Epic Failures

Embracing Equality Means …

Embracing Equality Means …

 

Angels of Mercy - Phoenix In The Fire. Release Date: March 2016.

Angels of Mercy – Phoenix In The Fire. Release Date: March 2016.

 

Something has changed. A fundamental shift in what I am doing. You see, I’ve been writing my own life story as a series over at the Violet Quill Redux and that has made me question how I see my own works. Not just the fiction works, either, but all of it.

I’ve had moderate success in the whole Gay Fiction part to my work. Assigning that moniker to what I do seemed to be the right thing at the time I released my first work.

The book is out in the world now. Hall-le-fucking-lu-jah!

The first book I released on January 2015.

It was a pseudo-horror thing I was playing around with. I had been hammering out Angels of Mercy at that point, but HO’M,O – Henry O’Malley, Omega was completed and I desired to have something out there that had my name on it. Hell, on the eve of releasing HOMO, I discovered that some other twit “writer” (and I term that very loosely after reviewing their work) ended up snagging my pen name (even though I had the domain, the blog, the wherewithal to publish free chapter reads before I published on January 1 of last year) right out from under me. Originally, I was going to use S.A. Collins and up until I published on New Year’s day 2015, that name was available. Then this idiot swooped in and published a free (it had to be, because the work was atrocious) work using that S.A. name reference. I was beyond pissed. At this point I had a ton of money invested in what my author/pen name was going to be. I didn’t want to change it. So, gritting my teeth, I removed the periods from each initial and pressed forward. Now, I don’t know if my putting gay fiction out there under that name scared the squatter off, but they haven’t released anything else under that author name. But I’ve still had to go back to numerous distributors and tell them I am NOT S.A. Collins but SA Collins. It’s been a chore.

Angels of Mercy - Volume Two: Marco AVAILABLE NOW!

Angels of Mercy – Volume Two: Marco AVAILABLE NOW!

So labeling my shit as Gay Lit Fic has helped me in one respect: I’ve been able to make a fairly good imprint that I am out there as SA Collins – through the WROTE Podcast, my works, and just generally hammering away in social media as him. I say him, because he is a fictitious character in one of my future works. So in that sense, I get to put him on, and put him away when I write. I sort of like that about him. I hope he doesn’t think it an abusive relationship, because I do love him and his journey.

Okay, that is getting too headspacey, even for me.

The point I am trying to make is that I started out proudly labeling my works as GAY, GAY, GAY. In that way, I am completely unabashedly #QueerProud and make no bones about what I am writing. I want it to be provocative, to press at the edges. I LIKE BEING QUEER.

 

John Rechy circa 1970's.

John Rechy circa 1970’s.

 

But, something occurred to me: all of my literary heroes never labeled their works as such. Not John Rechy or Gordon Merrick (my literary gods), nor did Felice Picano, Andrew Holleran, Paul Monette, or Armistead Maupin for that matter. They just wrote literary fiction, PERIOD. End of story, no debate. In doing so, they demanded that their works be taken seriously within the greater mainstream. They, too, were unapologetic in what they wrote, BUT, and here is the critical difference, they (and, to a certain extent, their publishers) were no less of a homosexual or queer writer than any of us now. Yet, they were successful at it – in the mainstream. And by mainstream I am talking best sellers on the list that mattered: the NYT best seller list.

Even now, I am seeing other works by new authors that are completely bypassing the Gay label on Amazon and simply stating it’s Fiction, letting it stand with everything else, yet not denying that it is profoundly queer. Life on a slant, as it were. Proud outliers but never feeling the need to say I’m Queer, now read my shit. It was just – hey, read my shit if you’re interested. And people did. They did it in droves, too. New York Times Best Seller kind of droves.

Merrick's compelling and controversial Peter and Charlie gay romance trilogy.

Merrick’s compelling and controversial Peter and Charlie gay romance trilogy.

I’ve come to the realization that I, too, am not willing to limit my works to a gay audience. Yes, I’d love it if other queer men liked what I did. I am writing to them. But it doesn’t mean I need to limit the works in that whole M/M thing that is completely overrun with women writing about us (often as we AREN’T). I have no desire to play in that game. That literary house isn’t even mine as a gay man. It’s like I’ve been ousted from it. Yet, in my striving for acceptance and equality, I am not willing to limit the scope of my works or audience. Put it out there and let ANYONE who finds it of interest buy it and read it.

I will continue to celebrate and champion queer works. I love the community of writers I’ve come to know in that sliver of genre fiction that is currently being labeled as Gay Fiction. I just am not willing to play in that pool anymore. It’s not what I am doing, not even remotely. My works are perception works. I want other people to read and see how these men process their worlds. I am not writing to a HEA (as a rule I sort of fucking despise HEAs (Happily Ever Afters) – I want realism in my works – not just in what I write, but what I read as well). I am not opposed to an HEA that makes sense. But to open a book and know already that it’s there is sort of like sitting down to a banquet and you already have been told that dessert is in the making, what it is, how it tastes and what you should expect.

Boresville, USA population: YOU. Like my queer literary forebears, I can’t go there.

So I’ll champion my author pals who want to continue to write in that genre. Yay, team! Go you! But I want equality in what I am doing. My works need to stand with the rest of mainstream writing. I need to see where that road takes me. Maybe nowhere, but I am thinking not. I think it may be a long slog to get noticed in that arena but I think in the long run I’ll be happier that I did this.

My stories are not genre fiction in the way that gay works are defined now. They’re more than that. They’re decidedly queer. They are threaded with gay men’s experiences I’ve collected over the years. But they are also representational of the greater human condition. I specialize in character studies and perception plays. That is universal. I’m just providing a queer lens for anyone to read and see the world through those eyes. But they’re not gay fiction. Just fiction.

Literary Fiction.

I’m good with that.

Until next time …

SA C

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The Pen IS Mightier …

The Pen IS Mightier …

 

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Truly. Who knew? I always thought that was a cliché. Guess not. That shit’s for realz, y’all!

So here’s the dealio … I’ve started this thing over a the Violet Quill Redux, another blog site. Yeah, I know, I KNOW. I barely keep up with this one. But ya see, this blog site is very different. It’s my blank canvas for a new work I am starting to form. This one is very close to the bone. So close that it’s about me. My life – with all it’s beauty, and inherent warts, too.

Totes Clamath Boy.

 

Me (left) and my bestie, Bobby. We were inseparable back in the day.

Me (left) and my bestie, Bobby. We were inseparable back in the day.

 

And that’s the scary part – the whimsy of it all.

I’m really bearing my soul here. Artistic endeavors aside, this is the real deal, kids: a no-holds-barred, unflinching look at where I’ve been and what I’ve done.

Make no mistake, this is terrifying. It’s also rather liberating. I find that I am resonating with readers, too. I’ve already had more than one person pull me aside (either through email or private message or what have you) and tell me things about their own lives, how what I wrote pulled memories almost forgotten or set aside from their darkened pasts.

Truly epic and deeply felt stories have been brought to me. So it seems I’ve struck a nerve.

But as with all things when it comes to my writings, I think this one will be a slow burn. I think it’ll catch fire though. I’ve led a colorful life. Well, let’s put it this way, there are some thing’s in my past I’ve had to quietly research to see if legal statutes of limitations still apply or not. Yeah, I wasn’t always the good guy I made myself out to be. Love, or rather lust, can make you do some very stupid shit. Sex was the greatest form of self-expression in my youth. I suppose for most gayboys that’s a very true statement. Sex is pure pleasure in our worlds.

But way I figure it, why not put it out there? There are Reddit exposés being released all the time that catch fire. So why not mine, eh?

 

What good is living all this stuff if you can’t relay it all?

 

I mean, how many of us live, love and die and our histories are lost the moment we take our last breath? Sure some family members or friends might recount some odd exploit of yours, but really, the bulk of your life fades away, doesn’t it? Those smaller details of every damned thing you’ve gone through simply slip into the ether. But it doesn’t have to, that’s the thing. You just gotta have the courage of your convictions (as they say) to get it out there.

I found I can’t have that; the losing myself to the ether after I am gone. I know I am not a celebrity. Yet, I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the stage as a professional actor and classically trained singer, so I’ve had my time in the sun where that’s concerned. But why not a “common man” tale? I think I am worthy of relating to. Might give some insight for those who aren’t queer to see what it’s like from the inside. But I realized that my thoughts, my impressions and perceptions will be lost the moment I let go of this mortal coil, as it were.

 

Who will speak for me then? I will, that’s who.

 

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And I’ve had rocky parts to my life, too. It hasn’t all been a bed of roses, ya know. Not by a bloody long shot, actually. Let’s just say that a few times I didn’t know if I’d make it out in one piece. I’ve been quite lucky. Probably why I haven’t won the lottery. I think I used up all my luck on my fool-hearty twenties and have now lived to tell the tale, as it were.

But that’s part of the challenge, isn’t it? To face what I’ve accomplished, what I’ve failed, where I’ve gone along with, who I’ve done. Make no mistake, and it’s not like you haven’t heard it before, but sex sells.

I just need to put it all out there – to write it all down. They’re not chronological in how they’re presented over on VQR. They need to waffle up from the pit of my belly and demand their time in the sun. Hedonistic weekends that I have to not only face, but write about or else none of it is worth putting out there. I can’t hide from it this time. I have to detail it all.

Why?

Because I am truly embracing my queerness. I am totally reclaiming what that means for myself. My life is queer. Those jocks who teased me back in high school were 110% correct. I am queer. But what I didn’t get, what I was too naive and green to see, was that I shouldn’t be shamed by it. I needed to embrace it. To take hold and ride that bitch into the night.

The thing is, it’s going to hit a fair number of people I know. No man is an island, as they say. Truer words and all that rot. I don’t think most of my friends and family realize that. I mean, it’s not going to be loaded with salacious tidbits of stuff left and right with them. They’re my friends and family. But I led a double-life back then. One way with them, another when I was alone or with my then boyfriend. My twenties and early thirties were somewhat of a voracious sexual rompfest. I was careless, I was brash and unthinking. And I was extremely lucky. But before anyone goes off the deep end with rantings about “self love” and “self respect”  – fuck off, will ya? This is MY queer life, not yours. Yes, to a great degree while I didn’t go running off into the night to mimic Rechy’s characters in The Sexual Outlaw, or Numbers, while I was a teenager, I did my fair share of it in my twenties. Two completely different aspects to myself. One the loyal, front and center kind of friend and family member, the other? Yeah, let’s just say I’m amazed beyond belief I am still standing here. With a negative HIV status, no less. ‘Cause muthafucking shit got wild. A form of Russian Roulette that I some how came out unscathed on the other side.

But that’s the thing, I’ve got to put it all down. What was totally euphoric as well as the horrific. I’ve certainly had both. And great heaping spoonfuls of it, too.

And I’ll tell ya this much: I’ve never felt more alive then when I am writing out my past. It’s like a character in my book, like Elliot Donahey or Marco Sforza in Angels of Mercy, except I know this guy intimately. He can’t hide from me, because he is me.

There’s a part of me that is grateful that I severed my ties with my birth name entity across social media. Now only SA Collins exists. I’ve killed the other me. He’s history, well, as much as anyone can be in this day and age. Nothing ever truly disappears when it’s been on the net does it? But in that, he lives on in the posts on Violet Quill Redux.

But that’s cool, too. It’s definitely going to be interesting, that’s for dayum sure!

Scared (’cause Mom’s gonna read this shit).

Totally exposed.

But feelin’ so fucking alive …

 

Until next time –

SA C

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New Year, New Venture

New Year, New Venture – 

So, it’s been a while. I know, I know. The purpose of a blog is to fucking blog. But I’ve been busy. I just finished (Angels of Mercy) and released a 740+ page book for fuck sake! And I’ve got another 600+ page turner right on it’s heels – seriously, like in weeks. That’s close to 1400 pages of hard core writing so you’ll forgive me if the blog fell by the wayside. It wasn’t intentional. There are only so many hours in the day and there’s this pesky thing called sleeping I have to do from time to time or I’ll get really fucking crabby and NO ONE wants to see that.

But I’m off point here.

The purpose of this post is to make followers of this blog (which I need to get back in the saddle and start writing again – my ONLY New Year’s resolution by the way) is to let you all know of a new web series site I’ve created and released into the world:

VioletQuillRedux.com

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It’s an unflinching and unapologetic look at my queer man life. And believe me, I got up into some strange assed shit in my time. While it takes a hard look at my queer life, I also will color it with many incidents and life events that have nothing gay about them. But they will be seen through my gayboy lens. The purpose is to add my queer man’s voice to those of the original Violet Quill who wrote uncompromising works about our lives as gay men. I admired those men and their powerful (if dark) words. They both challenged and informed me. I admired their courage and their deft hand in telling our queer stories.

That is my hope – to add my voice to the mix. It is hands-down the scariest thing I’ve ever done. I’m putting it all out there. Warts n’ all. Looking at myself with an uncompromising gaze and telling you all what I see. Not all of it will be by word, either. There will be a curation of sorts across my life’s influences from the cultural times around me as I grew up. All sorts of media will be added to the mix to create an impression of the world around me as I saw it.

Join me on this quest? I’d love it if you did.

Until next time ….

SA “Baz” Collins

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When Reviews Fail Authors

When Reviews Fail Authors

-or-

Much Ado about – Wow, uh, really?

Okay, so bear with me here… I’m mentally rambling on an concept that I want to chew on. Tangents will abound. My sincere apologies if you aren’t quite in the mood for it. Don’t say you haven’t been warned …

So I know people are entitled to their opinions. I know that those comments and feelings that they have on any topic is part of the game. I get that. Having spent a great portion of my life on the stage and having to deal with people’s opinions of the work on offer at the time is part of the gig that I signed on for.

But in this information age I think that it carries far more weight that it’s worth really.

And before anyone grouses out there about my going off on a tangent (you were warned, after all) we all best remember that trolling is a very real thing and can be very detrimental (if not outright scary) when it comes knocking at your door.

 

We ALL know this "guy"... don't we?

We ALL know this “guy”… don’t we?

 

The problem is that everyone who isn’t a content creator thinks that their opinion trumps all who came before or after. And sometimes, shockingly enough, touted as being more profound than the creator who did the, uh, ya know: creating!

And I get that we want some sort of feedback as a creator. It is part of the cycle, isn’t it?

But then I read several reviews (and, to be clear, they aren’t all regarding novels, either) where the “review” is little more than a synopsis or a book report of what happened. If we all wanted to know that why would we read the book or see the movie or whatever?

I’ve always said I want an honest review of the work – with all of it’s blemishes and beauty marks as they may be. I am not afraid of criticism – as long as it is warranted. Haters who just love to bash something or do the equivalent of a “drive-by” assassination of the work simply for their own personal aggrandizement or back patting, is rather pathetic and will get an instant cold shoulder from me.

BUT, if you have a specific gripe or take on an element of the work that didn’t work for you – yay you! Doesn’t mean I have to buy into it as its creator – after all it is still my baby. My creation, my world.

So why the rant? Why the extolling and waxing prosaic on trolls, wanna be reviewers, and general haters?

Because I am sort of over the whole “what do you think about it.” At least on a personal level. I think Gore Vidal said it best when it came to the style of a writer:

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”   ― Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal circa 1948

Gore Vidal circa 1948

Great words. I’ve taken them to heart really. But then again, Vidal pretty much has been a beacon of intellect for me – it’s where I ground myself as a creator. So for me, as an author, I am really not so wrapped up in what others think to the point where it could cause me grief (especially if it appears they have an axe to grind with my work or are just generally mean spirited – that sort of muck rises to the top like floaters in the ocean from a broken sewage main).

What I do sort of grouse about is the terrible language that seems to permeate most of those reviews. In one I saw someone wrote that they didn’t like the vocabulary used (when it was clear that they meant dialog – I won’t cite the actual work out of kindness to its “author”). And they went so far as to confuse dialog with inner-monologue. These aren’t esoteric terms, people. And I re-read it several times to make sure that it was dialog that was the intended meaning. It was. But they used vocabulary – why?

Alas, sadly, that wasn’t the only instance.

In a very real way I sort of see the logic of why in traditional publishing they had that whole gatekeeping to qualify for publishing. Agents and inquiry letters were involved. There was a certain symmetry to it. And a real effort had to be made by an author to be heard. Now, not so much. They were there to ensure that the work was of, at the very least, a certain degree of quality. Experts who knew of proper story construct and characterizations.

Now, with the way things are anyone can (and often do) publish their works and are clearly in it for the adoration they think they so richly deserve. Most of the self-pubbed stuff out there is shit – poorly written, constructed and edited (Jesus, are there ever some crap-assed editors out there). And I am not saying this because I’m a Bitter Betty and want adoration coming my way. It’d be nice but it is NOT a requirement on my part. I will write either way. Why? Because I like what I am doing with it. I like putting worlds together, having characters grapple with it all. I love fleshing out their idiosyncrasies and foibles that have them blunder spectacularly to whip up the inherent drama (as a great opera singer friend of mine once said whilst we were backstage waiting to go on: no one ever comes to a happy opera – meaning: drama drives all).

And even in comedy, there has to be a small sliver of pathos or drama to create those peaks and valleys that allow us that a-ha moment of enlightenment that tickles both our funny bone and our intellect.

But for the most part, I think most reviewers voice an opinion to see their own name in print somewhere. Oddly enough, I actually read reviews. Not because I am envious of some other author being lauded upon to the point that brown-nosing is involved. Or as SJD Peterson once told me:

“…to the point where they are blowing so much sunshine up my backside that I get a sunburn from it.”

Yeah, I get that. There are those reviews where the audience member is simply enthralled with the idea that they are in some way interacting with the author on a personal level and need to praise them to ensure their being counted amongst the author’s favorites. And to a small degree, in some instances, that is sort of true (in a slightly, tilt-your-head-like-the-RCA-Victor-Dog sort of way). I mean it is no different than someone gushing over their celebrity crush or admiration for say, Benedict Cumberbatch’s latest work. I may applaud his performance, I may swoon over his choices as a fellow thespian – I may even be so lucky to have half-a-minute to converse with Cumberbatch himself and tell him so. Does that mean my opinion should be elevated because of this? No. I may have interacted with him but in no way does it mean I take whatever he created and say it has anything to do with me (other than a shared experience).

 

Even I'm a CUMBERBITCH - just sayin'...

Even I’m a CUMBERBITCH – just sayin’…

 

But with books, I dunno. I mean, they are a bit more intimate because it is just you, the reader, and the author who is imparting their imaginary (in the works of fiction) worlds to you. So in a very real way it is an audience of one. I get why so many readers feel a kinship with their favorite writers. But that line does get blurred by them an awful lot.

And let’s be honest here. Most of what is out there isn’t written for longevity in the populace. It isn’t written for posterity sake. It’s fluff – pure and simple. Most of it is written from the firm belief that “this one will crack through and become a big time best-seller.” It’s all about the sale, isn’t it?

The majority of them don’t make it. In fact, most never will. I read somewhere that like the world economy, the author spectrum is that 5% of authors make nearly all of the money made in books while the other 95% scramble for monetary crumbs. Oh there’ll be those fleeting books who find an audience several years or decades later (some even finding their “mass” audience and adoration after its author has long departed this mortal coil).

But it doesn’t mean that the reader has any real claim on the work at all. They may invest themselves in the work, they may even draw analogies from it and liken the experiences of their beloved characters to their own mundane existence, but they are never really a part of the work. Not to my mind, at any rate.

Take my latest, Angels of Mercy. Marco, Elliot and the rest of the ensemble cast have no knowledge of the reader’s part in the story (even if Elliot feigns breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly – yeah, okay, that might’ve been a bad example on my part). They will continue to tell their tale the same way every time the book is opened and someone reads it’s opening line:

 

“My day at the Q went pretty much like any other day.”

 

Elliot will always begin the story this way. He won’t alter it for the reader because the reader may be in a particular mood. Those words will be the exact same thing each time the book is opened and read. Period.

Yet, as a reader, those same words can mean a great deal of things given the kind of day they are having. The reader does imbue a part of themselves into it on their part. So I get the connection to the work. But to my mind, and way of thinking, it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) change the dynamic of the work. Unless, of course, that the work was created with the sole intention of selling like hot-cakes. Then we’re talking a sell-out sort of arrangement and not a work that was created because its creator was artistically inspired to create something from a whole lot of nothing.

I get why audiences exist. I get that they will have a takeaway from the experience. But what I grouse about is that there are some pretty fucking stupid people out there who don’t have the life experience (some are born, live and die in the same patch of land they’ve been on their whole lives – how myopic can you get? I mean even a poor man can start walking one direction and be somewhere totally foreign to them within a day), they don’t stretch the meaning of their existence to grow and see what life truly has to offer. In most cases, they just have a general languishing apathy toward anything that would remotely give new meaning to their existence – save for the random book or movie they might experience.

Unfortunately, those are usually the same individuals who feel compelled to write about works as if they have something to offer in the conversation. I come to this conclusion because of people I’ve talked with who are avid readers but purposely do NOT review the books they read. Why? Because they either don’t have the time or the inclination to share their ideas with anyone else. They are in it (reading) for their own personal gain or pleasure from it.

So what are we left with? Book report reviews (seriously, I saw one that made a feeble attempt at a real review by writing a small and concise synopsis of the work before their actual review – thankfully they did their best to avoid spoilers for any blog/review readers who might happen upon the piece). Yet when they moved on from that brief book report, the actual review consisted primarily of expounding upon the synopsis they just wrote- thereby completely negating why they wrote the synopsis in the first place, leaving the last few sentences as bread crumbs on actually reviewing the work at all.

What are my author pal’s takeaways from it? “We don’t read them unless they’re great.”

Yeah I get that. It’s a lot of hard (and often very lonely) work that goes into them. Appreciation is nice if just for the – “wow, you really did that, didn’t you” sort of thing and not necessarily because it has any real entertaining value to it. Purely an appreciation of the mechanics and effort involved. And that’s a very good thing to feel from others – just an acknowledgment of the accomplishment of finishing it.

That’s great! Well done, you!

 

Angels of Mercy - Volume 1: Elliot

Angels of Mercy – Volume 1: Elliot

 

Fabulous words to hear, indeed. But the rest of it? Eh, not so much. Then there’s the added issue of authors who have padded reviews. Works that are reviewed by readers who just laud the work when it’s only been out for a day or so. Wow, uh, really? I mean when I released Angels of Mercy – Volume One: Elliot, one other author had 7 reviews ON THE SAME DAY OF RELEASE?! How in the fuck is that possible? I mean I know there are beta readers but seriously, this author writes a “book” every couple of weeks. I’ve read one of them – not much to get worked up over. Very thin plot, weakly drawn characters (despite how many fans were gushing about the powerful writing involved).

Seriously, is the bar that fucking low, now?

Perhaps that’s why the life-experienced deprived individual has a voice now. Because the works themselves are not very meaty to begin with. And the brevity of the works… what’s up with that? I can’t be bothered with a short novel. I know some love them. I am not of their lot. Not by a bloody long shot. Hell, I wrote HO’M,O – Henry O’Malley, Omega (a.k.a. – The Shrill of Sparrows (thanks Amazon for that clusterfuck of titles)) as a short novel and it KILLED me to be so damned curtailed in the writing. While I don’t think the story suffered from weakness in the prose because of this, it isn’t what I would’ve originally done. But it was a NaNoWriMo story so I knew it was going to be short as it was written in a month as part of the NaNoWriMo challenge.

But yeah, maybe the rise in mediocre reviews is because there is a lower standard of the works that are out there. I don’t know. I do know that by and large, I am somewhat disinclined to just buy a work because it’s on the cheap and got a boat load of 5 star reviews. Though I am just as guilty of playing the 5 star game. And it rankles me that I do. I struggle with it constantly. But I hired a mainstream promo group and they’re all about the self-promotion as my part in the game – I paid good money for it so I gotta be “all in. I bargained for that when I hired them so yeah, guilty as charged on that score. Actually, if it’s on the cheap that is usually a BIG red flag for me. Not saying it has to be worthy of competing with a bracelet from Tiffany’s where price is concerned, but a 99¢ priced novel or novella isn’t going to make me want to buy it on price alone. I played that game early on with my e-reader and have a ton of books I’ve tossed aside as unworthy of my attention.

Instead I’ll read crap-assed review after crap-assed review until I find one that I think is well written and THEY will be my barometer of whether it will interest me or not. In most cases I am simply disappointed that 95-98% of the reviews out there hold very little resemblance to an actual in-depth review that takes a serious look at the work at hand.

And that’s a real shame. I maintain that I will always trade thinly written 5 star reviews for a single gay or questioning boy who decides what I wrote spoke to him and his world – that I made that sort of connection to someone else, who like me, was desperate for a voice to say – You’re okay kid. Things are gonna be okay, somehow. Confirmation that my world, as imaginary as it might be, gave him a bright beacon of light to find a way in his own. That review may not be the best written, but if I can get a strong sense that it’s written with heart and deeply felt? Yeah, that’ll get my vote every time. I look for those reviews. I may write for me. But I also write for that guy and it’s those reviews that matter to me most.

Until next time …

SA C

 


 

Don’t forget about the rafflecopter author giveaway (I am taking part in this event) – to benefit LGBTQ charities and causes. Adding our voices to combat bigotry and homophobia.

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With a plate full of fluff, where do I put my literature?

With a plate full of fluff, where do I put my literature?

 

With a plate full of fluffy words, where does the art of prose fit?

With a plate full of fluffy words, where does the art of prose fit?

 

Stream of Consciousness Time Here:

This one is a pure rant. I accept any bullshit flung my way from this vomit of “where’s the fucking art” in writing that I am about to sling your way.

This past year I woke up after toying for (literally) years with story ideas that I’d always wanted to put down. Mostly for my own amusement, with the odd thought that maybe, just maybe, someone else out there might find them of interest. And maybe with an eye to posterity (of some sort) that I was leaving behind that “I was here.” A stake in the proverbial literary catalog, of sorts.

So I started this website, started to post my WIPs (Works In Progress), started to blog about the craft of writing (which I take VERY seriously), started to cultivate getting to know other authors out there. I’ve gotten to know a few. I’ve chatted with some at length. Mostly I try to keep away from it all because to a great degree it’s been rather demoralizing as I write very differently from what they do. I know I am the oddball out. I know that my works don’t fit their often myopic mold.

I grouse at my poor husband about it all the time. I do pity him having to listen to me carry on about this.  And I do, and I know it might sound like my little choo-choo has gone completely ’round the bend at times.

My issue? Most of what I read now doesn’t have any real depth to it. It’s all fucking fluff. Fluff is what’s selling. Literally I have close to 1200 books on my nook alone and I’ll start several of them in tandem, trying to find something with which to hang my literary hat on and say – “Now we have something here, boys and girls.”

But I suppose that in this day and age of rapid information, of stories in television that must be told quickly, that our society has gotten used to a steady diet of sugary and thinly written prose as if it were the real thing: true literature. How do I come to this? Because there are Facebook groups set up by authors with LITERATURE in their title. As if using that word alone will elevate the level of their writing.

I see reviews of works I’ve picked up (primarily, because of those reviews) where the author is lauded with “powerful writing” or “story that moved me to tears” and read the damned thing and went – WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK??! I didn’t even bother to review it online. It wasn’t even worth my responding to it. More often than not it was better spent lining the bottom of my cat box (if I’d bothered to buy the actual paperback). Thankfully, 98% of my library is now digital so the death of trees is not a consideration for me.

I don’t write genre fiction. If my works tend to lean into some specific genre then it is a prop no more than the dress I may put a character in. Why? Because I deal in character studies. I deal in diving deeply into the psyche of a given protag with all of their inner-monologues. I want you to know who they are – unequivocally.

Oh, I know I have that in my signature line in my email: SA Collins, Author of Gay Literature Fiction across multiple sub-genres.  So I try to be honest about what I do. It is the LITERATURE part of that signature that means the most to me.

The question I keep coming back to is: Why can’t the writing be better? Jesus, sometimes I feel like I have ants crawling all over me as I read something that got five stars when I’d rather piss all over the work. And it’s not limited to just M/M Romance here (though to a great degree that genre hovers barely above the fan fic it was recently born out of). I used to remind the women who have made it into an industry on its own that it had roots in the MALE writers of the previous century. That their iteration of it only came into fruition during the gaieties of the 1990’s. Now I am not so sure. Why? Because those men – John Rechy, Gordon Merrick, to even EM Forster, Langston Hughes and the great Oscar Wilde – those men wrote real blood and bones literature. It truly isn’t the same as the M/M fluff that is out there masquerading as powerful prose.

And to be clear, I’m not saying I am the next Forster or Rechy. I am still working at my craft. But I am not about the sales. Jesus, was there ever a fucking cop out than to be totally capitalistic about it? Does the success of the work not speak for itself without it having to translate into dollars/pounds/pesos or the like?

I get that we all want to pay bills. I get that making a living doing the thing we love most is important to us. But how many great stories have been modified, quelled, softened or outright killed by their own author because there is the fear that “oh, this one won’t be as popular as that fangless disco sparkly vampire shit that’s all the rage right now?”

I know not everyone is up to the task of writing real literature. I get that. Jesus, what a bland fucking world that would be if we all were the Wildes of our times? It would be a pretty bitchy crowd as well.

But it doesn’t end with these self-pubbed or god forbid, small publishing boutique houses, who think they’ve become the barometer of what’s acceptable and can qualify as real literature or even proper storytelling.

And just what the fuck happened to real literature?

That’s what I’d like to know. Even the “NYT Best-Seller” list has questionable material out there.

50 Shades of SHIT, much? (I mean, have you read it?!)

 

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Harper Lee is about to have her sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird (a book I adored as a teen) published after some 40+ years. My first thought – who cares if it’s shit? It’s gonna be much better written than the crap people are slinging around now.

And it isn’t limited to books either.

Let’s take television writing, for example –

Two character driven shows I am currently caught up with (that I was certain were going to get cancelled) have somehow miraculously survived (to my absolute shock):

HBO’s Looking

The Cast of HBO's LOOKING (currently running season 2)

The Cast of HBO’s LOOKING (currently running season 2)

 

and Showtime’s Penny Dreadful

 

The brilliant cast of Showtime's PENNY DREADFUL

The brilliant cast of Showtime’s PENNY DREADFUL

 

The first (Looking) has come under a lot of fire from the gay community as well as the mainstream audiences. The first complaint lodged at it – it was an unrealistic portrayal of the gay community. Okay, perhaps for some of you. Yet, living in the SF Bay Area as I do (and yeah, even in the goddamned city itself) I gotta tell ya, I was more pleased than not by their first season voyage. So how did I come by to give them a pass when so many of my community seemed to shit-can it?

They said it was boring, it moved too slow.

I love slow.

I love the unveiling or unraveling of a character as they spiral out of control or try like hell just to hold onto what they think will work for them even when every indication is that it won’t. And can I stop and just laud Raul Castillo for a moment? His Ritchie completely slays me. His character is so to the core of who Latinos in the gay context are (don’t let the nom de plume fool ya, I am half-Latino). He doesn’t represent every gay Latino – who could? – but what he does brilliantly is that he encapsulates the culture so well that you feel his family roots in every scene he’s in. I get giddy as a school girl when he’s on the screen. And Lauren Weedman‘s Doris is one of the BEST written women’s roles out there. I am literally on pins and needles when she’s on screen. Her Doris is a knock-it-out of the park performance that can’t be missed.

 

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The push against slow reveal? Hmm, sound familiar from my argument above? Rapid information age, much?

What I liked about Looking was exactly that – it was a slow reveal of these guys lives. And yeah not all races were equally represented. I get that. But hey, news flash – neither is the other hit on HBO’s roster – GIRLS. No one seems to be bagging on that show about it’s lack of inclusion. Yet, Looking got hammered (both comedically by a trashy assed group out of LA who did their rather pedestrian attempt at a comedy spoof which I found wholly un-funny, and by several critics of the show who blogged (rather poorly worded rambles, I might add) about what didn’t work for them). Fine. I accept that Looking may not be for everyone. BUT what I do rail against it the fucking notion that you have to have all your shit answered in the first five minutes of the goddamned show or you label it BORING. Give the writers a fucking chance to flesh them out, will ya before saying – eh, it’s boring!!

News flash, all of our lives to a great degree are. Maybe that was the fucking point of the show – a little realism rather than heightened drama from the first minute of an ep to the last?

Guess what: You’re boring, fucktard for thinking that slow reveal is boring.  (I know, I know – not very prosaic of me, is it? Can’t help it – I’m at the end of my tether with this shit).

Characters are getting more and more stifled because of rapid writing and thinly dressed paper doll characters. I would think it safe to say that 95% of what’s out there in genre fiction is barely fleshed out. Some of it is appalling that it past muster on someone’s – ‘ooh, let’s get that one out there for the masses‘ with the desire to get them to drink the damned poorly written, thinly flavored Kool-aid.

Also, sidebar: what’s with the tiny assed novels (which are more like wordy brochures/pamphlets in my book) lately? Angels V1 is 207K words and V2 is topping out at a whopping 752K (and I ain’t done with it yet)! My work is epically big. And those that have read it have commented that it’s all pretty damned relevant – not much to cut there.  Not that length is any measure of what is literature. I know that. It is the quality of the writing that elevates it to that level.

(Puts soap box away on this little side rant.)

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In the case of Showtime’s brilliant Penny Dreadful, I am overwhelmed by the writing style of that show. Gay writer and creator John Logan is a brilliant craftsman of the modern age in my book. I am a fanboy for life with this guy.

To have the brilliance of tackling most of the great gothic horror monsters in one show and of diving deeply into their strive to hold onto some small thread of their humanity is nothing short of a brilliant take on the work. I love that this show doesn’t go from one ep to the next where you think it will go. No, Mr. Logan gives us sweet and well written bon monts, gently peeling back layer upon layer of the character as we dive into their core.  Characters that are desperate to hold onto that humanity at all costs, when they know their darker monsters are what make them truly strong enough to survive in their harsh world.

One episode sticks out most for me. It was a complete diversion from the main story arc but was at the root of why the whole series was being revealed in the first place.  It’s focus was on the backstory of Eva Green’s character of Miss Ives and her past history with Mina. It went way out of the scope of the current arc, but it informed us of why we were where we were in the main storyline.

THAT, my friends, is brilliant and well-crafted prose. I nearly, literarily speaking, creamed in my jeans over this type of work. Only then to have a sudden fear creep over me that – “No, this is too good. It’ll get shit-canned for sure. The masses won’t keep watching this type of character driven period drama.” But apparently, Showtime was invested enough that Mr. Logan and crew were given not only a renewal part way into the first season, but also that they’ve bought into how Logan is revealing these iconic and well loved characters for a new audience. And they increased the number of episodes for the second season! Bang on brilliant in my book!

And I get that some people don’t like high prose writing. Not everyone finds Anne Rice’s works to their liking. I happen to love her writing style. As I do with her son, Christopher. Though I find his gushy blog ramble on M/M romance of late to be a bit out there.

I know fluff sells, because most of us live those boring damned lives and want some escapism to give us some much needed pent up steam release. I get it. But we’ve become dangerously weened off the good stuff in favor of this steady diet of fluff. Are we in peril of becoming literary diabetic from all this sugary coated ramble that we’re passing of as “5 star” writing?

Jesus, has the bar become that low now?

And for a guy like me who actually is trying to write the real literature stuff (and no, my NaNoWriMo HO’M,O wasn’t an attempt to do that – though I did try to elevate the prose a bit – it was more of my feeble attempt at fluff for a fan of mine since he loves werewolves so much – I wanted to have a bit of fun with his topic of choice) where do I fit in on the personal library plate? And I constantly hone my craft to look at the actual prose, to see if what I’ve worded serves the character to the best possible degree.

Not that everyone gets it, either. I mistakenly passed off Angels of Mercy to a small boutique house who simply didn’t get what the work was about – why? Because they don’t have anything like it in their roster. How do I know ? Well, a decent sized chunk of what I have on my nook was bought from that house. I think after I’ve perused that much of their catalog I get what they deem to be publishable. The response from my submittal – your character repeats what he says in his head a lot. It is what teenagers do to solidify that what they perceive is indeed real or not. They are constantly pulse checking where they are with others and with themselves. But the acquisitions person who picked up the work couldn’t get past their formula for the books they were churning out. And the size of the work was an issue.

To which I nearly laughed out loud – “Uh, do you remember what your youth was like? Cause the character is a teenaged boy who is living in fear of each day being ‘the day’ he will be beaten to a pulp. He is constantly checking and re-checking his world. It is a psychological element to his character. How do I know this? BECAUSE it is from my own journals and notes AS A GAY YOUNG BOY IN HIGH SCHOOL. The shit was REAL.” But hey, I am sorry that it didn’t fit into your formulaic and myopic view of what was “selling.”

I’ve decided that Angels is too great a work to go through the foibles of boutique publishing or even self-pubbing. It may mean that it ultimately sits on the shelf in my house and on a computer until it can find a proper home (probably via an actual literary agent shopping it around for me – so there’s that battle to wage down he road). And even with that sort of backing, it is an extreme long shot that it would do well. I get that. There’s simply too much white noise fluff out there to weed through.

The hubby swears it will find a home with a proper publisher and it WILL get read by the masses. I wish I had his confidence. I don’t.

What I do know, is that Angels captures that waffling of youth quite well (and I am not tooting my own horn here – I’ve had several people read the work in its current form and all unilaterally have said it isn’t genre fiction – what I’ve got is real literature and that it’s pretty bang on the money with how I did it).

I just don’t know if my work will ultimately sell, mostly because I am caught up with writing about inner struggles that are 70% or more inner-monologue. Think of Rice’s Louis or Lestat on steroids and you’ll get the picture.

That’s my worry. I write what I write, but ultimately to what end? I don’t have an answer for that. All I see is five star ratings for stuff that I just can’t see the value in it. And I have to cop to the fact that it is selling hands-down. But I think that is because they’ve (the mainstream buying audience) been fed a steady diet of pedestrian prose, both in book and media form, that is passing itself off as great (and powerfully moving) writing. But is being a best-selling author truly the only barometer of a well-crafted work? Let’s be honest, I don’t think much of the fluff being passed around here will be remembered seventy years or so down the line. It’s written for immediacy in selling and the in the moment hype. It has no lasting purpose, not really. Let’s be honest.

Maybe that’s why I keep reading the classics. I need to be reminded why Look Homeward Angel was a brilliant piece of fiction.  Or my favorite, Maurice. There is one paragraph in Maurice that I still read many times over when I come to it. It is the description Forster gives about Penge that is simply a few sentences but so beautifully structured that I am caught it the absolute brilliance of the concise prose Forster employs to completely paint the picture of this crumbling British estate. But most of the book is like that. His prose is so well-crafted in the piece that it became a bit of a hallmark for me. I want to write, not necessarily in that style, but to that sort of structure. Only from a first-person perspective, because I think they are the most revealing. I’ve also recently picked up the un-abridged edition of Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray – which is decidedly far more homoerotic than the original publisher would allow in his day.

Okay, I’m spent.

I’ve done my bit of a rant now. Not that it does anyone any good (me included).

And to be clear – though I know I will be taken to task on it (as a sidebar in case you’re wondering: I don’t care) – I think there is room for the fluff; I am just saying that can we all aspire to write to a higher purpose at times? Or is the all mighty buck the be all/end all now?

That’s my worry. I think I may be a dying breed or a breed that has already passed. Too late to the actual literary party.

Eh, maybe I’ll just give it all up at the end of the year.

If only my boys in my head who have stories to tell would let me get away with that. But I know they won’t.

So I tinker away at it while others laud and applaud themselves for being “yay this, and yay that.”

My take on it? I think, if Angels sells by some odd miracle of fate, I would be so humbled by it I think I might go into seclusion. Which is rather odd for me, because I am a child of the theatre – I’ve been performing in front of large houses (several thousand seats) since I was a child (under a different name). Yet, success in the literary world would scare the bejesus out of me. Perhaps because maybe that would lead me to think that my work would be in the pantheon of Vidal, Forster, Wilde and the like.

To be clear, I don’t think I am in their league. Not yet, at any rate.

But I press on.

Until next time …

SA C

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