who’ve extended themselves and written honest and amazing memoirs by stating that a memoir can be outright fiction. That’s lazy.

Hey everyone! I’ll be at Writerspace tonight at the monthly EC author chat! Please drop in and say hello. It’s a quick, very fun hour and you may win something too.

Stars at 5 pm pacific! Hope to see you there.

I’m finishing up Tri Mates and putting a bit here and there in Battlefront as I go. I do that, by the way, have more than one project working at once. Because I’m a hummingbird. I like to have several things to think about so if I get blocked or bored, I can hop to something else.

Frankly, I’m not sure that’s wise, but it’s what I do. And it seems to work for me. And now I’m going to ramble a bit about supposed writing rules, feel free to go and grab some chocolate.

I look at posts in writing loops that talk about rules like if you don’t do things the exact way someone tells you to, you’re making mistakes. And to a certain extent, there are general things which make your writing stronger, no matter your genre like active writing versus passive writing and showing versus telling.

At the same time, I get a bit annoyed with people’s insistence that stylistic and voice differences are “mistakes” instead of differences.

As readers, we have our likes and dislikes. As writers, we’re ten times pickier. Boy, no one is a harsher critic of a book than another writer! When issues like first person come up, it’s not readers who seem so offended by the concept, it’s writers (and not all writers by the way, but a hell of a lot of them). I’ve been told that using multiple POV is “cheating” and I have to shrug it off rather than offer up the defintion of the word (To deceive by trickery; swindle. To deprive by trickery; defraud. To mislead; fool. To act dishonestly; practice fraud. - oops, okay so I did offer the definition and nope, not cheating)

A preference is not a rule. And yes, some people do have a preference for single POV which is usually third person. Then again, some people don’t care as long as the story is well told and engaging. At least a few people seem to like my books just fine.

So yeah, I’m sort of rules averse, I admit that. But I reject the idea that everything handed down by people in this industry is a rule to begin with. Nora Roberts has clearly been hindered by her use of multiple POV. Oh wait, no she hasn’t. Laurell K. Hamilton writes in first person and she’s certainly not suffering a dearth of readers because of it.

Does that mean that I can’t improve a scene by tightening it up? Or that a specific scene works better told in single POV? - Of course my work needs tightening and of course some scenes are not appropriate for multiple POV. And of course, sometimes, the writing can be confusing because you don’t know who’s thinking what.

But what bugs me is that I used to just write and now I’m always thinking about structural foundation and these gorram rules! Doesn’t meant I’m changing my voice, which is inherently multiple POV, but it does make me hesitate in places.

For Lauren the reader - matters of single or multiple POV are meaningless. It’s about the story. When I’m reading, I don’t think about those things at all. I’m thinking about whether the characters are three dimensional, whether I like them, whether they do things that are believable for their setting and motivations. Does the story work?

For Lauren the writer - I just let my muse write. The story comes out the way it’s supposed to.

There will always be people who don’t like certain books. Everyone has preferences. But this insistence on rules for rules sake by some seems a hindrance rather than a help. But again, I suppose that’s my preference.

“In May, Headline publishers will issue her six novels as “Classic Romances,” with glossy pastel covers depicting dashing dandies and bonneted Regency beauties, Reuters reported yesterday from London. “Our aim would very much be every airport bookshop, every supermarket,” said the Headline fiction editor Harriet Evans. Complaining that Austen’s novels had always been marketed in a dry, academic way, she said: “It is such a shame, as she is the archetypal popular novelist. She is the godmother of modern women’s fiction.”

Here’s my take on this: First, I’m a huge Austin fan. Hers are books I read again and again and have for twenty five years now. I like that she’d be marketed to be read by a wider audience. AND, well, I write romances so it’s not like I think it’s a shameful thing to be classified as such.

BUT

Her books aren’t romances. Certainly they have romantic elements in them but they aren’t about the romance. They’re about the lead character’s struggle and journey and most importantly, her strength, wit and intelligence in achieving her goal. I disagree with the London chapter of the Jane Austin society who say that repackaging her books as romance will be “dumbing them down” because hey, I’m not dumb and my readers aren’t dumb and I’m sick of the whole patronizing sneers about romance in general.

Still, this doesn’t make Jane Austin a romance novelist.

Oh so I’m writing this futuristic menage with major BDSM elements called, Battlefront and I’ve got one of my heroes in my head with a really good idea of what he looks like but the other has eluded me.

Until two days ago when I was reading my husband’s January, Best Life magazine and Dominic Purcell was staring back at me.

Now I can’t find any of those pictures online and in those pictures, he’s got a shaved head and his hands are up, clasped at the back of his neck. And this man is Nash. Oh yep.

And how could I have possibly missed this man? In all my years on earth, this man was out there and I didn’t know it? Have I been in a cave? Could I be in a cave with him?

And then I remember that I did see him on the short lived John Doe show and I don’t watch Prison break but I just may have to now.

So here’s to inspiration. Of the hunky kind.

If y’all haven’t read any Shelley Munro you’re missing out! Today, her newest book, Sex Idol releases from Ellora’s Cave and I’ve been drooling over this cover for months now. This is a really good week for releases as another one of my favorites, Claire Thompson has a book out today too (which I’m going to talk about tomorrow)

~~~~~~~~~

Sex Idol By Shelley Munro

Are you Sex Idol material?

Can you strut your stuff on stage, turning on the audience—your judges? Are you experienced in all forms of sexual entertainment?
Calling all sex contestants on Earth and off-planet! We are searching for candidates to enter the ultimate in sex reality shows. The winner of the Sex Idol title will receive a fabulous prize package including an advertising contract worth over ten million credits. Pick up your entry forms from Robinson’s, the makers of designer toys and sexual aids, and sign up today!

Sex contestant Antonio Perez sees the Sex Idol contest as an opportunity to reconcile with his former partner Sasha Greenacre. With Sasha at his side he’ll have hot sex and an excellent chance at taking out the ultimate title.

Sasha is shocked when Antonio walks back into her life, asking her to train him. She’s determined to keep her distance and guard her heart. Sasha doesn’t want to step over the emotional line again, even though one look at the luscious hunk is enough to tempt an angel to sin…

So they just had a banner at the bottom of the screen during the weather report that it was available for podcast.

Excuse me, I don’t mean to belittle Andy Wappler or anything, but unless I’m Andy’s mom, why would I download a podcast of the weather?

I remember the first time I read Letter From a Birmingham Jail. I was a junior in high school, it was my AP English class. I remember it because it was one of those moments where my life changed.

I sat there in my room, on my bed and I read it once, twice and then a third time. My hands were shaking when I finished. The wave of not just his reality, but of the reality of all black Americans hit me with such force but what remained was this sense of strength and drive that has always stayed with me.

King was in jail for a series of protests and the white clergy had written a statement, published in the newspaper, condeming King’s actions. Urging him to keep waiting and being patient. He wrote the letter, first in the margins of a newspaper and then on scraps of paper given to him by a fellow prisoner (a trusty) and finally on paper his lawyers were allowed to give him.

Instead of being angry that his fellow clergy chose to condemn him for working for human rights instead of being out there with him, the letter is empassioned, even angry in parts but not reactionary. It’s clear and concise and as such, a thing of beauty.

“You deplore the demonstrations taking place In Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.”

When urged to continue to wait, he writes, “My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

(…)

“Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you no forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all”

These words set me on fire for justice and they set a similar fire in me to write and keep writing because this letter, written in a jail cell on scraps of paper in secret, is a testament to the power of words and will remain so.

You can read the letter in its entirety here

So some writers are lucky enough to have people that have been with them since day one. Before the book even came out these folks joined their loops and supported them, beta read and talked them through the bad times and have pretty much been front and center in their cheering section.

I have a few of those folks and I adore them all (in addition to folks who’ve discovered me later, I love y’all too!)

Yesterday, I spent several hours laughing over lunch with one of those folks, a true friend to me and a lot of authors - Di Nogueras. What can I say about Di other than that she’s just as wonderful in person as she is online? She’s funny and sweet and smart and she knows her books. She’s a hoot and her friend Elaine was wonderful as well and I’m thrilled to have met her, too.

So without further ado…

I’ve had a number of discussions lately about realism in books and just how much is too much and also, how much is enough?

For instance, the presence of condoms in erotic romance. For me, when I write a contemporary, I’m going to address the issue. HIV and pregnancy are too much of an issue not to address it. I don’t need to give a lengthy screed about it, but I feel some responsibility to have the hero use a condom. I may just note that he does once and not go over it again and again. I find it tedious over and over, it’s not very romantic or even very sexy, but again, I do it. Even with my paranormals I address it in at least a “vampires/werewolves/faeries don’t carry STDs” sort of way.

When I wrote Second Chances, which deals with BDSM, I wanted to approach it in a way that hightlighted the emotional connection between Dom and sub. To do so, I made sure to talk to a wide variety of people, to see how their relationships worked as well as using my own feelings on the matter. I did my research, I tried the different things I used in the book, I talked to people in the scene and made sure to incorporate it into the book. I think you can tell the difference between someone who writes a flogging scene and has never held a flogger before and someone who has and knows what it feels like. In that case, realism makes the story better, IMO.

But there are other things in which fantasy is better than reality. Too much realistic detail detracts from the overal impact of the scene. Anal sex for instance. I do always put in the basics of lube and stretching for prep but if I wrote all of the mechanics in, it would be less than romantic. Sex is messy and noisy and less than graceful at times. You read erotic romance to escape the messy details of life. I get that and I try to walk that line of responsibility and yet providing an enjoyable escape to my readers.

What are things that you as a reader feel must be there and also would rather not see?

writing