Let's see the last fiction stuff I read was the latest Jonathan Kellerman, Tipping the Velvet, I'm currently reading Fingersmith and this book Gilgamesh by an Australian author, I'm still trying to get through my stack of unreads that I've bought.

One author I really love is Isabel Allende even though I haven't finished Daughter of Fortune. Love Anne Tyler.

Oh, I finished up American Gods, and reread bits of Smoke and Mirrors.

There are markers in: Lovecraft, An Artist of the Floating World, Crime and Punishment (never read before), Moby Dick (never read all before), and Great Expectations.

Ack! Terry Pratchett! I keep forgetting to figure out the sequence of Discworld so I can start getting them from the library.

I keep telling myself No More FICTION from the library until I get fiinished with the backlog but I'm weak...

I look for fiction about -- generally -- people who are fucked-up and yet manage to find...not redemption, that's not the situation I mean, but a sense of peace, or being settled in the world with their fucked-upped-ness.

Does that make sense?

Basically, thematically, how shit can grow gorgeous flowers.

Have any of the recent articles mentioned Clark/Lex?

You know, I was kind of suprised that the article in Bitch didn't mention them at all. Mulder/Skinner, Janeway/Seven, Buffy/Willow, and Kirk/Spock are the pairings I remember being referenced.

Asking why people in general write slash or anything else is going to get you dozens of different answers. I don't mind the question, myself -- what gets me uncomfortable is when someone who doesn't write tries to answer it -- or when a writer tries to answer for all writers. That never ends well. We all have our own reasons for writing, and those reasons may change over time, and from show to show.

This was actually the thing I liked about the article - she didn't try to give one absolute answer about what people find so appealing about slash. She acknowledged that for every reader and writer the reasons would be different.

For the most part, slash isn't really my cup of tea. I've enjoyed Anna S.'s recent Spike/Xander stories, and Mulder/Krycek will always have a special place in my heart, and I have a major soft spot for a well written Buffy/Faith, but I usually prefer het or gen. And I've come to accept that it's not because I'm homophobic, or narrow-minded, or unimaginitive. I just have different storytelling kinks.

See the thing with American Gods, as much as Neil is a hero ... Terry Pratchett kicked his ass black and blue with Small Gods.
He did it first, better, and funnier.

And with no slash. :-p

I look for fiction about -- generally -- people who are fucked-up and yet manage to find...not redemption, that's not the situation I mean, but a sense of peace, or being settled in the world with their fucked-upped-ness.

I like fiction about people who are fucked up, and sometimes find train tracks. But, yeah, I like that, too. A sort of resolution that, while not always happy, at least allows for the possibilty of contentment.

Steph L: I look for fiction about -- generally -- people who are fucked-up and yet manage to find...not redemption, that's not the situation I mean, but a sense of peace, or being settled in the world with their fucked-upped-ness

Have you read The Gap series by Stephen Donaldson, because if the above is your criteria, then that series pretty well has your bases covered.

The only Terry Pratchett I've read is Good Omens.

Also, I did forget to say that another thing I like about slash is the sex.

I'm pretty diverse in what I read. I haven't read a lot...many..okay most...of the classics, I managed to get through high school without doing that (go to 3 high schools in 4 years and you too can get a spotty education). Plus I was a slacker and only did stuff I was interested in, so in my English Lit section I did my paper on Frankenstein.

Edited because I lost my point...

I'll read almost anything if it looks in anyway interesting, not just the plot but---oh! neat cover!.

Have you read The Gap series by Stephen Donaldson, because if the above is your criteria, then that series pretty well has your bases covered.

No, but I have now made a note of it -- thanks!

Oh, lots of Hardy when I was fourteen, too.

I think that as writers, we (duh) output a lot of what we ingest and digest from the shows. So, if the plots all blur together for you (which they often do for me, at least with the MotW type episodes), you're not likely to want to write plot, at least not that sort of plot.

I still take issue with the X is harder to write than Y with any of it. For some writers, plot may be the easiest thing for them to write. I've seen as much bad emotional/character driven writing as I've seen plot-driven writing, so I don't think that you can really say one is easier, on the whole, than the other.

Plot may require more note-taking (this would be why my plotty stuff remains unfinished--lot of research, some spreadsheets, dependency charts, etc., that I need to finish up), but sex takes longer to write, at least for me. Six of one, half dozen of the other.