I’ve read a number of good posts on the decision by Lambda Literary Foundation to essentially limit their awards to GLBT writers, and I guess I want to get my own thoughts out there, for what they’re worth.

While I think sexuality is a continuum and very few people are totally ’straight’ or totally ‘gay,’ I consider myself primarily heterosexual, and I certainly have not had the experiences that a lesbian woman would have had. This means that when I’m writing gay characters, I have to do research and draw from my imagination and empathy, and it’s possible that the resulting fiction may be less authentic than a comparable book written by a lesbian or gay man. I’ve seen that argued – that the awards have to change because straight writers can’t portray the gay experience as well as gay writers can.

And if so, that ought to be apparent to the Lambda judges, who are, presumably, members of the GLBT community.

I’ve seen it argued that there’s so much crap written by female M/M writers that it’s necessary to limit the contestants to members of the community. Um, yeah. Because crappy shapeshifting were-tiger slash always gets nominated. Or not. Seriously, badly written crap that fetishizes gay men is not going to be shortlisted for the Lambdas no matter what the sexual orientation of the author is any more than girl-on-girl porn for straight guys is going to be winning any awards.

We come back to the judges, who are members of the community. I have faith that they’re able to identify outstanding works that portray authentic GLBT themes and characters. If that is the goal of the awards.

But apparently, it’s not. Apparently the goal is to support and nurture writers who identify as GLBT. That’s not a bad goal – actually, it’s a fine goal, but it does represent a shift in priorities, and I think the better way for LLF to have handled this would be to announce the new priorities BEFORE submissions began.

I’ve also seen discussion using the analogy of race or gender. Should men be eligible for awards for women’s fiction, for example? I think that depends on the stated goal of the award. If it’s to honor women writers, then no. If it’s to honor books that accurately depict the experience of women, then as long as the book does that, I don’t care if it’s written by the biggest misogynist in the world. I judge a book by what is in that book, period. But that’s just me, and I recognize LLF’s right to structure their awards any way they please. I just think literary awards ought to be first and foremost about the literature.

Finally, LLF used the whole Amazonfail thing as an argument for their position, but Amazon did not target queer writers. They targeted queer-themed writing.

A new plot bunny has come to live at my house.  He’s Russian, and he’s making me research Faberge eggs.  Oh, the horror, having to look at tons of pictures of exquisite works of jewelry art! Okay, I’m also having to research bombs, which is less exciting, and makes me worry that I’m going to end up on some Homeland Security list.

Seriously, I’m very excited about this – it’s one of those times where the more I research, the more my plot falls into place,  almost as if it’s meant to be.   Without going into too much detail, my protagonist Alexei is an up and coming jeweler with Faberge who catches the eye of a cynical nobleman and gets drawn into the world of the aristocracy.  Unfortunately, his older brother is a dedicated Bolshevik who is more than willing to use Alexei to advance the revolution.  Drama (and a bit of sex) ensues.

One thing I’ve already learned – the Russians had a fairly enlightened attitude about homosexuality back then, at least compared to the rest of Europe.  This is going to be fun!

One of the things I’m doing while I’m waiting to submit the manuscript (in addition to working a ton of extra hours) is trying to come up with a title. I don’t really like my working title, and titles in general have never come easy for me.

I see other books’ titles and they always (mostly) seem so perfect – the ones I’m looking at on the book cart here at the library are: Heretic, The Villain, The Ranch. Simple. Basic. You get an idea of what the book might be about (a heretic, a villain, a ranch).

Or titles taken from lines in the book. To Kill a Mockingbird, brilliant. Or from the theme – Gone with the Wind.  Or character names – Rebecca. *sighs* All the good ones are taken.

One thing for certain, though. I will NEVER title any book I write like this: Title: A Novel.

A Novel.  Well, la-di-da, isn’t that pretentious? You never see genre fiction titled this way – I guess mystery, romance, and SF readers are smart enough to know that what they’re holding in their hands is a novel, not an aardvark.

First, I want to totally apologize to Bruce and Annette, who both left insightful comments on the Finished Novels page that I somehow managed to miss till now. Pathetic.

I’m on vacation just now – am actually writing this in the car using my husband’s mobile broadband card. I’m waiting for the book to come back from the reader (not a nag, sweetie, just a status report – take your time!), and am starting to think about what I want to work on next. I have a lot of novels in progress, but I’m considering taking on something completely new. Possibly a straight historical – I’ve done a lot of research on a couple of periods, but I’m not on fire for anything yet..

I need a spark to send me in the right direction – a character, a setting, a scene. With Thaw, it was driving back from dropping my son off at college and seeing two huge hawks circling over the Appalachian foothills. With one of my short story sales, it was a brick falling off the back of a truck, with another, it was a name that came into my head. Anyway, something will hit me – whatever was blocking me seems to have cleared, thank goodness.

(Actually, I think my problem wasn’t being blocked – it was a failure of the ass-in-chair factor. i.e. I didn’t put my ass in the chair and WRITE)

The semi-final draft is done and has been sent to my reader. Assuming it passes muster with her, next stop is the publisher. This book is going to happen.

I feel exhausted, but satisfied.

I thought I’d be done today, but between editing “Magic’s Choice” and getting ready for our annual trip to the SCA’s Pennsic War, it just didn’t happen. I’m one scene from finishing the rewrite, then need to polish it up, edit 3 more chapters and I’m done.

We’re heading up to Pennsylvania for setup this weekend, so I’ve got 16 hours in a car. This book will be done by the time I get home on Sunday.

Erastes, you should have it in your inbox when you get up Monday morning.

16732 / 20000 words. 84% done!

Plus 2 chapters left to edit. Two more days, I think. I would have got more done, but the edits for “Magic’s Choice” (my story in Fantasist’s upcoming Blood & Devotion anthology), came in, and I had to start through those. It’s so depressing to see all that metaphorical red ink, especially when it’s so totally deserved. I wrote this story ages ago – the anthology has been much delayed, and my writing has changed. A lot.

Biggest embarrassment? This is a classic S&S fantasy in a medievaloid world and starts in what’s essentially a monastery. My protagonist mentions that in addition to the brothers, there are ‘lady-brothers.’

I can’t believe I actually wrote that. *headdesk*

I’ve been at this all day, and I know it’s time to stop, because I just wrote that a character who was frightened ‘froze like a rabbi’ and I couldn’t tell it was wrong.

13824 / 20000 words. 69% done!

I want to post a snippet, but that’s going to wait till tomorrow. All told, I’ve written about 3000 words of new content today and edited 4 chapters. About 6k of new and 5 chapters to go, but definitely NOT touching that now.

Very, very done now.

10980 / 20000 words. 55% done!

I’ve put a semi-final polish on Chapters 1-17 and 26 – 30, so I have 8 chapters left and most of that is just slotting in the rewritten journal sections. Yesterday I worked out two minor problems in a way that I think will make this book much stronger overall, with a better sense of symmetry. Character growth stuff.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is NOT a train – I’m hoping to have this ready to go out to my readers by Sunday. Maybe sooner, though I need to stop blowing off schoolwork to edit.

I didn’t want to come back to this, felt like I was done with David and Callan and there wasn’t anything left for me to learn from returning to this world. I did it because too many readers asked, and I felt like I was letting them down. But I have learned so much about revision and rewriting in this process. Thaw was essentially complete as I finished it. A minor bit of polishing, a few scenes deleted, and it was done. This has required massive rewrites, serious line by line examination of word choice, etc., and character behavior. I needed to finish this book, not only for the readers, but for me, and I’m glad I did it.

So if you ever wrote me an email or left a comment asking for a sequel, thank you!

Or there are no coincidences. I’ll explain below the cut, as my ramblings may contain inadvertent spoilers.

But first, I actually managed to edit 3 chapters today, even while working 8 hours at Windsor Woods Area Library for a bit of extra money. The bookdrop room is a fabulous place for editing, and Google Docs makes it so easy. I remember trying to write back in the pre-Internet days – now that took dedication.

I really hope this works for people reading this in RSS like a LiveJournal cut and if you don’t want to see it, you’re not forced to.

Anyway, a group of actors figures somewhat prominently in this book (I know – it sounds odd, but trust me, it works) and there’s a performance of King Lear, which is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.  Anyway, one of the actors is somewhat inspired (in a very loose, surface and non-sue-able way) by Sir Ian McKellen, and so I was absolutely thrilled when he played Lear a couple of years back – I had tickets to see it in New York, but wasn’t able to go. Am still disappointed about that.

So, I was surfing around to see if that performance had ended up on DVD (it has, and I have a copy on the way) and ran across Sir Ian’s official site. Among his writings dealing with gay and lesbian issues, I found this quote (referring to his role as Max in the stage version of Bent – the Clive Owen role in the movie, which if you haven’t seen, you should):

Such hypocrisy is current today in the argument that gays and lesbians should be seen and heard only when they pretend to be straight. Homosexuals are thus encouraged to disguise their true feelings. Is that why so many become professional actors?

One of my actor characters says something very similar, although he arrives at a different conclusion.  I wrote that section around 2004.  I found Sir Ian’s site today.  I love serendipity.