Category Archives: GLBT fiction

Agh! Bookshelf Fail!

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So I’ve been forever moaning about clearing out my bookshelves now that I’ve got a nice e-reader, which is my primary reading source. Unfortunately I seemed to have reached a certain point in my e-book-guzzling where the stories are sounding more and more alike to me, and I find myself either setting aside a book and then picking up another – only to set that one aside because I’m just not getting into it.

I switched over to some old books I had sitting on my bookshelves for ages – books that I’d started reading and then abandoned for whatever reason – and couldn’t get into those, either. I tried to start over with an anthology of fairy tales by Hermann Hesse, but I couldn’t get into the same frame of mind that required me to fully absorb his writing. I read Demian and Narcissus and Goldmund a while back, and while I loved them, I guess I overdid the Hesse reading and faltered when I bought the anthology. Unfortunately I still couldn’t get into it.

So I spent the last hour scouring through my bookshelves, reconnecting with old books that I read and adding some of my favorite titles to my Goodreads list. I’d love to pick them up to enjoy all over again. The others are books I bought ages ago but haven’t gotten around to reading yet, and I’ve been slapping a hand against my forehead for the oversight. They’re mostly genre fiction – either classic horror or LGBT mystery or something along those lines – and I really should dust those neglected books off and carry on with them.

I know now that I need diversity in my reading. I know that a lot of folks out there can subsist wholly on just one genre; over at Goodreads, some people are only willing to read M/M romance, for instance. That’s perfectly fine, but after over a year of doing exactly that because small e-pubs have been the main source for my e-reading, I’ve reached that saturation point, and I feel stuck in a rut and feeling pretty apathetic toward what I have that’s still unread in my e-reader.

We’ll see how this goes. At the moment, I’m trying to force myself to finish reading a steampunk novel, and after that, I’m giving my e-reader a much-deserved break. You know, like I swore I was going to do days ago.

Inevitable Valentine’s Day Post

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After unloading the way I did in my previous blog post – and after finally finishing the print galley proofs for Mimi Attacks! – I finally feel a gazillion times better than I did when I woke up this morning. So, yeah, I’m ready to acknowledge Valentine’s Day. XD See, I’m not that cynical!

Actually, today was one of my cats’ birthday. My boy Willie, who turned ten today, is the reason for my feeling generous toward Feb. 14. He’s got a long history, that boy, involving illnesses – or at least a condition that requires him to be on medication for the rest of his life until we discovered the magic of herbal supplements for liver health – which I won’t recount into detail. Suffice it to say, he’s our “miracle kitty”, and we love him to pieces. :)

As for romance-romance, I’m all inclined to watch this movie for the dozenth time:

Not a perfect movie by any stretch, but it’s very clever and funny, and whenever I watch it, the bunnies start going crazy. I mean, come on – can you picture a quirky romance along identical lines that’s specifically about gay teens? I’m also talking about a story that’s a historical fantasy (definitely not a pure historical if you want to be realistic about the relationships during the time period).

I’d love to read something like that. I might try my hand at writing it, but there’s always that danger of simply mimicking the George Sand / Frederic Chopin story and all the other complications, given the number of times I’ve watched the movie (I own the DVD).

At any rate, that’d be my contribution to Valentine’s Day. Watch Impromptu, enjoy the romance without the sap, and be amused by the narcissistic self-absorption of a group of artists.

That Midpoint Slump

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To quote Shaggy, “Zoiks!” The past two or three weeks have been hell on earth for me, writing-wise. I’d reached the midpoint of my novel, and with that came the inevitable slump. I had zero energy, zero motivation, and, worse, zero ideas of how to transition one scene into another. Or more like one event into another. It sucked. Sucked.

Benevolent forces seemed to have waited till Valentine’s Day – yeah, one of my least favorite days of the year (bathroom cleaning days being the supreme king in the Sucky Day universe) – to show mercy. Somehow something clicked, I was able to work an unplanned event into the story, and now things are once again back on track. So good times are ahead, finally.

I don’t know how other writers manage it, frankly. Digging deep inside oneself for the flimsiest scrap of inspiration (motivation?) to keep him fueled for one more writing day…

And to keep doing that throughout the dreaded slump…

What gets me the most, though, is the fact that I write for an obscure niche (again, contemporary coming-out novels are the bread-and-butter of the LGBT YA market – even better if they’re published by big, mainstream presses), and it’s incredibly difficult keeping the faith through this slump, knowing that the finished product will remain unacknowledged by the vast majority of readers and reviewers because of that belief in what defines the status quo in this market.

This isn’t a self-pitying post. Far from it. I’m well aware of my standing in the LGBT YA market, and I’ve long reconciled myself to the fact that no amount of effort on my or my publisher’s part would change other people’s perceptions of what should be considered “legitimate” genres for gay teen readers.

But the knowledge that all this time and hard work spent on a book that’ll remain way under the market’s radar remains a bitter pill to swallow. Much more bitter, I wouldn’t be surprised, than what a writer of contemporary coming-out novels deals with throughout the writing process. So whenever the midpoint slump comes around to bite me in the ass, the effects are a lot more magnified and more difficult to cope with.

Have I thought about quitting? Actually, yeah – I have. More times than anyone will ever know. At the same time, I end up reminding myself that quitting would be cowardice on my part, and I should keep doing what I’m doing till I’m all out of ideas or simply fall out of love with my kind of stories. Maybe it’s foolish; maybe it’s noble. Who knows? All I’m aware of at present is how awful it can be, being slapped around with bitter truths, when I’m at my lowest point during the writing process.

Digging deep inside for that extra bit of motivation is excruciating.