the curious case of filtering

I have an English degree. I've been a professional writer for 15 years. I edited for 12. I've never heard the word filtering pop up so much in the world of fiction editing as I have in the last year, and I have to admit, I'm sick to death of it.

There's an article here that describes what filtering is. Linky!

I like this article because it explains what filtering is but it also explains how sometimes "filter" words are necessary. You see, I don't subscribe to the all or nothing rules of writing theory. If you write deep POV, sometimes the only way for a reader to learn something is because the main character heard it or saw it. Sometimes the writer deliberately chooses to filter information because the POV character is unreliable, possibly lying to himself and others. Or sometimes the author just wants you to know that you as the reader and seeing what the character sees not, just some random, disconnected act.

That being said, I do think that an author needs to examine the instances of the words heard and saw and felt, just to see if they're necessary. Sometimes we find we don't need them at all.

Then again, sometimes we really fell like we do (grins)

XXOO

Julia

dreary weather means good writing time

It's windy and cold and gross. After days of 70 and sunny it's 46 and so windy it's whistling out there. Whoosh, bang, grrr.

Means good writing though. Added a couple thousand words to a reprint I want to put out. Am working on a men in uniform call for ARE. Annnnd one for TEB. O.O

Did y'all know we have a newsletter? Me and the wife, BA Tortuga. We do giveaways every month.

Go sign up. Clicky linky!

XXOO

Julia

so many stories, so little time

what I'm working on now

desperately trying to hit my deadline on my Dreamspun Desire due the end of the month and Desert Dragons 4 due last week

a call for ARE- writing a historical mmf menage

I scrapped my latest project for Samhain. Do I write a historical or a paranormal? Werebears or rakehells? Y'all choose for me. Needs to be a m/m so I actually sell some copies and they keep pubbing me ;)

XXOO

Julia

the myth of a homogeneous experience

During a discussion of my last blog post on FB, the assertion came out that the "general you", in this case, a women writing m/m, tends to write "flat, two dimensional characters who in no way resemble gay men".

Now, I'm not going to get into the tired old argument about cross gender writing and whether men should write women or women should write men or what sexual orientation has to do with it. If writers only wrote what they were or what they knew personally, most of the great books and the lion's share of bad ones would never have hit the bookstores, brick and mortar or virtual.

No, what I'm having thoughts about today is the idea of the homogeneous gay man. Or the typical lesbian. Or the typical man or woman.

I'm terrible at sweeping generalizations in everyday life. "Those bitches!" I'll holler at the TV if I'm unlucky enough to see a housewife show when I'm clicking through late night channels, "Oh my God, it's the lesbian prison women! Because all women in prison go lesbian!."

But in my heart of hearts, I know those generalizations are full of caca. There is no such thing as the gay experience, or the lesbian experience or the Disney experience.

There's just people.

See, this is why I was so disappointed in the argument presented to me as, "Well, you have some valid points but I'm person X so I know and you don't, so there." To that particular person, my characters (the general me or specific me, take your pick, as I'm sure he did) may not in any way resemble a gay man.

But to, say, my friend Steve, who's ex-Navy and who had more sex with Marines than he could even remember on any given day, my "sex-crazed maniac erotic romance" resonates with his experience so much that he has me send him my books to beta so he can suggest ever more acrobatic sex. Or there's my old friend Scott, who went to Halloween one year as Pan, and who loves my werewolves and vampires because he's a gamer and thinks those things should exist, damn it.

I have readers who love my contemporaries because the men are just dudes who love dudes, and I have readers who hate that because they want their gay men to be sensitive and open with their feelings. One way or the other, someone may love what I write, and may say "OMG yes that's just like I see things and feel things" or they may hate what I do and say, "No, that's not my experience".

That's totally fine. That's what writing is. But to suggest that because I don't share some mystical connection or mind meld about a whole group of people because I'm not a member of a secret club? Well, that's just an argument you can't win with me, because I know such a thing doesn't exist, God knows, I know a lot of short haired, flannel wearing, clog stomping dykes. That doesn't mean that all lesbians dress, act, or feel the same way I do, and I hope I would never present us all as a shared hive mind.

In other news, it snowed! We got our Thanksgiving snow early!

Now, that's something to be tickled about

XXOO

Julia

writing on days I don't want to

Some days I just don't feel like writing.

Take today, for instance. BA and I try to get up at 7 am so we can start writing days. We write from 7 to noon, and from 12:45 to 5 ish. A lot of times 3:30 to 5 is spent in edits, social media and more, but sometimes if one of us is in hard deadline, we keep going.

Today I wanted to sleep until 9 or 10. I wanted pancakes for breakfast. (I settled for a Jimmy Dean eggwhite and turkey sausage bowl). And today I want to work on a miniature crazy quilt for a dollhouse and watch Sherlock.

But, since I write for a living, I'm here at my computer, alternating fiction with blog posts. Romance is, well, romantic, but writing is work. My wife always answers the "How do you deal with writer's block?" by explaining that the mortgage has to be paid. That's so true. Even writers have days where they want to call in sick or disinterested.

So, I'll put off my crazy quilt until 5 and write about moose shifters.

Because I'm a writer, and that's how I roll.

XXOO

Julia

my favorite things about yesterday

I learned all about Finnish silver hallmarks. Not for a book, but for selling a pair of earrings on ebay. Thanks to the detailed markings I know it's .916 grade silver, it was made in Helsinki for export, the designer's name, and the company. Also they were made in 1957. So yeah, if you have a burning passion for Kalevala Koru, hit me up. I have a pair if 1957 screwback earrings in an in an unusual pattern.

My wife and I sat and talked at dinner about how we came to fandom and what fandoms were our faves. Sure, we know all this already, but I love our rambling dinner conversations. I can sit and listen to BA talk for hours about how she and Darth Velma used to go to cons in Santa Barbara together. Then I regale her with my fannish horror story about getting to Baltimore to meet an online friend only to have her flake at the last minute and screw me out of a place to stay and a hot meal on a really shitty rainy night in Maryland. Suffice to say we did not remain friends.

edits on Desert Dragons 2. Hoo. I have a new editor, and she's not read the El Ops or DD1. Ack. This series just can't stand alone at this point, and I'm struggling to add the backstory she wants me to without making the story sound weird and pedantic and repetitive. Such are the problems of tight 3rd person specific. If a character isn't thinking it, I can't put it on the page, so huge chunks of exposition don't happen.

I needed to knit something. I started a new scarf. I don't get that urge as often as BA, or as author friends like Amy Lane or Ariel Tachna, but I love a chunky yarn and a seed stitch.

Weekend, ho!

Julia

romance is a wonderful genre!

I love romance books.

I love the happy ending. I love the crazy big misunderstandings. I love the amnesia, secret twin, lost heir stories. I love historicals with lots of heaving and throbbing.

I adore it all.

I'm baffled by romance writers who don't read romance.

Yep, I said it.

Never let someone make you ashamed of what you read. Never act ashamed of what you write. Glory in it. Put sprinkles and whipped cream on top of it. Screw politically correct and author ennui. Don't be a hipster about it. Love is worth reveling in, and so is the fiction it creates.

I love me genre. *sparkles*

XXOO

Julia

the best job ever!

That's right. I have the best job ever. Ev-ar.

I love writing. It gives me a happy. It also gives me an excuse to be nosy and observe people, as well as eavesdropping and speculating...

Ahem.

I love my job.

That is all.

XXOO

Julia

Who wouldn't eavesdrop on them?

All the words, aka overheard at our house at 1am

So, the wife has been reading an FBI serial killer suspense first novel by a man who shall remain nameless. Not a romance author. She got the book via Bookbub (OMG Bookbub is a amazing). Anyhoo. She finished it last night, and was incoherent with fury.

Apparently there's a graphic sex scene with a virtual stranger 2/3 of the way though, completely out of character. Then at the end, the villain spends ten pages monologuing and the main character lets him, even though she's a savvy, genius IQ agent.

Wife was bitching about this, saying you could hear the self-indulgence, and I said, "Basically, this is the author wanking off to his own words."

The wife says, "Yes! Here are all my beautiful words. All the words. Look at all the words I know and the way I can put them together. Did you know I know all the words?" The rant came with much arm flailing reminiscent of vogue-ing.

Yeah. That's what happens sometimes. As writers, we get enamored of our own words. We get a real happy putting them together, and that sometimes comes at the expense of the story. We sometimes go the other way, too, stripping stories down until they're too spare, with not enough of the pretty turns of phrase.

This is where revision comes in. Betas. Editors.

This is also where standing up to an editor comes in. What if that completely gratuitous sex scene was suggested by an editor to broaden the readership of this thriller? Sometimes it's up to the author to say, "No, that's out of character. The love of her life, who she watched be horribly tortured and killed after she was viciously raped, only died six months ago."

We all hope we don't indulge ourselves too much and lead ourselves astray.

That doesn't keep us from wanting to use all the words!

XXOO

Julia

Writing away

Most of you probably know my dad was just diagnosed with lung cancer. Between that, moving, and BA's uncle Bob passing away, we've had a rough month and a half. Writing has suffered some. I had a Changeling book that was meant to come out in May that will probably be June or July now. Cereus got put on hold while BA and I stopped co-writing for a couple of weeks. And my Diamond Birthstone for Torquere didn't make it in April. Still, I'm happy to report that like a turtle, I am slowly getting back into the swing. I got werewolves and weretigers aplenty, and Cereus is getting done inch by inch lalala hugs to all Have a good day! XXOO Julia

writing hard

been writing hard to hit deadlines, so I'm a little behind on blogging :(

have a safe and happy holiday weekend, y'all

Julia

typing

Typing is hard.

Oh, I know for most of y'all it's not. I'm not from the Stone Age, but I was the last class in my high school who didn't have mandatory computer classes, though, and I never took a formal typing class.

So, while I type I average 45 wpm, which is above average, I typo a lot. A lot a lot. I have to be able to see the keys once in awhile to make sure I'm doing the right thing. Sometimes this is a huge handicap for me.

Grins. Then I think how it used to be before the computer, when I was a tween and young teen. Even with the electronic typewriter, which would do a line at a time and spell-check, it was a nightmare.

So maybe I'm glad I'm typing now instead of back in the day of the manual typewriter...