Whatever happened to the still beating heart of a virgin? No one has any standards anymore.

Giles ,'Lies My Parents Told Me'


The Great Write Way, Chapter Two: Twice upon a time...  

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


erikaj - Nov 18, 2005 11:40:22 am PST #4908 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

Interesting thought, AmyLiz. Never thought about that. Maybe cause my heart's a little shriveled raisin.


deborah grabien - Nov 18, 2005 12:48:57 pm PST #4909 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Amy, I have my own thoughts on that - want to mull over it a bit.


Amy - Nov 18, 2005 3:38:18 pm PST #4910 of 10001
Because books.

Thanks, Ailleann.

Maybe cause my heart's a little shriveled raisin.

I think it's bigger than you think it is.

want to mull over it a bit

I'd love to hear it -- this just came to me today when I was thinking about the topic, so I blurted it out in drabble form.


Connie Neil - Nov 18, 2005 3:44:20 pm PST #4911 of 10001
brillig

Maybe cause my heart's a little shriveled raisin.

I think it's bigger than you think it is.

If she's not careful she could foment a campaign to make her heart grow three sizes in one day.


deborah grabien - Nov 18, 2005 3:50:22 pm PST #4912 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Amy, it's really along the lines of how I tend to mentally separate out romances from love stories.

Because I do. I see them as entirely separate things, different realities entirely. Romance, in my head, is all about the trappings: everything from the initial meeting of the eyes through the rampant sex.

Love, written or lived, strikes me as something entirely different. There's nothing romantic about holding the man you love with his head in your lap while he vomits and hallucinates.

How does any of that get translated? It's what I've been trying to do with Kinkaid, and the only reason I can is to write his POV, first person.

I don't know you'd parse it out - it's a fascinating question. Do you separate that out? How do other writers feel about it?


Connie Neil - Nov 18, 2005 4:21:07 pm PST #4913 of 10001
brillig

A friend of mine over at LJ--a ficcer of some talent--is having a book published by Loose Id, an e-publisher. Pay is by royalities, but there's an ISBN and all that "yes, this is published material" stuff.

Is e-publishing a viable avenue? Well, I know it happens, but does it have a future, is it something to be proud of?


Connie Neil - Nov 18, 2005 4:21:11 pm PST #4914 of 10001
brillig

deborah grabien - Nov 18, 2005 4:43:35 pm PST #4915 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Connie, I'm shamefully ignorant about e-pubbling, honestly. It certainly wouldn't be my first choice - I like paper, damn it. But 44 Clowns is an e-book, and I'm delighted to be published in it. And the PariSalon anthology I was in was first in paper, then in electronic format.

I doubt it's going anywhere, personally.


Amy - Nov 19, 2005 9:56:25 am PST #4916 of 10001
Because books.

I tend to mentally separate out romances from love stories.

Good point.

There are a handful of romances that go a lot deeper than what I usually see, in terms of that kind of love. Mostly historical, oddly enough, but I do think you're right -- the beginning of a relationship is a lot different than the entire course of one, and a lot of what you're talking about -- holding his head in your lap while he vomits, for example -- doesn't always fit into the arc of a romance for plot purposes alone, although I edited one about an alcoholic and the woman who fell in love with him that absolutely broke my heart.

A lot of what I'm trying to do (and plan to do) in that Epic project that you read deals with that aspect of love. The not so pretty pieces, the raw, the irrational.


deborah grabien - Nov 19, 2005 10:45:46 am PST #4917 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

The not so pretty pieces, the raw, the irrational

Which, to me, is part of the love, not part of the romance.

And where it gets critical is the fact that publishers will nix one in favour of the other - because, like it or not, THEY don't see the two as the same.

The one is the fantasy, the hearts and flowers, the meeting under the stars (or the stage at Woodstock), the click of the soul at the pit of the stomach. That's what readers apparently want to read, and what they want to go on forever.

Me, I can't go there, not as a writer or a reader. I like happy endings - but love is just as much about a cold moment resenting that your entire salary is going for anti-rejection transplant drugs for him as it is about the multiple orgasm.

And publishers don't seem to want to go there.