Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Personally? I use Amazon all the damn time. While being a bitch is a full time unofficial job, I have a rarely-spoken-of job which cuts into my shopping for diapers time, and I use Amazon’s subscription service and Prime membership with its two-day shipping to have big ass boxes of diapers arrive on my doorstep on a regular basis. I order computer equipment, toys, supplies, and gifts from Amazon, and stores who operate through Amazon. I’ve discovered some really great stores that way, too. For Hanukkah last year, I ordered Hubby a flight of dark chocolate from a business in Portland which sells through Amazon that specializes in salt, chocolate, and spices. OMG. LOVE.

I’m not sure how Amazon’s decision to force usage of their own POD company will ultimately shake out in the publishing world, or the legal one, and I’m not sure how that decision, which smacks of big beefy bullying, will affect how I personally view Amazon as a vendor. I don’t shop at Wal Mart if I can avoid it, for example, but I also recognize that there are some communities where the Wally World is the best and only option for budget-minded shopping. So I can vote with my wallet where the Mart is concerned, but doing so is a luxury, and I can’t - and don’t want to - tell other people where to shop.

But since this site is powered by mantitty but fueled by your interest, I want to ask your opinion. What’s your position on Amazon?

I’ve come to find out that Powells in Portland offers a partnership program similar to Amazon’s. If I offered a buy option that linked to Powells as opposed to Amazon, would you prefer one over the other? Does Amazon’s decision to force vendors to use their POD service in order to use their bookstore affect your desire to shop at Amazon?

Gull is a young girl born of rape, whose mother was taken in the sack of Wilusa, the Hittite word for Troy. After an accident that hobbles her leg, Gull is chosen to be an acolyte to the Lady of the Dead, and she sees visions of future events, starting with an omen of black ships. The black ships arrive, carrying the remnants of her lost home after yet another sack of Wilusa, and she sails away with them, even though doing so violates many of the rules of being the Dead’s handmaiden. Gull walks between knowing what the future will look like and not knowing when it’ll show up, and not knowing at all what will happen to her or to the tiny portion of Wilusa that travels with her.

The beginning of the story is demanding. It demands your attention and your time, and it demands that you not put the book down because something is always about to happen within the first few chapters, to the point where reading becomes an exercise in apprehension. In addition, the visual imagery used in the opening scenes is bleak - white paints, black cloaks, white stones, black ships - and belies the complexity and nuances of the story ahead of it.

And the story....

If you are disturbed by discussions of war, by depictions of battle, death, and the harm of children or the rape of women, I would caution you about reading this book. I’m immensely disturbed by these things, and I have to remind myself that I’m still “post partum” with hormones and hair loss to match (oh, my freaking God, the hair loss) and I need to be cautious when I pick up material like this.

That said, this book was important to read right now, not only because it’s haunting and vivid, but it raises questions about war, about the wars that are being fought right now, and about defining countries and societies, and about how we treat prisoners of war and the widows and fatherless children left behind after battle. This story is based on the Aeneid, so fans of that particular time in history will be happy as clams in mud, but because it’s about war and the loss and recovery of peace, it also matters as a reflection of current times.

Moreover, while the writing is often elementary in tone and the heroine didn’t grow so much as grow older, the imagery and the characters - particularly the men, Neas, Xandros, Kos, and Hyl - are marvelously crafted and vividly entertaining. The flaws and distance in Gull, who is held apart from the group both by her vocation as an Oracle and her role as observer, not quite a member of the group and too important to be left behind, lessened my attachment to her, but through her observations I deeply appreciated the other characters.

Gull was my biggest problem with the book, which is difficult because she’s the narrator. She’s a reliable narrator in that she’s not given to deluding herself, but I found myself losing patience with her, and with the story. Gull’s role as avatar for the Lady of the Dead means that she’s an oracle, and as such she’s telling the reader the story as she’s telling the other characters pieces of stories. It wasn’t until the last third that Gull took actions on her own that weren’t at the direction of the Lady, and I wished I’d seen more of the contrast between her own life and that of her office as the Lady’s oracle. I thought sometimes she was merely a window through which to view the story just as she was a voice for the Lady of the Dead, and with my experience with other books of historical fiction, I wanted to connect more with her than I could.

Deciding how to grade this book was a challenge, and I almost didn’t review it because it didn’t fit in the existing rubric of romance novel grades assigned in years prior. However, the book held my attention and even when it hurt to read I kept going, through images that twisted my heart and made me shudder. This story leaves an aftermath in the reader.

Graham tackles some huge subjects in this book, such as peace and war, as I’ve mentioned, and what happens when children become parents but still must answer to their own parents, or, as in the case of Neas, be a parent to a society while still growing up and having to grow up quickly. Graham’s writing style is spare - at times I felt like I was reading a novel meant for an elementary reading level for the simplicity of the dialogue - but the imagery left behind after the words is bleak, and meaningful. This book will definitely leave an impression. And it will make you appreciate peace when you have it, and hold it all the tighter for its fragility.

Back in the day, when I taught remedial composition, I had a class that was part kids who didn’t pass the entrance exam into College Writing I, and part kids who had varying levels of learning disability that affected their writing. One girl in particular could orally recite an incredibly erudite argument that synthesized multiple texts and maintained a balanced comparison and contrast of points with a really groovy conclusion. Could she write one word of that recitation down? Nope. Horrible horrible block between her mind and her fingers that was easily overcome when she talked.

Or, to my surprise, when she used instant messenger. The same girl who froze into a complete inability to write could write for damn pages over IM, or in email. I noticed the same was true of many other students, those with learning disabilities that they disclosed to me, and those who didn’t have anything to say about it. I started having office hours half on IM and half actually in my craptastic cubicle. I had a much higher level of interaction making myself available over IM and over email.  IM and email were a lot easier methods for writing and typing, and I received some outstanding writing samples through email or through IM than from the venue that is Microsoft Word.

My thesis for my nonaquired MA was that IM and email are more like speech for the current population of college students and are thought of as “speech typed out” or “Speech through fingers” rather than as writing, and as such could be great tools for composition instructors who struggle with students who say they “cannot write.” My research was going to explore varying methods of communication, and there would have been some very liberal sprinkling of Ong and Derrida in there (side note: I had a graphic novel of Derrida’s Of Grammatology that was so freaking awesome and hilariously weird. I loved it.) and discussions of logocentrism and deconstruction and the inversion of speech over writing and writing over speech. Of course, I was looking at ways to redefine what is speech and what is writing in the context of writing instruction through speech (lecture) and writing practice, to an audience that values one over the other for an entirely different, non-philosophical set of reasons.

Hobb’s assertions that blogging isn’t writing, that it’s written socializing that bleeds away your creativity? Maybe for her, but for every writer? I think I’m a better writer because I blog, because I read the daily writing of other writers, and because I work at it every day. And I think blogging is writing because I don’t talk this much in real life. Not to people I don’t know, anyway. But I also don’t write fiction for public consumption (I do write it occasionally, mostly to remind myself as a reviewer that that shit is hard work) and I don’t blog as a tool to steal time from other writing. But I am a blogger, so blogging is my medium. And while I’m ruminating, can I state again how much I hate the word “blog?”

Those assertions that blogging is a cheap counterpart to writing made me wonder about all the papers I read nitpicking at the value of speech vs. writing. Derrida theorized that speech is valued over writing, just as presence is valued over absence, and then tore up those arguments against writing ... so I’m just fascinated by the ways in which deconstructive analysis could be applied to Hobb’s argument, that blogging isn’t writing. Speech is historically valued over writing, but in this case, it’s writing over blogging: in Hobb’s argument, immediacy of response and feedback coupled with subject matter that is intensely in the present is of lesser value and a distraction from, if not derivative of, fiction that exists apart from and separates the writer and the reader.

Now that I’m kicking the ass of long-sleeping brain cells that used to do deconstructive criticism on anything that wasn’t nailed down, I ask myself, what would Derrida think of blogging? That’d be a hell of a good time right there: return Derrida to life and give him an LJ account. The hilarity ensues. I wonder if he had a blog somewhere. He died in 2004; it’s possible. (Now I’m going to ponder for shits and giggles what his LJ name would have been.)

While I get what Hobb is saying, the assigning of value to writing for novel publication over writing for blogs is irritating. If you blog or bake cookies or just chew your thumbnail instead of respecting a deadline you have professionally, then it’s not the blog’s or the cookie’s or your nail’s fault that you didn’t get your work done. But saying that blogging isn’t writing, to say that…

[c]ompared to the studied seduction of the novel, blogging is literary pole dancing. Anyone can stand naked in the window of the public’s eye, anyone can twitch and writhe and emote over the package that was not delivered, the dinner that burned, the friend who forgot your birthday. That is not fiction. That is life, and we all have one. Blogging condemns us to live everyone else’s tedious day as well as our own.

...positions blogging a running memoir as of lesser value than fiction writing and implies that it’s easy because of it’s sexiness and quick familiarity of use, that life doesn’t matter but fiction does. Obviously, Robb is not marketing memoirs.

The affronted blogger from her take-me-seriously (ha!) hot pink website says, “Say WHAT now?” What say you?

And, since we’re talking twins - Wakefield twins, even - here’s your double dose of “What the crapping damn?”

The folks at Gawker posted the Random House promotional letter that elucidated who on earth those wily folks have updated the Sweet Valley High series for the 2008 reading audience: Elizabeth has a blog. They drive a Wrangler instead of a Fiat. And whereas in 1983, those pesky twins were a “perfect size six,” in 2008 dollars, that’s just too damn fat. Oh, no. Now they’re a “perfect size 4.”

Dammit, my goals of dieting for the year down to a rather unhealthy weight solely to achieve perfection have just moved farther and farther away.

Plus, get a load of the subject tags on the Random House site. Homelessness and poverty? In Sweet Valley? Are they kidding?! That’s a big issue to solve, but if the shining nobility of Elizabeth Wakefield is focused on current issues, homelessness and poverty won’t stand a chance. Just wait until Liz takes on illegal immigration.

You know what? I blame the founding fathers. If only they’d penned an amendment to the Constitution that said “A well satisfied Populace, being necessary to the happiness of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Items to Assist in Orgasms, shall not be infringed,” we wouldn’t have to fight so goddamn hard all the goddamn time for access to our toys and books.

Second Amendment fangirls and boys: Simmer down. I haven’t formed a strong leaning one way or another on gun control. It’s my smart-ass way to make a point. It’s one that’s been made frequently, and one that’s repeated so often, I’m a bit tired of hearing it, even though it’s true: America doesn’t have too much of a problem with guns and dealing death, but bring out the dildoes and OH MY GOD SOCIETY IS OBVIOUSLY FALLING APART BECAUSE OH MY STARS AND GARTERS PEOPLE WANT TO TOUCH THEMSELVES THAT’S JUST DISGUSTING. This time, however, I want to tackle it from another standpoint; instead of focusing on the apparent ease that mainstream America has in accepting the destruction of the body vs. its equally strong discomfort with accepting that people crave sexual pleasure (including minors and kinky freaks--to the surprise and dismay of the Indiana Legislature, is the feeling I get from reading the bill), I want to examine why sexually-oriented material is targeted so persistently and parse some of its ramifications.

Also keep in mind that it’s well past 2 a.m., and I’ve been fighting off the Mongolian Death Flu for the past week. Coherency is going to be a bonus, not something to be expected.

As far as I know, no other types of speech are as persistently and successfully targeted for legislation as obscenity. Passing off creationist bunkum as legitimate science? Sure, why not. Publishing thinly-veiled racist propaganda? Indeed, why the hell not. Books with instructions on how to make bombs--unsound instructions that could blow off a limb or two, even? Hell yes. Hey, people are assholes, and we have minimal interest in legislating assholishness by infringing on free speech rights.

Once we start literally getting into assholes, however--that, apparently, is a silicon toy of another nature entirely. Once there’s talk about “arousing prurient interest” and “protecting the interest of minors,” politicians are gung-ho about policing neighborhood stores for Justine, stroke books and Rabbit Habits.

The traditional argument goes that it’s the community’s right to create an environment that they want, and that it’s only fair for members to adhere to community standards. This, however, doesn’t fly for many other things. I have not heard of community standards being invoked for other things that would presumably affect other people’s health and life choices, like, say, gun ownership (which is Constitutionally protected), or body weight (which isn’t), much less community standards regarding speech in other regards. Thing is, we don’t see serious attempts to come up with laws that define when a book is too violent, or too racist, or too misogynistic to be acceptable--not even using the flimsy “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” guideline. We do see these attempts for sexually-related matters.

I can understand legislating sexual misconduct, but why have governments tried so hard to legislate consensual sexual activity? Does it make sense? Is it effective? Is it even Constitutional, especially if you believe in privacy rights? Starting with Griswold v. Connecticut (a case involving the outlawing of contraceptives), in which the court inferred privacy rights from the “penumbras” of the First, Third, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, stretching to Lawrence v. Texas (this will forever remain The Buttsecks Case in my mind and heart), which invoked the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, the highest levels of the courts have ruled that too much of a hands-on approach to people’s hands-on approaches isn’t kosher. Most recently, in Reliable Consultants, Inc. v. Earle, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to overturn the Texas sex toy ban, citing Lawrence v. Texas:

Just as in Lawrence, the State here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct. The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the State is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification for the statute after Lawrence.

It follows that the Texas statute cannot define sexual devices themselves as obscene and prohibit their sale.⁴¹ Nothing here said or held protects the public display of material that is obscene as defined by the Supreme Court--i.e., the language in Section 43.21(a)(1) of this statute, excluding the words in the provision defining as obscene any device designed or marketed for sexual stimulation. Whatever one might think or believe about the use of these devices, government interference with their personal and private use violates the Constitution.

⁴¹ See State v. Brenan, 772 So.2d 64, 74 (La.2000) (holding that “[t]he legislature cannot make a device automatically obscene merely through the use of labels”); State v. Hughes, 246 Kan. 607, 792 P.2d 1023, 1031 (Kan.1990) (“The legislature may not declare a device obscene merely because it relates to human sexual activity.”)

That’s why HEA 1042 came as a surprise to me. The two parts that raised my eyebrows the hardest were the provisions to protect minors, and the specific focus on S&M paraphernalia.

Where have these people been? Dear lord. Prurient sexual interest of minors? Sadism and masochism? I can imagine the headlines now:

TEENAGERS LOVE BEATING OFF. NEWS AT 11!

PEOPLE APPARENTLY ENJOY SEXUALIZED PAIN, BONDAGE AND RITUALIZED EXERCISES OF SEXUAL POWER. IN OTHER NEWS, THE MARQUIS DE SADE, VENUS IN FURS AND STORY OF O TOTALLY DO NOT EXIST IN THIS UNIVERSE.

I’m big into not reading too much into intentionality, but it’s hard for me to read this piece of legislation and not see a governing body scrabbling hard for an excuse--any excuse--to legislate sexual mores. I mean, shit, Lawrence v. Texas said buttsex between men was OK, and if that doesn’t spell doom in a hairy donut, I don’t know what does. What angles are left? I doubt the legislature is nearly hip enough to know about furries, so they turned to the two that still manage to get a rise from people: kids and S&M. Keep in mind that this is all rampant speculation on my part--I haven’t checked the legislative history or debates surrounding this particular bill--but I can’t help but think those are the only reasons these two specific provisions were included.

Ultimately, what strikes me about this bill--as it does all the other bills that attempt to legislate consensual sexual conduct--is its futility. Its definition of “sexually explicit material” is so broad that it easily runs afoul of First Amendment concerns, and the folderol regarding minors and S&M? You can attempt to legislate kids masturbating furiously to their parents’ porn, or adults masturbating furiously to porn by pretending you’re attempting to legislate kids masturbating furiously to their parents’ porn, or people whipping each other to get off. You can try all you want, but not only are these sorts of measures ineffective and well-nigh impossible to enforce effectively, it’s really not the place of the government to do so--and the tide of judicial opinion seems to be in agreement with me on this.

Sarah: Ah, one of the seven signs of retirement for an aging CG erotica cover model: when your vahooey is so stretched out that fire departments park their hook & ladder trucks in it.

Candy: Gives a compelling new visual variant to the old “like throwing a pencil down the Holland Tunnel” comparison, doesn’t it?

Candy: Every time I look at this cover, the smooth jazz starts playing, and then you find out that the woman is actually this guy’s long-lost sister and they’ve been engaging in accidental incest for the last three seasons of the show, and all of this came to light only because their mother woke up out of a 10-year coma. Man, the things they do for sweeps week.

Sarah: Behold the powers of my divination! This man is not thinking about sex. Or secrets. He’s thinking about basketball, specifically as to whether he can use her head to shoot 3’s.

Sarah: She walks, a hooker in the night,
the moon a torso in the skies.
with floating handcuffs to her right
and methamphetamine in her eyes.

Candy: OK, goddammit, Sarah wins this one. There’s no way I can match that.

This is going to sound so snobby, but I’ve been in a few critique groups before, in various place and in a few different sizes, and I’ve hated the experience. There’s always someone who goes on at length when it’s your turn to be critiqued and without fail makes it all about themselves and their story in progress - and then there’s the critique that does little to address the faults I’ve asked for help with. I get all kinds of comments that make no difference but few that actually help me where I’ve asked for help.

Please don’t think I am not listening. I am. I mean, I do listen. But often the input I’ve received isn’t applicable to the historical romance I’m writing, and sometimes, I think, it’s delivered with disdain for my chosen genre.

I live too far from a local RWA chapter, and there are so many online groups to choose from I’m totally lost. What should I do, post a personal ad? “Sardonic, witty writer working on historical romance seeks critique partner. Must be willing to set and adhere to firm deadlines and page numbers, offer honest but thoughtful critique - only one use of the word ‘awkward’ per email, please - and provide motivation and encouragement as well. I promise to do the same, and do so with my complete attention to your work in exchange for your equal attention to mine. Use of the following characters in email prohibited: ~ * # : { }.”

I know I sound like a raging asshole, but I’m having a hard time finding a romance critique partner who wants to work one-on-one with a goal toward publication and career, not as a hobby that’s fun in addition to lots of email chat about pets and kids and tv. I have plenty of friends. I need a working partner and don’t know where to go.

Of course, I just read over that and I really, really do sound like a complete ass. Maybe this is a lost cause and I’m better off alone.

Yours in bitching,

S.A

Ah, yes, the hobbyist vs. the professional aspirant. And the overuse of cutesy characters in email messages. I’ve heard from a few aspiring writers of romance that separating the serious writers from the people who want to say they’re “working on a novel” can be a challenge, even within RWA chapters and other writing organizations that have excellent reputations.

As I am not a Professional Writer of Fiction, I honestly don’t know where S.A. might go for a critique partner who considers writing romance “Serious Business.” What would your advice be?

My advice is rather pithy, I’m afraid: keep your eyes and ears open. Spread the word among writers you know and trust who may already have critique partners, and let them know who and what you’re looking for. And above all: don’t compromise. If you are serious about your writing, and you are serious about wanting to write romance professionally, you owe it to yourself to find someone whom you think takes writing as seriously as you do. In other words, six thousand people might think you an asshole for laying out what you’re looking for, but there’s probably one - or more than one - who is looking for you in similar terms.

That said, I have heard that some writers are better left to their own devices. Some folks work best in a vacuum. And yes, while you have absolutely the right goals in mind to ask for