Too many "unworthy" writers getting published?

Emerald Jaguar, aka emmyjag, offered up an interesting question recently about who's to blame for published books that are riddled with errors. Is it the author's responsibility to put out polished work? Or the editorial team's? The discussion (a good one, too, accessible through the post title) resurrected a question I've occasionally tossed around in my mind.

What's the publisher's role? What's the reader's role?

It seems to me, the final arbiter of quality is the publisher. That's where the buck stops. It's the company that sets the standards for its product; it's the acquisitions editor(s) who, in accordance with those standards, must decide whether or not to give new material a chance. I can't help but wonder how, if a submitted manuscript is dreadfully written (loaded with spelling, grammatical, and syntactical errors; lacking in plot consistency; burdened by wooden dialogue and leaden characters), the damned thing gets accepted in the first place!

And the damned things do get accepted. All the time. For electronic and print publication. I suspect we've all read the output of verbally challenged writers. I don't mean people who have an essential but occasionally flawed command of their craft, I mean those who don't seem to realize authorship is a craft.

So maybe they have active imaginations capable of churning out plot devices like there's no tomorrow -- say, dragon-shifter ghosts that haunt the British Isles, looking for reincarnations of their former soulmates . . . or whatever. Maybe they have a real flair for dreaming up kinky sex scenes. Both of those capabilities are just dandy, but they don't amount to trail of rat turds if the writer doesn't have a sound command of both the language and the fundamental elements of fiction.

To quote comedian Ron White, "You can't fix stupid." Were I an editor who had some corned beef hash of a story thrust at me, I sure as hell wouldn't know how to turn it into New York Strip. And the author sure as hell wouldn't know, either, because s/he thinks that hash is New York Strip.

Ergo, it's publishers who must bear the brunt of responsibility for what kind of product they put before the reading public.

But . . . but (and here's something else to consider) what's the role of consumers? If the reading public gobbles down the hash without complaint, publishers have no incentive to improve their menus.

Whaddaya think?

Results make a mockery of American Idol.

And Kris Allen knows it. After being announced the winner, this nice man yet clearly inferior singer muttered, "But Adam deserves it."

/rant

(I truncated this thing because it's served its purpose -- to help me vent. Hate when I feel that way, and hate even more when the feeling seems justified.)

Throwing the Perfect Wankfest II

An ongoing (for now, at least) dustup here http://tiny.cc/JXSDy made me think of how important it is, when throwing a Wankfest, to wax eloquent. Garden-variety name calling and reptitive back-and-forths impress nobody and do little to make one's point adhesive.

Some seasoned curmudgeon from Washington, D.C. posted a brilliant example of what I mean on Craig's List, February 2009. Learn from him or her. Following is merely a paragraph plucked from this epithetic sea. If you wish to view the whole glorious thing, go here: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/wdc/1051162624.html.

"I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. So stupid it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me."

Now that's a wanker!

Welcome a new generation of hags!

Tonight, the two finalists were announced on "American Idol." Eighty-eight freakin' million votes were phoned in or texted by people with a lot of time on their hands and fervor in their hearts. Next week is the big sing-off for the crown.

On any other season of AI, this wouldn't have been a

noteworthy occasion. At all. Guaranteed some
country-western warbler or rock screamer or r&b boomer with gospel-music roots would've been in the finals. Not this year, though. Nuh-uh. This year, the stage will be taken by the exotic creature you see on the left -- but not, sad to say, quite the way he looks there. ("Idol" hasn't come that far!)

That's right, he. Adam Lambert: gorgeous gay man, sometimes drag queen, and musical-theater performer extraordinaire. As well as the most astonishing vocalist in the show's eight-season history (he has something like a zillion-octave range, expressive at all levels; perfect pitch; clear and even vibrato). And . . . he can dance!

Anyway, the top three contestants all made "triumphant" returns to their hometowns last week, camera crews in tow. Kris Allen went back to Somewhere, Arkansas. (Oh, the salacious fanfic that's cropped up involving him and Adam!) Danny Gokey went back to Milwaukee. (No, Jackson Spey wasn't in the crowd. Neither was I, although I was born and raised there, too.) And lovely Adam flew to San Diego.

It tickled me no end. Shrieking females run amok. Hordes of them, from the age of seven to seventy. Reaching for him, grasping at him. One even ripping off her halter top for him (clearly an exercise in futility if ever I saw one). Between giggles I said to JLA, "Poor guy probably hasn't had to endure so much estrogen since he was in the womb!" In spite of my amusement, as I watched this outpouring of adoration I couldn't help thinking what a very good thing it was.

When Adam Lambert becomes the next American Idol a week from today -- for there should be no "if" about it -- America will be idolizing a gay man. A man who's made no particular secret of his sexuality and has pictures of himself from pre-Idol days all over the Internet, including photographs of him in flamboyant costumes, sometimes kissing guys.

Maybe I'm making too big a deal of this. Many bloggers and columnists have said, essentially, "Eh, so what? Like anybody cares? This is the 21st century, and there've been plenty of queer celebrities in recent decades, especially in the music world." Yes, but how open were they? And did they ever get this kind of press? And were they associated with an iconic entertainment institution? More to the point, there's still plenty of gay bashing going on in this country -- verbal, physical, and political -- and maybe the well-deserved popularity of one individual can help change that.

I love this dude. I love his extraordinary talent and his easy, good-natured grace and his absolute comfort with himself. The only regrettable thing about the AI situation is that Lambert can't, I assume, declare himself to be gay and speak about it openly. The show likely has some "don't ask, don't tell" policy. But at least he's not bending over backwards to pretend he ain't no damned 'mo. (Hell, he even changed the phrase another girl to somebody else when he sang "Tracks of My Tears" for Motown week.)

Now I'll indulge myself in a bit of pettiness. To all those people who ever voted against Adam Lambert simply out of bigotry, and all those prayer groups that've been begging Jesus to rinse the sodomy out of Adam's soul and turn him into the wholesome chick-banger God obviously intended him to be . . .

New Interview Up

At the Gay Erotic Romance blog. (Click on post title.) Really nice site. Easy to navigate and loaded with great excerpts. If you're a fan of m/m romance, check it out!

The Long and Winding Road to InDescent

When writers weave new tales, they often behave like birds in nest-building mode. A scrap from here, a shred from there, a bit of bling and string that have been used before in some other capacity. I've been watching wrens, barn swallows, and bluebirds doing their spring gathering all over our property.

I'm no less a scavenger, except that I try not to lay eggs. ;-) Characters, places, and relationships that had their origin in previous books turn up in InDescent. It isn't necessary to read all of the novel's source material -- not if I've done my job properly -- but some people have expressed an interest in "what came before." So here it is.

• Adin Swift. Now Jackson's lover, Adin first appeared (and both men first appeared together) in Plagued, from Ellora's Cave. This book details Adin's personal history, including the course of his relationship with Celia, his live-in girlfriend. The men reappeared in Tormented (Changeling Press) on the occasion of Adin's 30th-birthday party. Next came Obsessed (also from Changeling). Each book marks a significant stage in their relationship. If, however, you're only interested in getting the gist of their backstory, read Obsessed. It's a good but not necessary lead-in to InDescent.


• Angelina Funmaker. Jackson's best female friend, the biracial Angelina was born a hermaphrodite (intersexual person). Thanks to Jackson's financial support, she secured the drugs and medical procedures necessary for her to become a "complete" female . . . and a stunning one. Angelina makes her first appearance when Jackson makes his -- in Hoochie Coochie Man, from Double Dragon Publishing. Angelina also appears in other stories.


• Ivan Kurtz and Bothu. This self-styled "mage" and his occasional sidekick, the creepy necromancer, also made their first appearances in Hoochie Coochie Man. Ivan was every bit the envious, profane, self-important blowhard in the first book that he is in InDescent. Although he aspires to villainy, he never quite makes the grade. He and Bothu seriously crossed Jackson in HCM, and they both suffered for it. But egotistical Ivan never seems to learn his lesson.


• the psychic medium, Sophie Alanca; her boyfriend, Sonny Brock; her spirit guide, Esme. All three characters had their own story in Cemetery Dancer, a 2008 EPPIE finalist from Ellora's Cave. Jackson helps Sophie out of a dire situation and, in the process, incurs Sonny's (unwarranted) jealousy. They've since become good friends.


• Fog Cliff Cemetery and James Newman's mausoleum. These, too, are integral to the Cemetery Dancer storyline. In fact, a BIG clue regarding who caused the break in the Prism of Nezrabi is in Cemetery Dancer.

As I said above, it certainly isn't necessary to be familiar with all these novels and novellas to grasp what's going on in InDescent. This post is simply meant to illustrate how three-dimensional certain characters become after a while, and how what went into the making of them isn't much different from what goes into the making of any living adult.

You're right. We're weird.

My Dumb Ass & Another Free Story

It started out like this. Kris, at her blog Kris 'n' Good Books, decided to mess with authors' minds. She obviously knows what flippin' divas we are. So a little while back, she threw down the gauntlet -- a really silly one, hung with all kinds of nonsensical bling -- and Sean Kennedy was the first to rise to the challenge. What was that challenge? To write a super-short story (1k-2k words) incorporating a hodgepodge of key words and concepts or "prompts." Sean, being a fabulous author as well as Kris's countryman (one of those demented Aussies), did a great job with "Drive Safe."

Then Kris tapped me. I still don't know what I did to piss her off. But I also tried to rise to the challenge, however droopily. My prompts were downright sadistic. I had to write a somewhat coherent tale based on the following:

• a nudist colony coupled with some kind of checkpoint or customs/immigration station
• were-kangaroos
• a twink as a secondary character
• some drama involving fruit
• the phrase Live long and prosper
• a romantic futuristic crime fantasy

That's right. All this crap wadded into the space of a few pages. You can access "The Amazing Fruit of New Hope," if you dare, by clicking on the post title. Just remember to cut me some slack. I wrote this thing in a day.

An Interview with Jackson Spey

I decided to repost this, since Jackson (and Adin) will soon be reappearing.

Late last fall, I tracked down this elusive man and pulled him out of hiding for a moment. It wasn't easy, and he wasn't overly cooperative.

* * * * *

Hard to believe the wizard is a master craftsman and the master craftsman is a wizard. Actually practices magic and pulls off some stupendous stuff. I had a couple of beers before going to his woodshop just to take the edge off. And what the hell? Milwaukee is a good place to be drinking beer. I'd thought of bringing along a fifth of Jack Daniels, his drug of choice, but I know he doesn't drink when he's working. Besides, he's making a whole lot more money than I am and can well afford to buy his own booze.

I'm nervous, no denying it. This is a coup. Jackson Spey is intensely private and a bit intimidating. His sense of humor can get razory without warning. I don't know quite what to expect when I push open the door of his shop, tucked into a long, low, nondescript building in a central industrial valley.

Machinery isn't droning. When I walk in, I know why. Jackson is seated at a drafting table nearly hidden in a corner to the far right. As soon as he hears the door grind open, he stands and approaches me. The place smells like a logging site. I don't have time to examine his work, but I know it ain't cookie-cutter. This stuff is custom designed and handmade, one lathe-spin, plane-stroke, and chisel-gouge after another.

No wonder he has such phenomenal patience.

Seeing him is a shock. I've always known he's tall. Still, in person he's . . . tall. Being a shade under six-three isn't all that extraordinary, but the man's build and the way he carries himself seem to add a ruler full of extra inches. And then there's that slightly sinister facial hair. As neat as it is, it gives him a dark-lord look. The long braid is gone now. Thank God, I think, that he didn't opt for a lawyerly trim. His wavy hair, a little mussed, caresses the base of his neck.

Jackson might be flirting with middle age, but he still has presence. Even the simple black t-shirt and faded jeans contribute to it. I feel giddy as soon as I lay eyes on him.

"I was almost hoping you wouldn't show up," he says with a disarming smile that's bracketed by parallel creases. He extends a large hand toward me. Slightly roughened, it feels the way his voice sounds. His grip is firm and welcoming . . . even though, I suspect, he has an aversion to this kind of attention. Or most any attention.

"Thanks for agreeing to meet with me."

Inscrutably, he nods. The smile has shrunk but it's still there. Sitting on the stool in front of his drafting table, he rests his left arm on the surface and braces his right hand on his thigh, fingers pointing toward his crotch. His heels are hooked onto a crossbar. His legs are spread wide. The "pose" isn't intentional; it's just a comfortable position . . . I assume. But I can't help thinking of some lines from the movie This Is Spinal Tap -- Nigel pontificating about tight trousers and armadillos and fearful girls who run screaming . . .

"Alone this weekend?" I ask, treading lightly on the words.

"Mm-hm." He cocks his head into a laconic shrug. "Like most weekends. It's better than going out and getting drunk on my ass."

"Does that bother you?"

His smile resurfaces on a tilt. "That I don't go out and get drunk on my ass? Fifteen years ago it might have."

"No, I meant being alone." Why am I explaining? He knows damned well what I meant.

"I don't have a problem keeping busy."

It's a deft side-step. I almost let it pass. "Still, I suspect you wish Adin were here." What I wisely don't say is, Instead of two hundred miles away, in a cozy chalet with Celia.

He makes a throat-clearing sound, twists slightly to the left, picks a pencil off the table, taps it a five times -- three taps then two -- drops the pencil, faces forward once more. I can see that's all the answer I'm going to get. Morse Code?

His gaze drifts past me, maybe to one of his works-in-progress. Or maybe to something that can't be seen.

"How is Adin, by the way?"

"We're not joined at the hip, you know."

Just as I'm thinking, But you sure as hell would like to be, Jackson drops his head forward and gives it a little shake. His smile is different now, and it underscores a subtle eruption of pink on his cheekbones. I think I hear him whisper, "Shit."

Now I'm waiting for his eye color to start shifting. It's some wizardly little quirk. Occasionally, the natural hazel of his irises is swamped by one of its components -- smoky topaz, jade, amber. The gold, I've heard, can get pretty intense, depending on his mood.

"I think this would go smoother," he says, "if I slapped some duct tape over my mouth. Or maybe over yours. That way we could just look at each other while you make assumptions about me. Not to mention the man whose name you at least know how to spell correctly." He turns down his head to scratch an eyebrow, his head partially resting on his fingers, but his eyes are still turned up to me.

If it weren't for the two Sprecher Black Bavarians I'd poured down my gullet, I'd be indignant. And uncomfortable. Instead, I veer amenably onto neutral turf. "So . . . bike still running well?" Jackson rebuilt a 1972 Harley shovelhead chopper. It's his second lover -- not that he would put it that way.

This topic clearly pleases him, but he still seems wary. "Like a champ. Of course, it's stored for the winter now."

"Have you ever gone riding with--"

Abruptly, he groans into a chuckle. "Women." His dark brows hitch up on the word.

"I beg your pardon?"

In lieu of an explanation, he leans sideways toward his desk, yanks open a drawer, and pulls out a fat, silvery roll of tape. His eyes aren't quite hazel anymore.

* * * * *

"For most of my career, I've enjoyed following certain characters from one story to another. I say 'following' because when characters come sufficiently alive that I want to write more about them, it does feel as if I'm trailing along behind them recording their adventures rather than making them up."
~ Poppy Z. Brite

Jackson's chronicle thus far spans six books, in this order: Hoochie Coochie Man (main character), Cemetery Dancer (secondary character), Plagued (secondary), Tormented (secondary), Obsessed (main), Elevator Magic (secondary). The next installment of his saga -- and it's a big one -- is InDescent. His story is far from over. Same is true for the man whose name I at least know how to spell correctly.

A Really Naughty FREE Story

"A Cheeky Changeling" is Changeling Press's online magazine/newsletter. There you can find, among other things, free short fiction called Encounters. Mine, "Glories of the Blue Moon," is fourth from the top in the most recent issue. Click on the post title to find it.

But be forewarned: Encounters are short. Really short. And Changeling is an erotic e-pub. Really erotic. So what you're going to get is a jolt of sexual YEEHAH! Plot and character development? Go read The Scarlet Letter. My story, by the way, is about a man taking a risk to make himself, or part of himself, happy. The ending is ambiguous . . . the way I sometimes like my endings.

So don't complain. I warned you. Besides, the bugger is F-R-E-E.

Is more ever enough?

Remember when Harlequin introduced the "Temptation" line and Silhouette introduced "Desire" and "Intimate Moments"? Probably not. But believe me, compared with their predecessors, those titles contained some racy stuff. They signaled the banging open of the bedroom door. Unfortunately, Roget's Thesaurus banged open along with the door, so although readers were getting eyeful after eyeful of rapturous horizontalism, they were also being fed some really laughable euphemisms to describe the action. (Netherlips? Isn't that what the eastern and western edges of the Netherlands are called? Are they grasslands? Or swamp lands?)

Anyway, this silly sexspeak went on for a good many years. Then the bodacious Tina Engler came along and essentially decided it was time to call a spade a spade. Thanks to Ellora's rockin' Cave, readers no longer had to ask themselves, His "member" of what? The Elks' Club? And why does this member broadcast "seed"? Is he a conservationist? A landscaper? And what kind of seed? Ah, grass seed, I'll bet. In the Netherlips. All the delicate obfuscation came to an end with EC's "erotic" romances. A cock became a cock, plain and simple (and usually large and turgid), and it shot copious amounts of cum into every hot, dripping, swollen, gaping, achingly impatient pussy it could.

The dam had burst, so to speak. Once the Netherlips became as drenched at they could get, a kind of frenzied adventuring began. Erotic romance wouldn't content itself with settling in the land of explicit, one-on-one m/f sex. Nuh-uh. This was a Brave New World, by gum, and it had all sorts of raunchy regions to explore. Joyful masturbation. Happy-toys. Positions that defied gravity and rewrote the Kama Sutra. Menages of ever-increasing numbers. Hardcore BDSM. Fetishism. Sex with shifters, vampires, demons, aliens. Fantasy rape that veered this close (+) to actual rape. Double penetration. Multiple dicks. Twincest. Octucest (well, you know that's bound to turn up sooner or later!)

This exuberant progression has led me to a question, which is the point of my post. Are sex scenes and sexual relationships, whether opposite-sex or same-sex, now considered too "vanilla" if they don't contain one or more of the above elements? (I'm really getting sick of the term vanilla, like I'm sick of Oh. My. God. and Wow. Just. Wow. But I digress.) Have readers begun to expect and even demand ongoing one-upmanship? Can relationships still be perceived as thrilling and satisfying if they are made up of (GASP!) two people who just like to fuck? Or (DOUBLE GASP!) make love?

I'm just wonderin'.

Better Late Than Never

That's what Fran Lee calls some of her book reviews, and for that I give her a truckload of credit. I'm a "better late than never" kind of reader myself. I usually get around to the stuff on my wish list well after the titles' release dates -- in other words, well after the initial buzz has died down and new faves have found their way onto reviewers' DIK shelves . . . or new fizzles have found their way into the virtual wastebaskets under those shelves. In fact, I think it would be abfab if more reviewers devoted, say, one day a week to resurrecting older, more obscure titles and bringing them to readers' attention.

Anyway, Fran Lee came upon Wing and Tongue, read it, and said some very, very nice things about this fantasy. You can peruse her review by clicking on the post title. (Oh, what I wouldn't give for more covers like that one!)

So thank you, Fran, and brava for digging through the dusty heap of books-gone-by. There's some gold in them thar hills!