I've been on vacation, and didn't have much of a chance to write for the past couple of weeks. Which is a good thing - it's given me time to re-prioritize a number of my projects. I had a rather ambitious plan set out for myself at the beginning of the year, and while I still plan on finishing six new stories and three erotica novellas, it looks like the Tacoma Steampunk novella trilogy is going to be put on the backburner. Why? Because I've come to realize how much research I need to do before I can do the story and worldbuilding justice. I don't want these to be slap-dash pieces that have sprinklings of real-world details in them. I want them to be as fully grounded in the Tacoma (and the world in general) of the late 1800's as possible. So, I'm going to put them aside, but continue to do my reading and research. I'm tentatively putting them on the agenda for 2008.
What will be in their place? Well, first I have to detour by talking a bit about why I love writing erotica so much.
I've noticed that most erotica tends to focus on the sex act - that the ultimate moment of the story or novella is usually some complicated sexual position or "x" number of simultaneous orgasms - something physical, in other words. For me, when I write erotica, I don't feel that I can use sexuality as the plot thread - because without the emotions behind the act (whether it's love or hatred or revenge driving the need to fuck), there's no story. There has to be an emotional arc to the character, and there has to be a terrible, terrible price to be paid for however many orgasms are achieved in the story. Nancy Kress talked about this over and over again at Clarion - a price must be paid in every story. The best and most familiar example of this I can think of is King Midas - he gets all the gold he desires, with a single touch of his fingers, and loses everything that he ever loved, with that same single touch. When he touches (or as I'd write it, when he fucks), he wins and pays the price all at once.
Now, I've been very successful (I think) in writing these kinds of stories in erotica - because when I write in other genres, I still tend to make the newbie's mistake of leaning on the genre conventions (magic, technology, monsters, etc.) as crutches to make the story run. I hide behind the genre conventions, but there's no hiding in non-genre erotica. Or rather, I should say that I've found a way to not hide in erotica, but haven't yet taught myself to not hide behind conventions in my other work. Not to say that I'm writing terrible stories, just that they're not as emotionally complex and rich as what they could be. And I know that, deep down inside - because I can feel how good it is to write a devastating story in erotica, how painfully wonderful it is to take my characters to the terrible places where they have to pay their price for what they want. It doesn't feel the same when I write horror or dark fantasy - yet. But now I'm beginning to understand where I need to go, where I need to take the writing, the characters, and myself. It's taken me quite a while to figure all this out - but I'm hoping that this will become something of a breakthrough for me, and that I'll be able to finally start writing the stories I think I'm capable of writing.
Several years ago I wrote a YA novel titled Rendered Briefly Dark, where I tried and failed to do just that - take my protagonist to the place where most of us in real life won't go, unless pushed to our ultimate emotional limits. I failed because I was new to writing, and because I mistakenly thought that I wouldn't have to myself do the kind of deep emotional mining that I'd been doing for the past 20 years in acting. But it's what I've been doing for the erotica, and it's what works, it's what makes those stories better than anything else I write. And last week while I was home, I finally realized what emotional thread was missing in Rendered that would make it the kind of novel it needs to be to be completely devastating, to be as complex and satisfying as I think it can be. It also means that rewriting it will probably be a very painful experience for me. But I think that's what it has to be, and that's what I have to do. You can't render a character dark unless you're willing to render yourself dark, otherwise there's no point in writing the story at all.
So, I'm going to spend the next couple of months polishing and sending out a new batch of stories, while finishing up a project I've been asked to write (that I can't yet blog about). I'm also going to work on the outline for the new version of Rendered - my goal is to be ready to start writing at the beginning of this summer. It's going to be a short novel - no more than 70,000 words, as it's YA, and it won't be a part of any trilogy, as I think that would only dilute the impact of the story. I should be finished by sometime in September, after which I'll set it aside for a bit and work on some other things.
So that's the new plan. I'm pretty pleased with it. I think Rendered has the potential to be a great novel, and I think I'm closer to being able to write it that way than I was four years ago, or three years ago when I tried to write it a second time. It'll be interesting, to say the least, to see if three times really is the charm.
What will be in their place? Well, first I have to detour by talking a bit about why I love writing erotica so much.
I've noticed that most erotica tends to focus on the sex act - that the ultimate moment of the story or novella is usually some complicated sexual position or "x" number of simultaneous orgasms - something physical, in other words. For me, when I write erotica, I don't feel that I can use sexuality as the plot thread - because without the emotions behind the act (whether it's love or hatred or revenge driving the need to fuck), there's no story. There has to be an emotional arc to the character, and there has to be a terrible, terrible price to be paid for however many orgasms are achieved in the story. Nancy Kress talked about this over and over again at Clarion - a price must be paid in every story. The best and most familiar example of this I can think of is King Midas - he gets all the gold he desires, with a single touch of his fingers, and loses everything that he ever loved, with that same single touch. When he touches (or as I'd write it, when he fucks), he wins and pays the price all at once.
Now, I've been very successful (I think) in writing these kinds of stories in erotica - because when I write in other genres, I still tend to make the newbie's mistake of leaning on the genre conventions (magic, technology, monsters, etc.) as crutches to make the story run. I hide behind the genre conventions, but there's no hiding in non-genre erotica. Or rather, I should say that I've found a way to not hide in erotica, but haven't yet taught myself to not hide behind conventions in my other work. Not to say that I'm writing terrible stories, just that they're not as emotionally complex and rich as what they could be. And I know that, deep down inside - because I can feel how good it is to write a devastating story in erotica, how painfully wonderful it is to take my characters to the terrible places where they have to pay their price for what they want. It doesn't feel the same when I write horror or dark fantasy - yet. But now I'm beginning to understand where I need to go, where I need to take the writing, the characters, and myself. It's taken me quite a while to figure all this out - but I'm hoping that this will become something of a breakthrough for me, and that I'll be able to finally start writing the stories I think I'm capable of writing.
Several years ago I wrote a YA novel titled Rendered Briefly Dark, where I tried and failed to do just that - take my protagonist to the place where most of us in real life won't go, unless pushed to our ultimate emotional limits. I failed because I was new to writing, and because I mistakenly thought that I wouldn't have to myself do the kind of deep emotional mining that I'd been doing for the past 20 years in acting. But it's what I've been doing for the erotica, and it's what works, it's what makes those stories better than anything else I write. And last week while I was home, I finally realized what emotional thread was missing in Rendered that would make it the kind of novel it needs to be to be completely devastating, to be as complex and satisfying as I think it can be. It also means that rewriting it will probably be a very painful experience for me. But I think that's what it has to be, and that's what I have to do. You can't render a character dark unless you're willing to render yourself dark, otherwise there's no point in writing the story at all.
So, I'm going to spend the next couple of months polishing and sending out a new batch of stories, while finishing up a project I've been asked to write (that I can't yet blog about). I'm also going to work on the outline for the new version of Rendered - my goal is to be ready to start writing at the beginning of this summer. It's going to be a short novel - no more than 70,000 words, as it's YA, and it won't be a part of any trilogy, as I think that would only dilute the impact of the story. I should be finished by sometime in September, after which I'll set it aside for a bit and work on some other things.
So that's the new plan. I'm pretty pleased with it. I think Rendered has the potential to be a great novel, and I think I'm closer to being able to write it that way than I was four years ago, or three years ago when I tried to write it a second time. It'll be interesting, to say the least, to see if three times really is the charm.
