Arrant Nonsense

You know, I see stuff like this (caution: that link is not remotely SFW as it describes a sex act in graphic and somewhat horrifying detail--I mean, it's not even a well-written sex scene. Your sex scene should not make me either giggle or go WTF, especially not at the same time. Consider this a spew warning, because I see you all running off to read it. I'll wait), and it gives me hope. If a woman who writes the following descriptor:

The ex-world champion boxer-turned-music mogul

can get an agent and a four-book deal, that gives me hope that I can too. Admittedly, it's not my genre and we perhaps have higher standards than, well, that, but still.

I mean, seriously, if I wrote a descriptor like that, my Hubby, my Writing Buddy, and all of You would hit me over the head with a style manual and a copy of Stephen King's "On Writing." Her dashes aren't even in the right place. I don't think. *squints* It's...hard to tell, actually. Regardless, that is an awkward, awkward construction.

I can see it now:

Ben, a werewolf ex-Army Ranger turned computer hacker and otherwise jack-of-all-trades for his PI boss, kissed his waitress/artist/aspiring-actress wife Janni goodbye as he headed out the door for another surveillance job.

*THWAP*

Yes, I get that Dan Brown gets away with this. That's because he's Dan Brown and there's no accounting for taste.

BAD WRITER. NO BOOZE.

It's Friday and I finally have actual new words in the novelthing.

Yeah, Ben just tried to commit suicide. Again. In his sleep, this time. The poor little sod. And now he's not sure he actually wants Janni to find him, because he thinks he might be broken beyond repair and doesn't want her to waste her energy trying to put him back together again (for the third time). Because there comes a point.

And this, I think, is why he ultimately takes off, after he gets home, with a Glock loaded with silver bullets.

In other news, the Harlequin cluster-foxtrot continues apace. The RWA, MWA, and SFWA have all reacted, well, unkindly, to what I'm referring to as HarHo and the predatory practice of pointing rejected authors in that direction in the rejection email. Part of my problem with this is that they're talking out of both sides of their mouths on the issue. On the one hand, they're telling the rejected writer, "Jump on in, the water's fine, you'll be 'published' by us and we'll watch your sales and yadda yadda yadda," making it seem as if they're going to be shelved with the Big Girls on bookstore shelves. And on the other, they're telling their established writers, "LOL, no, it's not our branding, no one will get you confused with those amateurs over there, pft."

Which, okay, it's not their branding now--but until the RWA said "Hey, waitaminute, vanity publishing means you're not actually a real publisher, money flows to the author, remember?" they were quite happy calling it "Harlequin Horizons" and would have continued blithely on if they'd not been called on their shenanigans.

If anything actually good comes out of this, I hope that people will figure out the difference between self-publishing and vanity publishing. Self-publishing can be a viable business model for a niche market, or even for getting a foot in the door (which, don't count on it, but it could happen; on Discworld a million-to-one shot is a sure thing, after all, and people get struck by lightning and win the lottery all the time). *waves at the handsome and talented Larry Correia* Vanity publishing is throwing your money down a rat-hole. And the rats are hungry.

Here, have a link salad, for the curious:
Smart Bitches
Scalzi
My post at Clairvoyant Wank
Fandom Wank (which has a great link roundup)
Lee Goldberg (who is actually making sense this time, go, him)
PubRants
Stacy Boyd wondering what all the fuss is about, and is dismayed that HarHo met with such disapprobation! BRB, LOLing 4ever.

And, I'm done. Good grief.

Congrats to the handsome and talented bradtorgerson for winning third place in the 3rd Quarter Writers of the Future contest. *blows party horn* UTAH REPRESENT, YO.

In other news, the agent hunt continues apace. I apparently need a synopsis now. Oh, god.

In other other news, I've tweaked the query yet again. I'd stop doing that if it wouldn't keep getting better every time I did it. Grawr.

Also, the shitstorm generated by Harlequin adding a vanity publishing arm to its stable continues apace, and I'm going to call my post about it at Clairvoyant Wank a rousing success.

• flipped a rejected story
  
• gone grocery shopping
  
• edited the last paragraph of the querything again into something even more awesome
  
• posted a thing at Clairvoyant Wank about Harlequin being delisted at RWA over their new vanity imprint
  
• posted a pissy comment at fandomsecrets

So. Why do I feel like I haven't done anything today?

*looks at list*

Well. Because I haven't, really. *headdesks repeatedly*

I love Robert Downey, Jr. If he's in a movie, I will go see it, no questions asked. He's one of those actors guaranteed to get my butt in a seat. This is not a secret.

I also love vampires. As long as they don't frakking sparkle in the sunshine. Because that's just wrong. This, also, is not a secret.

HOWEVER.

Anne Rice will always be conflated in my mind with the "you're interrogating this from the wrong perspective and straining my Dickensian principles to the max" wank that resulted when she got in a pissing war with some reviewers at Amazon. She strikes me as having an overinflated sense of her own writing. Everyone needs an editor, Anne. Even you. I have never picked up one of her books, nor do I intend to.

THUS, I do NOT want to see RDJ as Lestat, regardless of his fitness for the role. If he plays it, I will go, and hold my nose, because Lord knows I've seen him in some godawful movies (US Marshals, I'm looking at you, and yeah, Singing Detective, don't try to hide behind US Marshals, your butt's hanging out).

If Robert was to play a vampire, I'd rather see him as Jack Fleming, p_n_elrod's vampire private investigator. Because that would be a cool period piece (1930's! Speakeasies!), and I like Jack. Jack is cool. If you haven't read any of these, you should run out and find "Bloodlist," the first one.

And I'll stop babbling now, and write. I was hoping to break 100K today.

Seriously.

I've made a conscious decision not to get involved in the current wank going on. Mainly because I'm not particularly outraged and my first reaction to the cover when Realms of Fantasy hit my mailbox was "Ooo, she's pretty." Does this make me a bad feminist? Probably. Do I care? Considering all my other political stances that supposedly make me a bad feminist, I'm going to go with "no."

Of course, posting about it probably means that I just involved myself. Erm.

In other news, I spent ten minutes today turning RDJ's hair in the color part of this wallpaper blond. Like I said. Pathetic. Robert doesn't even play Ben in my head anymore, nor does Ben smoke. Gaaaaaaaaah. (If anyone wants to see it, I'll upload it. But, like I said, pathetic agilebrit is pathetic.)

In other other news, I'm discovering that I suck at the Comfort part of Hurt/Comfort. Tearing a character apart? Easy peasy. Putting them back together afterwards? Not so much. This may be because of the whole psychological thing of it being simpler to break a person than it is to un-break them. Ben's crack about "years of therapy" isn't far off the mark.

Another part of my problem with this is that I'm at the "I want to throw it off a bridge and possibly follow it down" stage of writing it. All it is, is one relentless hurt-fest. I'm terribly afraid that it sucks big green mossy rocks and that there's no way Ben comes out of it anything like whole. I'm 86K words into it, the endgame isn't making itself felt, and now I'm wondering if it ever will because it's horrible anyway and my subconscious knows that.

At the same time I can't stop writing it.

*bangs head on keyboard. repeatedly*

Apropos of this post: The other thing that's rage-inducing about the whole debate about warnings in fanfiction is this.

The anti-warnings crowd shouts that "rape victims should take responsibility for their own reading." And then they do, by compiling a list of authors who don't warn. See trigger_fence.

Do said authors applaud them for "taking responsibility"?

NO. They whine about being "singled out." They cry about being "blacklisted." And they report the community for "abuse." Which is HILARIOUS (in the way that's really not) coming from these people and considering the subject matter.

God. If you're not going to warn, then when people create a tool for rape survivors to help them avoid their triggers, don't get all up in their grill about it. You were the one who told them to "take responsibility." They are. Shut up and deal. Kind of like you told them to.

You know, I'm not a rape survivor. I've never been abused. I have no idea why I'm taking this so damn personally. But I am. And I guess venting on LJ is my way of handling it.

Gyah. I'm going to go hurt Ben now. Because that's also my way of "handling it."

Um. For anyone stumbling across this who doesn't know me, Ben is a character in my current novel-in-progress and My Favorite Punching Bag™, not a real person. 911 calls are not necessary.

People need to stop being stupid on the internet. The first one is lulzworthy, but the second one is rage-inducing, and I need to stop reading it lest I do something else truly horrible to Ben to compensate for the fact that there's no way to actually smack someone through the internet.

Okay, seriously, rape victims are getting their ENTITLEMENT all over FANFIC AUTHORS, whose ARTISTIC INTEGRITY is going to be VIOLATED by posting a WARNING for their RAPEFIC? They're shitting me with this, right? Right?

I mean, come on. Even if you're not going to post a specific warning, something for "triggering content" or "every shade of Wrong" is appropriate. Toss the victims a bone, eh? If you want to keep your "artistic integrity" *chokes* intact, think of it as advertising rather than "warning."

Also, I liked the cookie analogy:

And you know what, even if they were remotely equivalent, let's say you're at a party and have a tray of peanut butter chip cookies.

Ten people have no food allergies and will eat your cookies no matter what.

Ten people have some allergies and just won't eat anything without an ingredients list.

Ten more people absolutely fucking love peanuts but are not going to eat your cookies, because they don't know there are peanuts in the cookies.

And one person will eat your cookies and go into shock because almost everything else at the party with peanuts has a GIANT LABEL SAYING 'PEANUTS' on it.

Congratulations, you've just fucked up an otherwise excellent party.

Fanfic is Serious Business, I guess. And I'll just mop up and unlock my caps key. There, that's better.

Oh, hi, Ben...

I kind of hate this paragraph. Show, don't tell, right? And there's a whole lotta tellin' here.

Also, OOC. "I don't talk about it. Please don't ask." I don't see not!Harry opening up to not!Harmony like this, the first time he's seen her in five or so years. And honestly? I don't see her asking him about it either. They both know how close he just now was to eating his gun. Making him relive the horror that he went through Over There would be...counterproductive. At least.

So...yeah. *excises entire 'graph* Of course, now I have to figure out what to replace it with.

In other news, I'm thinking about going to a Plus Account so I can have more icons. Six just...isn't enough. Today I had perfect occasion (in answer to a now-deleted comment--GEE, WONDER WHY THEY DELETED THEIR COMMENT. I'm glad I quoted the relevant part) to use the "urge to bitchslap...rising" one I made last night, and couldn't because I don't have enough spaces.

So. I puts it to you, mah LJ peeps. Ads: Annoying, or not? Or do you have Firefox and thus don't care, like me? Why, yes, I have recently downloaded the Awesomeness that is Firefox and am kicking myself for not doing it years ago. And because of this, I'm just about to the point where I could live with ads, if I could get the extra icon spaces. But, lo, I am considerate, and don't wish to inflict the ads on my friends.

On the other hand, I've used LJ for a good many years now without contributing financially to it in any way, and I feel somewhat guilty about it. So...I don't even know.

Of course, I could just bite the damn bullet and blow the $20 on a Paid Account. Because, really.

ETA: I have "upgraded" to a Plus Account. I can haz moar iconz!

DONE.

I realized today that I'd better put something in there about what wolfsbane does in my 'verse and why the Bad Guys didn't use it on not!Harry when they had him. But, you know, they've got him tied down by eleven points with a twelfth they can bring into play across his throat if need be, so using a net woven from wolfsbane to stop him Changing isn't actually necessary. Especially considering the side effects. *evil laughter* Why yes. This is me, using not!Harry as My Favorite Punching Bag™ again.

Because I'm planning on using this stuff in the next thing (if there is a next thing), so I'd better plan for it in this one, otherwise people would be saying "But why didn't BadGuyDoc use it on him when she's at the bleeding edge of what makes vamps and weres tick?"

I also fixed the defib paddles issue, and the issue with the thing that made my "brilliant" doctor look like a frelling moron at first glance. I've also cleared up some stuff about the industrial espionage, although that...may still need work. Strike that "may;" it definitely does need work.

And I'm still pondering the timing of not!Harry's captivity in Afghanistan. Three years, which is where it is now? Or two...

I've been thinking about doing a Sherlock Holmes post with heavy spoilers from the March script (which I have!). There is so much wank about this movie...

In fact, there was wank all over the place today, from fandom to politics and also encompassing both. And I'm firmly keeping my mouth shut on the fandom part because I suspect that my opinion will be *cough* unpopular. Suffice to say that all this SRS BZNS stuff just had me sitting back and shaking my head.