Nikki · Kimberling's · Log

I was watching the Indian film, Saawariya, last night and I came across this dance scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf-A8j13yfQ

And I thought, "Wow, after decades of showing dance scenes of really hot, quasi-clothed Indian chicks, someone has finally made the jump to having a really hot guy doing the same gyrations.  And what about the rolling chair?!  What about that big, fat, lit candle?!?"

Then, immediately after that, I had to email Astrid Amara because I thought, "Holy shit!  This IS her character from The Archer's Heart!"

Speaking of "The Archer's Heart," we will hopefully have an excerpt up on the Blind Eye website very soon.  We're just typesetting the MS now.

Special thanks today to Janine at Dear Author who posted a fantastic review of Wicked Gentlemen.

You can read the review here:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/05/12/wicked-gentlemen-by-ginn-hale//

Josh Lanyon posted a sentence on his blog which caused a long thread of discussion.  Here's the sentence:

"It had been rough learning that the woman he loved was a shape-shifter. He'd never forget the first time he'd seen her turn into a wolf."

The upshot of the discussion seemed to be "What is up with all these kinda bad werewolf stories, yo?  Who is buying them?  Where did they all come from?"

Since I've actually written a novel about shape-shifters (and done editorial work on other people's shape-shifter-containing pieces) I thought I'd weigh in on the subject.

Shape-shifting of any kind, when it's done well, is analogous to giving a character a disease.  In the same way that a disease is a metaphor for the internal make-up a character so shape-shifting should reveal or concretize a character's internal conflict.

(Using only the above sentence to guide me, I'd say that in this sentence the lycanthropy could be used to stand in for mental illness-- probably the conflict between the protag and his wife.)

Alternately, shape-shifting characters can be used in the context of a larger society to demonstrate a conflict in that society.  This is what I did in my own novel, Turnskin, where the main character's ability to change his appearance leads to his being included in or excluded from various social groups based on who he appears to be at that moment.  My book is about mutable identity, viewed through the lens of characters who can impersonate virtually anyone.  But Turnskin is  a literary piece, not an M/M romance and so it doesn't really make that great of a comparison to or representative for the werewolf erotica that appears to be proliferating throughout the M/M world.

The main trouble I have with many werewolf stories is that the shape-shifting is completely irrelevant to both the plot and the character.  (I won't bother to include theme here, since erotica rarely contains what is generally referred to as a "theme.")  Mainly the lycanthropy seems to be the excuse for a character to either go all fuck crazy or get real mad and beat somebody's ass.  Essentially the lycanthropy is being used as a cheat to avoid building plausible motivation. 

Good werewolf stories contain all the cool werewolf bling, like sex and violence and howling at the moon, but the lycanthropy is always being used as a metaphor, even if it is just a metaphor for a character's lack of impulse control.  It's central to the conflict between the characters, not just an excuse for cosplay in dog suits.

So why do readers like it, even when it's bad?  Why do they like anything?  Wish-fulfillment and escapism.  Who hasn't wanted to go all fuck crazy at least once?  Who hasn't wanted to beat an ass or two?  Shape-shifting, particularly lycanthropy is like pure heroin delivering all the highs while excusing the character (and by extension the reader) from blame or even acknowledgement of said "dark desires."  This is particularly true of stories where there is a strong power stratification between the characters-- the alpha and the beta.  Or, for you yaoi readers out there, the seme and  the uke.

In bad M/M fiction this "beta" thing usually manifests as highly-gendered behavior  and reads like heterosexist contruct slapped over a homosexual relationship.  The "girl with a penis" that everybody claims to hate, yet who also seems somehow to be written over and over again becomes "the insane fuck-crazy wolf-bitch with a penis who will beat your ass," when translated into the M/M and yaoi genres.

(And just for the record, as acquiring editor of Blind Eye Books, I'd really like to see somebody pull that character off someday.  So far I've only gotten submissions that are heavy on crazy fucking and woefully deficient in ass-beating.)

Happily for everyone, the "alpha" can usually subdue this out-of-control beta via violent injections of jism, which the beta can be forced to lap up without having to feel like an agro slag the morning after.  It's a win-win situation.  Money in the bank.

But lycanthropes are not the only shape-shifters.  The were-tiger is also popular, as are all the coolest culturally important animals: dolphins, eagles, ravens, horses, deer, crows, bears, owls etc.  What is up with all of them?

I would suggest that many, many people feel as though they have special connections with certain animals.  Whether it is in the contex of totem animals or "Otherkin" or whatever.  These readers will naturally want fiction that reflects what they perceive to be themselves.  Why a person might choose to more closely identify with an animal than a human is too deep a topic for this blog.  I would put forth the idea that there's a reason that there isn't a lot of M/M were-locust porn being written today.  Nobody wants to be "hungry like the locust."

But being hungry like the wolf has, and will always have, a certain amount of glamor.

Ah, the desire for restaurant food continues unabated.  So here I am after a grueling day in the coal mines (read: kitchen) trying to string two cogent thoughts together.

And here they are:

Thought one-- Food Network has made professional cooking cool in a way it never has been before.

Thought two-- and that just means that more and more people are starin' at me while I cook.

But that's okay, cause me and my cohorts are staring back. 

But not in the same way.

Today it fell upon me to write a memo to the staff addressing the pressing problem of how to check out hot customers while not getting caught.  Yes, it's true.  If you are hot (male or female) the chances are that somebody working at the restaurant is checking you out.  Maybe everybody simultaneously.

In this memo I exhorted older, more experienced employees to help out their less subtle comrades to learn the ways of the casual ogle.  Mainly: Don't Get Caught.  Not getting caught includes such time-honored tricks as not pointing directly at somebody and saying, "that one in the red sweater?"  and using code words such as, "you may need to CHECK THE ICE." 

Also, if one does find oneself caught, not staring again, no matter how arresting said hot customer may be.  Not even if he or she seems to be gawking back.  Use reflective surfaces or averted vision to revisit the object of attraction.  If it is meant to be, the hottie at table 17 will surely write a note on a napkin.  Maybe even leave a phone number.  Or a condom with a phone number on it. (True story.)

And last, practice on other employees.  See how many time you can eye a co-worker without them knowing.  Make it a game.  Keep score.

In this way, everybody can act upon their natural human impulses without anybody getting sued.

For those of you who keep up on my third job, as a foul-mouthed senior line cook, here's a personal record: during my shift on Saturday, I made food for approximately 210 of the 239 tickets we had that day.

It was the busiest day ever.

And that just goes to show that we in hospitality are somewhat insulated from recession up here on the Canadian border because when the Canadian dollar is at par with (or even a few cents higher than) the American dollar, it's fat city for us.

As long as the sun is shining, that is.

If it's raining, everybody just stays home.

And then we all starve.

This next post, like the previous one is aimed at beta readers and other people doing editorial reads.  An author could try to use these tricks herself to sharpen up her own stuff, but it's pretty hard to assess one's own MS.  I would only recommend trying to condense an old manuscript that's been sitting around for a while.  But even then it would be tough, perspective-wise.

So:  Condensing Text

Here’s a test question to use to try and figure out whether or not text might need condensing.  It is deceptively simple:

--Are you skimming?

If you’ve become disengaged from the story and started to skim ahead, looking for the interesting parts, you must force yourself to go through and read the scene again and diagnose it.  Consider why you were skimming.  

--Is it because you were confused?

If yes, then this isn’t a condensation problem.  Rather, it could be a problem of logic or of spatial confusion or of order of information.  These problems are not solved by removing words. (Usually.) Make a note on the MS that explains why you were confused during the scene.  Make sure to use soft language like “I think” or “Perhaps” or “To me,” such as:

“To me the character’s motivation was confusing, I think that perhaps you could include an explanatory note in the character’s internal monologue here because I don’t think many men want to insert tricycle-shaped objects into their rectums and so I’d like to understand more clearly Lord Balteroy’s reasoning when he is performing this unusual act.”

--Is it because you were bored?

This section may need to be condensed, but only after the beta thoughtfully considers whether or not the information contained in the scene is critically important to the plot.  If it is, the section may need to be punched up with more exciting verbs or more interesting dialogue.  But if the boredom is arising from lengthy descriptions of non-vital settings or irrelevant back story, then these passages could be suggested for cutting.

--Does the section contain no new information or is it a repeat or rehash of action that has already happened?

Most likely this section can and should be condensed or even cut.  Go through every sentence and ask yourself if the sentence is advancing the story.  If it isn’t, consider deleting or truncating the sentence to include only relevant information.

On Jan 11, 2008, at 2:42 PM, Christa McCue wrote:

Hi dear editor,

I'm just finishing up Wicked Gentlemen and I'm so happy with it that I'm thinking of buying a second copy as a gift, and also ordering Turnskin in hopes that it will be just as good.

I see you are a new publisher and would like to support you and your good work. Do you prefer I order directly from you (I assume you make more money) or from amazon.com (I assume it's good to get popular with the distributor) or is there a third option (want me to get my local bookstore to order it?)

Just say the word, and thanks.

Christa McCue

a fan of good books

Dear Christa,

The answer to this question is almost always to order it from the publisher's website if possible. There are a couple of reasons for this. At the micropress level (we are too teensy to even call ourselves small; we might even be, like, a nanopress) the extra money the press gets through direct sales will directly contribute to the continuation of the publishing venture.

The other reason to buy directly from the publisher, if possible, has to do with the way authors get paid royalties. We pay our authors a percentage of the cover price. So for every copy of Wicked Gentlemen sold Ginn Hale is paid the same amount, no matter where it is sold. However, many presses pay authors a percentage of the actual selling price of the book, rather than the cover price. So if the book sells in a retail venue, where there is a 40% wholesale discount, the author will earn 40% less per book and so on.

As for having your local bookstore order it, in order to support both small press and your local bookstore, that would be a great compromise for the conscientious consumer. Unfortunately, for companies as small as ours, it's impossible because we are not currently represented by a distributor. We are too new and too, as I said before, teensy. We sell through amazon.com via their consignment program, Amazon Advantage rather than through a distributor like Ingram so we have limited ability to ship to bookstores at the present time.

I hope that helps with your decision.

All the Best,

Nicole Kimberling

"Mysterious Stranger" brought up a good question that I thought I could run with:

"I do wonder how you get authors to cut down on their words without upsetting them. Authors tend to be in love with their words."

The fact is that I do upset them. All authors get upset when their stuff gets cut. The trick to condensing prose (because that's what we're really talking about here) is to know which words the author will be willing to release and which words the author loves irrationally will fight you on and then try to focus the cuts on the lines they care about least.

(Interestingly enough, sometimes this process results in cutting lines that are technically better than the ones that might remain in the story. That's a sacrifice an editor must be willing to make. An author must be happy with the end result of an edit. If the author isn't happy, then the author and the editor are a poor match and should seek different partners.)

I realize that the first paragraph might read as a little too simplistic because it's sort of like saying that the way you play a flute is to blow in one end while moving your fingers up and down on the keys-- to swipe a joke from Monty Python-- so I've tried to generate some signs that an author might be getting too sensitive to your edits.

1. The author says, "I don't like this."

I know this one seems obvious, but many novice editors react incorrectly to this very straightforward statement. If an author says they don't like something. DO NOT state your own argument and/or reasons for the initial edit. Ask the author what they don't like about the edit then either let the original line stand or negotiate a new edit. Don't ever force an author to accept an edit that they clearly state they don't like.

Special note: If an author says they don't like anything you've done, then you and the author are not a good match and no matter how good the author or you are are at your respective crafts you will not be able to work together. For the sake of both of your own sanity and the author's confidence, you should not attempt to work with this author any longer.

Special note number two: If you are an author receiving an edit, only say, "I don't like what you've done," if you really mean it. It's okay to express your discomfort by saying stuff like, "This edit is really hard for me," or "I think this section turned out too short/spare/choppy/boring," or "If I have to read this MS again I feel like I'm going to go crazy." But saying that you don't like what an editor's done with your words sends a very strong message. It's like saying, "I don't think our relationship is working anymore and I think we should see other people."

2. The author accepts your cuts but writes in different sentences to equal approximately the original word count. Essentially keeping a slow scene slow but with different words conveying the same information as before.

This is not a manifestation of auctorial rebellion so much as a sign that the author's sense of proportion or pacing doesn't match yours. This is a good place to explain your own reasoning clearly but not cruelly. This is the place to say, "I started to skim when the characters started talking about ancient carpet-making methods and so I think this conversation needs to be shorter-- unless the carpets of antiquity have a great bearing on the plot, but from my initial read, I don't think they do. Let me know if that's not right." And then condense the scene again, taking the author's reply into consideration.

3. An author takes more than a week to return 4 or 5 pages of edited MS and she has not been in the hospital or on a sloth-watching tour to Costa Rica.

Your author is either getting criticism fatigue or your edits have forced them into a new and uncomfortable way of thinking or working that they're having trouble adjusting to. If the publication schedule can possibly allow it, give them a break of at least a week. Also make sure the next set of pages you send the author contains a lot of positive feedback. Under no circumstances should you ask, "Hey do you need a break?" Pride will prevent almost all humans from admitting weakness. Just take the blame on yourself. Claim you've had a lot of dental work and can't think until the codeine runs out or something like that.

Really, the best way to make sure that an author accepts an edit that condenses his or her prose is to make sure the condensed version reads better, faster and more clearly than the original. You must assess the author's style and try to avoid inserting connecting text that goes directly against the author's level of formality or tags a known auctorial pet peeve. Essentially, the editor has to be good at, well, editing.

But that's a whole different post.

Erin MacKay is one of my proudest discoveries. Okay, it's fair to say that I didn't print her first story or anything like that, but her story, Crossing the Distance is the kind of story that I love to receive unexpectedly in the mail. It had great heart and Erin showed tremendous skill with POV, as well as just having gorgeous writing. The finished product is one of the standout stories in the Tangle anthology, getting raves from Ann Somerville at Uniquely Pleasurable, who everybody knows is a tough nut to crack.

But when the MS for Crossing was first submitted, it looked very different. I felt like had an unnecessary frame story attached and was confused about the ending. I wrote to Erin and asked her if she would be willing to consider rewrites and she agreed. The following work we did was some of my most rewarding work as an editor and because of that I wanted to talk about it with Erin here.

NK: So, Erin, the reason I wanted to talk about editing is that I feel like the editorial process is, to the new-to-publishing author, terrifying. Deeply shrouded in mystery the editrix is this cruel stranger who says they like your stuff, yet asks you to change almost every paragraph in some tiny way. I asked you for something outrageous: to change the entire end of your story. What made you decide to go ahead and work with me rather than withdrawing Crossing?

EM: Trest and Aev have existed in my mind and on my hard drive, in one form or another, for a long time. They’ve stayed with me through years and drafts, and figuring out the right way to tell their story became something of a mission. Obviously, I thought I had at least gotten close when I submitted Crossing to you, but I had never shaken the feeling that there was still work to be done. So when you offered to see where some revisions would take us, I leapt at the chance to work with someone with an editor’s objectivity but who also believed in the heart of the story. From our earliest exchanges, I trusted that we shared the goal of making Crossing the best it could be, and that no matter how big the changes seemed at first, it was all in the name of doing right by these characters.

NK: That's interesting. So what you are saying is that your sense of duty to the characters overrode any attachment that you had to individual words or scenes?

EM: That was definitely the driving force. It was hard, sometimes, to let go of a scene or a turn of phrase that I liked, but why keep it in if it’s not right for the story? I softened some of the blows by saving the cuts into a separate file. Some of them can be recycled for another story, but even if they can't, it helped to think they weren’t going away forever.

NK: In Crossing you use a really clever trick to extend limited third person POV into the minds of two separate characters via a psychic bond. Did you do that deliberately or was it more of an intuitive decision?

EM: I didn’t give the POV much conscious thought when I first started writing the story. Because the psychic bond was present in the characters from the start, the choice to use one character to channel the experiences of both came very naturally. It got a little awkward to work with in places, so yet another benefit of our editing process was thinking more carefully about POV and how to handle it. I think that aspect of the story cleaned up particularly well.

NK: So what other projects have you got going now?

EM: At the moment, I'm indulging myself in something longer. I'm still a sucker for the romance and mystery of creatures of the night, but I'm playing a little with what the monsters of our superstitions might really be, how they got here, and what they get up to in our world. And there's pretty men, of course...

NK: And since you didn’t mention it, I’ll add that Erin MacKay’s got a story called Cupcake that will be featured in the upcoming Blind Eye anthology, Tangle Girls. Thanks a lot for coming over! You can visit Erin at her website:

http://www.erinmackay.com/

or on her blog:

http://lundimontag.blogspot.com/

Of course, I purchased another book. How could I not? I happened to come across the 10 volume set "The Mental Efficiency Series," published in 1916 by the Funk & Wagnalls Company. I purchased volume 10, "Personality: How to Build It," by H. Laurent.

Those of you who work with me know about my addiction to early 1900's self-help and instructional manuals. Who could forget the sage advice (read aloud in the Bad Boys's corner) about tipping house servants in the 1926 gem "Etiquitte for Men?"

Personality: How to Build it does not disappoint.

My favorite lines so far are from Chapter IV: Caution: Rational and Clear-Sighted, which begins:

"Considering that life is a great battlefield on which human beings, all adversaries, fight for a personal victory in order to hold a commanding position one must possess the important quality of prudence."

A discussion of caution and prudence ensues, along with some sound advice about how not to appear to be evil:

"Caution signifies incessant dread of danger, incessant suspicion of evil about one."

And of course, I completely agree. I, myself, find that extremely cautious people tend towards evilness.

But let us go several pages on.

"Mistrust and watch those who are jealous. Discovery never makes an enemy for you. You are forewarned, but keep quiet. Feign ignorance in holding yourself intelligently on the defensive.

Envy is a wall which raises itself between friendships.

Do not give way to the wall, for the chances are that in falling it will probably crush someone, perhaps you."

"Personality: How to Build It," is full of these sage nuggets of wisdom.

A lovely addition to my collection of moldy old books.

I have no buyer's regret.

I know she's been telling all of you that she's already 40, but she lies, what can I say?

Right now we're in Portland, OR at the Mark Spencer Hotel, which I love because it has kitchenettes as well as being cheap and centrally located and next to a bunch of gay bars.

Not that I go out to the bars when I'm with Dawn, since she doesn't drink, but I still like being close to them. The restaurant where I work is across the parking lot from the Bellingham gay bar and so I casually watch the patrons smoking all day long. I find their catty, drunken voices soothing.

Dawn and I arrived yesterday, via train in order to go shopping at Powell's City of Books. We went there once last night and got into the three-digit category. Most likely we'll get there again today. I am cutting myself off, though, since it's not my birthday.

I did get some awesome domo-kun fold and mail stationery and three different Japanese letter sets.

Plus Najimeh Batmanglij's gorgeous picutre & recipe book, "From Persia to Napa," a new Powell's t-shirt that has Star Wars-style lettering on it and last, a true impulse buy, Maurice Leblanc's "Aresene Lupin, Gentleman-Thief."

Dawn purchased a mere two volumes: The Worst-Case Scenario Almanac, "Great Outdoors," and Dashiel Hammett's, "The Thin Man." We've been watching a lot of Nick & Nora lately, as we are both on a mystery kick after reading a bunch of Josh Lanyon books all at the same time. Dawn is reading good lines from "The Thin Man," out loud. My favorite so far is from page 19:

"I remembered Nora had not touched her scotch and soda, so I went into the bedroom and drank it..."

Kinda makes me want to go to Whole Foods and get a sixer of IPA since it's past five and I'm on vacation.

But we're going back to the bookstore instead.

I've been reading Josh Lanyon's "Man, Oh Man," mainly because I like reading his writing. It's been making me think about process, though, and I've come to the conclusion that my process is terribly backward.

I don't outline, per se. I create a playlist of songs that keeps track of the emotional arc of the story.

I am a deeply intuitive writer and so I’ve had to develop a lot of editorial tricks in order to understand what I’ve done and what I am trying to do. I write something, read it and wonder why it is correct and what I am trying to say. Then I rewrite. If I’m really mystified by myself, I look at the itunes playlist I’ve created for the novel. I consider why I picked each song, who’s songs they are, what movements in the story they represent. I take a bath and think about what might be the correct course. In short, I think about it, but usually indirectly. It’s kind of like dowsing and I don’t recommend it to anyone as a work method.

If there is a scene that is very, very hard to write I write it sentence by sentence backwards and force myself through it.

If I have done all this and failed, I ask Dawn to help me.

I really envy writers who have a logical flow and who can write very quickly and who can outline easily and well. It’s critical to becoming a commercial writer.

Dawn is reading the Oz books for the first time in her life (she'll be 40 in a couple weeks). She seems to be finding a lot of nefarious goings-on in the Marvelous Land. For example, she's decided that Glinda is actually fronting Ozma as a puppet ruler. More than that, she suspects Glinda of switching the real Ozma for her own stooge. Last night's coversation went like this:

Dawn-- Tip (Ozma in disguise) doesn't want to turn into a girl, but little Ozma is happy when she emerges from the pink gossamer couch. Completely inconsistent. And when Tip is "transformed" into Ozma, s/he is no longer wearing the same clothes. It's an entirely different outfit. It's so obvious that Glinda made the switch there.

Nikki-- You're a devious-minded woman, Dawn.

Dawn-- Not at devious as this "Glinda!"

At Blind Eye, we like to do a couple of different covers. My book, Turnskin, ended up with about six concepts and two finished covers. This is the one that we didn't use on the book, but printed promotional postcards for.

My First Ebook—

First I have to say that the process of purchasing Dark Horse from Loose Id was seamless and easy. The .pdf that arrived was nicely formatted and downloaded in seconds.

All the same, I’d have rather had a print book. Then again, my lifestyle is such that I wouldn’t have had to hide that same volume from my spouse and/or children/parents.

One real benefit to ebooks is that you can have a whole library of homo fiction where no one, except the guy who services your thrashing hard drive, will ever see it.

I suppose that this, in itself, is a selling point, though not to me, but I also still purchase physical CDs because I love liner notes. I’m not really an early adopter, except for Macintosh computers, which I have used ever since the Macintosh SE was released in 1987—incidentally, that’s the same year I graduated from high school.

I really did not like that I had to read this novella on my computer screen. I’ve just discovered that a print version will be available under the name Double Trouble with another novella called Don’t Look Back, from MLR and I’m so relieved! I associate my computer with work, and find it very difficult to relax into a story while I’m reading it on screen. I keep thinking I should be finding stray commas.

So, overall, I’ll read an ebook if I have to but I’ll complain about it later.

Now, to the fiction—

Dark Horse by Josh Lanyon

Spoken of by Nicole Kimberling (cause I’m not a reviewer and I don’t give critical reviews. I just talk about books I liked.)

When I first came across Josh Lanyon’s blog I wondered if he’d taken his pen name from the central love interest of Mary Renault’s The Charioteer, Ralph Lanyon. Apart from being one of the nicest of the early modern gay books, The Charioteer features one of the longest, best party scenes ever written. (Aspiring writers take note: the 40+ pages comprising Alex’s birthday party are amazing. I feel they should be required reading for any person attempting to construct a party scene.)

I still don’t know if “Josh Lanyon” is a pen name or if the author is just lucky enough to be named Lanyon. But I do know that I was right to make my initial connection between him and Renault, since one of the heroes in Dark Horse is trying out for the lead role in a screen adaptation of The Charioteer.

With Dark Horse, Lanyon has given us a suspense story with a very well thought-out romantic throughline. Narrative elements from The Charioteer are woven into the text, making this book especially fun for readers familiar with the older book. There are several sex scenes which is usually a bad sign, in terms of character development, but true to Lanyon’s usual form, he’s made the sex both relevant and character-specific so that I can’t imagine the story working without them.

Here is my favorite non-spoiler line:

“His cock jumped and he began to come. Hard.
Not a problem for me. I liked this part. I swallowed enough to show I cared, then buried my head in his belly,…”

“I swallowed enough to show I cared…” Now that’s just funny.

Anything else I would say about this story would fall under the category “spoiler,” so I’m not going to go further.

You’ll just have to read the story yourselves.