Reasons For Moving

Literary fiction gets kinky

"For a first novel, what do you have other than the cover? No one has heard of me," [Melanie Abrams] said two days later over coffee at a shop near her childhood home in Woodland Hills. Eight months pregnant, Abrams wore a demure wrap dress and thick-knit sweater and donned a soft brown bob, looking nothing like the writer of a bondage-spiked book.

And so Abrams was worried that, as a first-time novelist, she'd be seen as a "sex writer," with the reader's lone gratification as her primary purpose. She tried to strike a balance, she said, by focusing on Josie's complexities and avoiding pornographic cue words of the four-letter kind, aiming to "give pleasure in a couple ways" -- literary and sensual.

"We don't go into reading a literary novel with hopes of being titillated," she said. "It's unfortunate, because books are supposed to be read for pleasure."

"You can't determine what you're going to write," she said. "Maybe you're repelled by it, maybe you're attracted by it. For whatever reason, it's yours."

"I don't know if you can write literary fiction these days and pretend sex doesn't exist," [Susie] Bright said.

Susannah Breslin, ReverseCowgirlblog.blogspot.com blogger and author of the short-story collection "You're a Bad Man, Aren't You?," compared the highbrow publishing world to "the frigid girl at the party who's not sure if she wants to jump into the orgy."

She cited the difficulty of writing sex well as one reason that racy literary fiction doesn't always make it past publishers. "Sex is so not about language. It's the body, it's primal, it's passion," Breslin said.

The problems of language may be why the divide between literary sex and erotica is so stark -- beautiful or intellectual language may not be titillating language, and if climax is the goal, even the best writers' words can't compete with an amateur's quivering camera. 

All that can make erotica writers sound defensive. "Americans don't like their sex and their art mixed together," said D.L. King, editor of the review site EroticaRevealed.com and a writer of BDSM fiction (it encompasses bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism). "Erotica writers are still treated like the bottom of the barrel."

Remember Dream Agent? Dream Agent fell off the face of the earth. To be truthful, it wasn't so much Dream Agent and Dream Agency but for clarity here, that's the term I used.

So since my second follow-up e-mail went unanswered, I decided I had nothing to lose by contacting the agent whose name is on the letterhead. I told her that I'd queried this guy, that he asked for a full and that I never heard from him after that. Told her I contacted him twice since. I asked if he was still there. I asked if not, should I query the agency again? And I explained why I'm keen on the agency (they represent a certain author whose work I like). I sent this e-mail this morning.

This afternoon -- a Saturday -- she wrote back and apologized. She said that he left the agency about 6 weeks ago (which is after my January follow-up). She also told me to send her my query and the first 100 pages. So I prepped it tonight and it'll be on its way. She told me she'd be out of town for a while but that she'd get back to me upon her return. Even if she passes, hey, I know someone's definitely going to read it this time ;)

I still haven't heard from Dream Agent #2 and that's the only other place I have an active query.

However, Simmons says that great writing, on its own, isn't a selling point for publishers. "You can sell a good story, but you can't sell great writing," he says. "It's the kiss of death to put the label 'literary' on something."

Source

As the lit fic writers in the world begin to say "Did I say 'lit fic?' I meant 'mainstream.' Yeah, that's it."

I'm working on this story for the Apex anthology and I'll need to out my monster: he's a variation on chiang-shih, which is a Chinese vampire.

So Mari e-mails today & says:

I need everyone to turn in a plot synopsis by September 15th. This is just to make sure we don't have thirteen "creature from the bottom of an abandoned mine devours Harlan County" stories.

So I wrote back and said:

Well, I have the creature and the abandoned mine but it doesn't devour anything. Should I change it? ;)

Apparently I have dibs on a Chinese vampire hanging out in an eastern Kentucky mine. But you know, by definition we are naturally going to gravitate to the mines so I don't know what they expect. And sci-fi set in rural Kentucky? Short of dropping in aliens, I don't know what people are going to do on that front (and apparently there is an "alien in a mine" story already).

In any case, I Googled "chiang shih" to see what turned up and I found out that the head of the mechanical engineering department at my alma mater is named Chiang Shih. Beware!

I finished the first draft of a story for the Apex anthology Mari invited me to write for. I grabbed a copy of the latest Apex from my local B&N and haven't read it yet. I need to know if I'm going to have to shoehorn some SF into this story. I think that, up to a point, horror writing is fantasy writing. Sure not if the horror is something grounded and real but once you start throwing in supernatural creatures, otherwordly occurrences, etc. you have fantasy elements.

Now I don't know how you move from horror to SF, the marriage of which is the backbone of Apex. Thing is, the story has to be (1) set in rural Kentucky and (2) horror. That's great. I can handle that. But how do I get SF in there? I think what I have is going to have to be SF enough (which is zero).

I'm going to rearrange some things and I think I need to expand some of the end. Then I have to go back and cut it. First draft is pushing 8k and Mari said they want it around 5k. No worries. I cut "Jacqueleine" from 10k to 5k.

It was weird writing something that has such an unbelievable key element (the horor/supernatural part). I tried to base it in reality and I mixed it with a little mystery so I think that, with a built-in audience already suspending disbelief b/c of the nature of the stories, I won't need to explain or justify the unusual elements. I admit that horror is not my thing but I write a great deal about horribleness and the real-world horrible things that people do. Plus if you write well and tell a good story, your goal is met. I think once I get this cleaned up and polished, I'll have met that goal.

I also got a rejection on my Cole story but it was a "not this but send us more of your stuff" rejection, which is good. So I submitted the Cole story to a print journal. And my query for RFM is still out there (still never heard from Dude #1).

Next thing to do is to write the May AB article (it's about writing communities; I've been joining a bunch so I can spy). Then I might either do a quick run-through of RFM or start working on Nine again. The Apex-antho story isn't due until about next March. What can I say? I like to have a nice cushion before a deadline,

Can you write a mystery in (now less than) 48 hours?

The Spring 2008 Three Cheers & A Tiger short fiction contest is now open.

Remember: This is a mystery.

Word count: between 1850-1950

Theme: http://www.toasted-cheese.com/images/3c1-2008-crocus.jpg (The First Flower)

Send your entry, titled "Three Cheers and a Tiger Contest Entry" to threecheers08[at] toasted-cheese.com

Deadline is 48 hours from the time of this post. (5 PM ET Sunday)

Further details here: http://www.toasted-cheese.com/ezine/contest.htm#3cheers

Remember: NO ATTACHMENTS!

I'm a judge so if you do it, don't tell me anything about your story. If you have questions, you can post them at TC. Spread the word & have fun.

I just sent a new query. Maybe I'm not supposed to pore over every single agent, research the agency, figure out if the agent might actually like my stuff, etc. but I really do pick and choose the agents I'm querying. So I think sometime in the next 10-20 years, I'll be able to exhaust the querying process for RFM and switch over to WS.

I never heard back from the one who still has the full via e-mail. I wrote and asked him if he could tell me that he got it & never replied to that either. So I don't know to be passive-aggressive and sit back & wait in a case like that or get all up in his grill. I think I'm going to do some more querying and then if nothing pans out, I'll send a brand new e-mail asking if his silence means he's passing or what the deal is. *sigh*

Ah, querying. ;)