These things must stop!

My bloggedy-bloggedy (that's when you hop from one blog to another) has been sporadic of late, since I've been focusing on composition, edits, and submissions. Whenever I get this hitch in my blogalong, people's posting habits begin to jump out at me -- y'know, because I'm not exposed to them every day. Based on what I've noticed, I've decided to issue some decrees.

• No more breaking up sentences with periods. Put 'em at the end where they belong. People tend to engage in this habit when they're trying to express their shock over something. Just thinking about giving you examples is already annoying me. Okay, here goes: Oh. My. God. Wow. Just. Wow. Quit. That. Before. I. Kill. You.


• Snorting is okay, but no more snorting coffee through one's nose. Or throwing up in one's mouth, or spraying Coke on the keyboard/monitor. No more! We need some new expressions of amusement as well as disgust, like "You just made me fall backward in my chair and crack my skull open!" Or, "I just had to do the Heimlich maneuver on myself!"


• No more thanking a reviewer for "taking one for the team" when she snarks on (what she perceives as) a truly dreadful book. Whose team? Where? What's the name of the team? I don't get it. Furthermore, nobody who uses that phrase is expressing sincere gratitude. The subtext is either Fuck, I wish I'd gotten attention by snarking on this book, or Damn, it's fun to pile on an author who's just gotten her ass whupped! Thanks for getting the game started!


• No more reviews of Harlequin novels. Please. I mean it. We know what they're about. We knew twenty years ago. We no longer need to be reminded. The. End.

I could go on and on about this because I'm on a roll, but I'll take a step back now and let you take over.

Is a Great Divide forming?

More and more I've been noticing a marked difference in my reactions to blogs that center on romance fiction. The well-established, high-profile sites I used to visit regularly, like Dear Author and Smart Bitches, have begun to seem stagnant and are starting to bore me. It's the laidback "upstarts" toward which I've recently been drawn, like Reviews by Jessewave, Well Read, Kris 'n' Good Books, and several others.

I'm sure the shift in my reading and writing tastes has something to do with this -- I've developed a deep appreciation for m/m fiction, little of which is explored by the major blogs -- but there's also something of the "Old Guard" versus the "New Guard" at play here.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about Harlequin's various lines. Category romance has never appealed to me. Even a lot of the non-HQN romance print titles have a category "feel," which means I'm not interested in those, either. E-book publishers have, as far as I'm concerned, been putting out the most compelling fiction.

Yeah, okay, there's plenty of derivative material issued by e-publishers, as well, and quality can be hit-or-miss. But I find so much more variety in their output, so much more explorative risk-taking, whether serious or lighthearted, that reading an e-pubbed book has become much more of an adventure than reading the safe and predictable stuff that's sandwiched between two paper covers.

Ever more frequently, I find myself groaning and beating a hasty retreat whenever I click onto a post that has to do with some Harlequin or Big NY Print Publisher release. I'm sick of seeing the same names turn up, sick of the whole RWA/RT mindset that lauds workmanlike (i.e., boring) writing, cardboard-cutout characters, and connect-the-dots plotlines. I'm REALLY sick of standard heroes and heroines, including and especially the new breed of chick who's sexy, sensitive, and self-assuredly violent, all at once. ("Oh shit, do I want to be Paris Hilton or Vin Diesel? Guess I'll be both!")

Spare me, forever, the kickass heroine, whom I find just as revolting as the TSTL heroine!

Anyway, I can't help but wonder if there's a division forming in Romanceland, if certain bloggers/reviewers will continue to give more space, time, and credence to works originally published in print rather than works originally published in pdf, or to m/f fiction rather than other types of pairings/groupings. Will the lip service they pay to e-publishing and to GLBT romance ever be accompanied by genuine respect (for publishers other than Samhain, that is)? Or is the mainstream becoming increasingly more distanced from its tributaries?

Are we going our separate ways?

JMHP (just my humble puzzling)

The Art of the Succinct Reply

My pal, Ho Lee Zhit, recently groaned while reading a blog post somewhere, "Oh, no. Another 400-pound diva has entered the room!" When I asked for an explanation, Ho Lee remarked that people seem to take themselves (and their pursuits, which they consider an integral part of themselves) very seriously these days, and there's increasing evidence of this on blogs.

So I did a little investigating. Sure enough, I found a plethora of long rants, sniperish bursts, skirmishes, excruciating examinations, analyses, and justifications, and just generally enough hot-air huffing and puffing to contribute to global warming -- if, that is, it were coming out of mouths instead of fingertips.

Umbrage, umbrage everywhere.

Posters, I realized, could easily and effectively make their points with far less expenditure of energy. In the interest of lower blood pressure and unstressed attention spans, I compiled a list of succinct replies to Internet statements that people -- and authors, in particular -- seem to find irritating.

* "Your book sucks."
* "Take it up with God. S/he dictated it; I'm just a stenographer trying to get by on a lousy $125.44 a week."

* "Your book's title sucks."
* "If all you can manage to get through is a book's title, you might consider enrolling in a remedial reading course."

* "Your book's cover sucks."
* "If all you can manage to do is look at pictures, you might consider giving up reading as a hobby."

* "All romance novels are crap."
* "Of course they are. That's why people read them. Life is so unrelentingly fine, we must escape its cloying clutches now and then lest we get spoiled."

* "You're not gay."
* "Yes, I am. And proud of it. If you don't believe me, go fuck yourself. Or Ted Haggard."

* "You're not straight."
* "Yes, I am. I just wish I were gay."

* "You're not bi."
* "Well . . . sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not. It depends on who's sitting next to me at bar close."

* "What you said is offensive."
* "It offends me that you called my statement offensive. I refuse to type another word until you apologize."

Ho Lee Zhit approved of these, saying, "Yep. A hint of diva is better than the whole smelly, vermin-picking gorilla."

Am I the only one near a computer on the weekends?

I've been noticing this for a long time. Few people post anything on blogs or chat loops from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening. Does everybody but me have an exciting weekend life? What am I missing? Does the Weekend Fairy flit around to all domiciles but mine and wave her Let's Have Fun wand and give everybody wonderful things to do?

I'll admit, I've been thinking along strange lines lately. Since George Carlin's lamentable death, I've been watching "tributes" and realizing how easily it's always been for me to tap into his thought processes. So for a while, when it comes to language and human behavior and the state of the world, I'll probably be in a Carlin mode. This is something I do need to get over, though. That sonofabitch was a real misanthrope!

Authors Versus Bloggers/Reviewers

A big sigh opens this post. I'm not sure what to say, since I understand where both sides are coming from in these skirmishes. Blogger/Reviewer A rips on Author B. Does Author's book really, truly, irredeemably suck, or is that only Blogger/Reviewer's possibly ill-informed opinion? Has Author truly behaved in some reprehensible way, or is that merely Blogger's opinion? Should Author pay heed to that opinion? Should potential readers of Author pay heed to that opinion? Should Author's or Blogger's fangirls rush out of the woodwork with their verbal weaponry, eager to bash one or the other?


It's become abundantly clear to me that there are bloggers with large followings whose words are taken more or less as gospel. No matter what they post, many readers are just waiting on the sidelines to leap aboard their bandwagons. (Sorry for throwing all kinds of metaphors into the blender!) Often, if the blogger is an intelligent, fair-minded person and the writer's book and/or behavior is demonstrably BAD, the bandwagon is a legitimate place to be. Sometimes, though, the bandwagon seems to be carrying an ill-tempered bunch of braindead groupies out for blood.


I do love some of these sites. They bring to my attention books and issues I would otherwise not have been aware of. But the "Oh my God, you're so right, she/it is so odious" choir usually grates on my nerves. Authors (or publishers, in some cases) often have as valid points to make about the microcopes they're under as the people manning those microscopes. Sometimes the lenses are smeared or askew. (Another apology; damn, some days are just metaphor-rich!)


Human nature is mind-bogglingly complex. Rarely can one person's character or motives be summed up in a snappy phrase or two. I find it troublesome that so many bloggers and authors alike are more than willing to be reductionistic in their thinking and assume somebody is borderline psychotic or riddled with character deficiencies because he/she voices certain opinions or has a lapse in judgment. It isn't that I'd like to see us all form a circle and sing "Kumbaya"--hell, I'm too much a cynic and loner for that--but it would be nice to see people examining issues from more than one swallowed-whole perspective.

Can YOU judge a book by its cover?

Another observation from my late-evening blog-hopping (and one that was confirmed by a little vid I saw featuring an editor from a NY publishing house): Covers can have a significant impact on book sales. Some readers might be resistant to this notion. I know I was. Hey, we're all about content, right?

Well, apparently not.

Packaging plays an extremely important role in the peddling of a product. Any product. Corporations and their advertising firms spend bundles of money researching the effect various visual elements have on consumers' psyches. Many of our reactions are "visceral" or subconscious, but that doesn't lessen the importance of those reactions in our decision-making processes.

So, back to books. One might assume covers only count when they're arrayed on the shelves of brick-and-mortar outlets. I've come to realize this isn't so. E-book covers also catch readers' attention, often in a distinctly positive or negative way, and thus influence their immediate impressions--of individual companies, authors, and any given book's literary worth. This initial impression then affects a reader's decision whether or not to take a chance on that publisher, author, or book.

Here's what I've noticed within the e-publishing community. Certain high-profile reviewers--those whose attention is most coveted--seem to gravitate toward certain publishers' output and avoid others'. It's a bit mystifying, since the same authors often have titles out with different companies. Mrs. Giggles, for example, seems to favor Samhain and Liquid Silver books. Dear Author seems to favor Samhain books. Ellora's Cave offerings don't show up with nearly the frequency one might expect, although they do occasionally appear. Loose Id, a highly regarded company, is beginning to make its presence known. However, I can't remember ever having seen a Changeling Press book reviewed at any of the more "influential" sites.

Hm. Why the seemingly preferential treatment? I think a lot of it has to do with covers . . . and the resulting perceptions of those companies' (not to mention others') products. This has to be it, because, quite frankly, quality and crap in terms of content are spread pretty evenly throughout all e-publishers. Print, too, for that matter.

Samhain, Liquid Silver, and Loose Id do have classy cover art. Whether subtle or stunning, their covers are well thought-out and artistically composed. They have both visual and emotional appeal. Such art speaks well for--and, at its best, reflects--whatever story lies behind it. Ellora's Cave covers are heavy on chests. (I guess a pun is lurking there, but just ignore it.) Bare chests here, bare chests there, chests chests everywhere. Or what the Smart Bitches, bless 'em, so aptly call "man titty". This seems to strengthen the oft-expressed opinion that all EC books are essentially the same: They're porny pap; they're sexual romps devoid of substance. (This is very much NOT the case, by the way, but try to convince some people of that!)

And then there's Changeling. I publish with this company. And I love it like crazy. Changeling is a standup operation run by wonderful people. Many EC, Samhain, LI, and LS authors also publish with ChP, so it isn't some damned waste dump. But, alas, Changeling's much maligned covers seem to have put it at a disadvantage in the first-impression race. Needless to say, this can be a worrisome situation to authors. A well crafted piece of fiction deserves to be fronted by a well crafted cover . . . and, when it isn't, can suffer in terms of both critical recognition and sales.

So, yes, something as superficial as the way a book looks is often viewed as an indication of how a book reads. There's absolutely no relation between the two. But you'll never convince all buyers of that.