Theme Week

Before we get started, I need to make a public service announcement. Those of you reading this blog, be warned: you're reading pornography. How do I know? Because the Lancaster County Library System said so. Apparently they've been tinkering with their content filter again, and the new one declared this blog "Pornography" and wouldn't let me on. Oddly, the four erotica publishers that were blocked under the old version are now accessible. Go figure.

So why is this innocent li'l blog now listed as indecent? You'd think the content filter would have gone after Shapeshifter Seductions, which has been known to feature descriptions of sex scenes and photos of naked men. Here's my theory: the computer is programmed to scan for key words that indicate the presence of racy content. Take a gander at the first three letters in "title." Uh-huh. I'm betting the computer lumped me in with all the naked boob sites. AI, gotta love it.

I've already listed a complaint with the site admins, trying to get the category switched to "Entertainment." (Update: nope, I'm still Porn.) In the meantime, we can all rest easy knowing that Lancaster County's libraries are keeping The Children safe from titles, because half of title is tit. I didn't check, but I'll bet the new filter will still let me onto those sites that show people how to build pipe bombs. I'm glad the system has its priorities in order.

I had no problem getting onto the Titleist Golf Balls website. They must know people.

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Meanwhile, back at my YA-in-progress—which doesn't contain any sex (so far) but does have four-letter words—I made an interesting discovery. The book's nowhere close to finished yet, but it has a theme. That was news to me. I tend to write a surface story. If subtext creeps in, it's by accident. Ask me what my book's about, and I'll respond, "About 300 pages." Or I'll describe the plot. Theme? We don't need no stinkin' themes!

So what's this one, and how did it wind up in my story? In a nutshell: the book deals with an alien (ET division) girl who was found as an infant and raised by humans. Her superpower is shapeshifting. She can physically mimic almost anyone, male or female. She thinks she may be a mutant until she encounters another member of her species. Her people crash-landed on Earth generations ago. Now they're poised to take over the planet by replacing key world leaders. If all goes according to plan, humans will eventually be phased out, which leaves our human-raised alien girl in somewhat of a pickle.

That's the plot. Teenage girl thwarts alien invasion. (Or not. I'm still working my way through the story.) The real story—the theme—came to me as I got deeper into my MC's personality. Mainly: what is it? Her whole existence is based on copying others and turning herself into someone else. Joining the herd. Fitting in. The ultimate pressure to conform to the norm. But what is the norm for her? When she steps away from both humans and her alien species, who is she?

I suspect we're both going to find out over the course of the story. Right now, I have no more idea than she does. But that's why we read, and that's why we write: to find out what happens.

A huge chunk of the reading experience is relatability. If the readers don't like your characters, they'll toss your book against the wall and go read something else. I've been worried a non-human protagonist might be a turn-off, especially since she doesn't have a romance. (So far. She believes she's asexual. Truth is, she's just not sexually attracted to humans, who are a different species. Things could change when she spends time among the aliens. We'll find that out, too.) But there is a touchstone with the human teen experience that I hadn't even thought of when I started: her penchant for shaping herself to fit in with the group, and her self-discovery of who she is and where she fits into the world. If any teens are reading this, you're probably nodding right now.

Damn, I hope I have the chops to pull this off. Well, I wanted to learn how to write better. Here's my teaching tool. I can hone my skills on this. I should probably read more YA while I'm at it. The level of writing in YA books is better these days than what I remember. I blame J. K. Rowling. She and Harry Potter set the bar impossibly high, and now the rest of us have to aim for it. Bitch.

Or I could just write porn, since the library's intent on blocking me anyway. Porn doesn't need themes, just phallic symbols. Easier all around. Happy reading!

(No Subject)

I don’t have anything specific to talk about this week, so I’m just going to jump around. We’ll start with an entry from the “Oh, the Irony” column. The local library’s running a promotion for Banned Books Week: get your photo taken with a banned book. Somebody else got Stephen King, so I went with Harry Potter. (By the way, have you seen that “fanfic” some alleged housewife is writing, that replaces all the references to magic in Sorcerer’s Stone with Christian ideology? In the first installment, Harry is rescued from his Godless existence and learns true Christian values. Common consensus among fandom is that this is really a satire perpetrated by one or more pro writers as a joke. Geez, I certainly hope so. Oh, and since Dumbledore was revealed as gay in the actual series, I suppose we can look forward to a priest-and-altar-boys subplot in an upcoming installment.)

While I was there, I told the ladies running the camera I write erotic romance, but the library’s content filter won’t let me access my publisher’s web site—in effect, banning me from viewing my own output. Their response was instantaneous: “There’s nothing we can do.” It’s the computer program, you see, not the fault of anyone human. I considered asking them who programmed the computer, but I suspect that would have been futile. Apparently the computer programmed itself and makes its own decisions independent of human direction, Hey, scientific community, look over here! The Lancaster County library system has successfully created AI! Terrific. Amish Country will one day be the birthplace of the Terminator. (“Come with me if you want to live, vunst.”) Now we can be famous for more than just buggies and Witness.

I forgot to mention how the filter fails to stop kids from getting into such fun sites as tips for growing pot indoors and how to build a pipe bomb. As long as you’re not having sex with stuff, the program thinks it’s okay. I did point out that the books the program’s designed to block are still readily accessible on Amazon. This revelation took them by surprise. In point of fact, you can still find flat out porn using the library system if you know which sites to look for.

Maybe instead of a computer program they should get that housewife “fixing” Harry Potter to flag sites inappropriate for children. That would reduce options to Teletubby fan sites and the 700 Club home page. I really need to get home Internet.

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Over on our other blog, Shapeshifter Seductions, we’re in the process of putting the serial story together for self-publication. I downloaded the Smashwords style guide and read through it. Now my head hurts. I’ve been working with computers since the early ‘80s, worked for typesetting companies off and on for at least ten years, I’ve got Microsoft Word on my laptop, and I can’t tell you a thing about coding, fonts or typography. I didn’t pay much attention to that stuff. I was just there to type. Maybe that would explain why I kept getting laid off from these places.

But what really gets me is covers. I don’t know how to do graphic design either, in spite of that background listed above. I took a six-week course in Adobe way back when, but didn’t pursue it. How was I to know publishing your own ebooks would become a thing fifteen-odd years later? Who even heard of ebooks fifteen years ago?

I’ve also got a bone to pick with stock images. Covers aren’t created by artists any more. They’re compiled from disparate images through Photoshop. If your lead character has a distinctive tattoo or hair style and they don’t have a picture of it in the files, you and your book are SOL. I foresee a lot of bland, similar-looking covers (with identical-looking leads) in the future.

We’re having that problem right now with our cover for the serial story. We’re trying to come up with a mammoth for the background. The one in the book was a mutated creature with wolf and human attributes, but there aren’t any stock images of that. We’ll have to settle for a generic mammoth (and when’s the last time you saw that term used in a sentence?). It might take longer, but it would look so much better, and much more unique, if we could just draw the damn thing. Why didn’t I take art in college instead of English?

I know I said we weren’t going to gather all the story’s separate posts together into a book. I lied. I’m a lying swine. There, I said it. Never trust a writer. We’re doing it as a promotional aid. The plan is to introduce ourselves and create awareness of our blog (and the books we wrote and advertise on it) to a wider audience. It’s what I’ve been talking about these last three weeks. This is us attempting to reach those million people who, we hope, will give us each a dollar. The serial story itself will be free, but if they like what they read they might check out our backlists. See how it all fits together?

One last thing. If your goal is to be a writer, don’t major in English in college. Take something that’ll let you earn a living. You can learn more from reading a really bad book than any lit courses anyway. But not our books. Our books are great. Keep those dollars coming!

Ye Olde Randome Stuffe

I’m going in a bunch of directions today, because none of the stuff I’m reporting on can make a full blog on its own. Together, though, they should make up an entry long enough that you’ll figure you’re getting your money’s worth. Wait a minute, this is free. Yeah well.

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Freedom of speech was fun while it lasted. The other day I tried to get onto my publisher’s website and discovered the library system’s onerous content filter is back in operation. Once again the system is determined to protect my innocent eyes from lascivious content, including the smutty books I myself wrote. I didn’t check, but I’m pretty sure the filter still allows people onto the site that shows you how to make pipe bombs. So sex is verboten but acts of terrorism are fine. Glad to see Lancaster County’s priorities are firmly in order.

This couldn’t come at a worse time, because—drum roll—I sold that book I was working on! It’s the smuttiest of smut, with a dominant woman who buys a pair of slaves for, um, personal entertainment. You know, juggling and card tricks and stuff. Hey, kids could be reading this. Gotta watch that content filter.

Anyway, I sent it out last Thursday evening and got the acceptance email on Tuesday. Siren’s nice in that regard; they don’t make you wait months and months for a reply. Some publishers don’t respond at all. “If you don’t hear from us, we’re not interested.” Yeah, well, you won’t be hearing from me again, because I’m not interested in you. I can publish books on my own now. Or I’ll be able to once I learn how. I think I’ll write straight-up porn and self-publish on Amazon, which skates right by the library’s content filter and has all sorts of nasty stuff right out there in the open for everyone to see. So there.

I wish I knew why descriptions of adult fictional characters enjoying themselves get so many people in a tizzy. And don’t try to tell me, “We must protect the children!” The children aren’t going anywhere near these sites. They’re playing video games that let them blow stuff up and save the world from the zombie apocalypse. You know, practical life skills. You keep your hands to yourselves, you zombie menaces! We’re watching you!

# # #

Having finished a book, I’m now faced with the usual problem of having to start another one. Looks like the winner this time around will be a Talbot’s Peak book, which means self-pubbing because not all the characters or concepts are mine. I was able to bypass that with Jessalina’s Pets because even though the initial post appeared on Shapeshifter Seductions, it’s not set in our fictional town and doesn’t use any characters created by anyone else. Ditto for one of the M/Ms I’ve got on the back burner. I transported the main characters to Philadelphia and created a whole new background and supporting cast. I can’t do that with this one. Better familiarize myself with formatting.

I’m not that concerned with the text of the book. It’s the cover that’s got me worried. In spite of working in the typesetting industry off and on for several years, I don’t know the first thing about fonts and typography and Photoshop and creating a cover. I’ll probably have to pay somebody to do that. This is why I’m still subbing to regular publishers. I’m just here to write the book. Let someone else worry about all the technical crap. That’s what they’re gobbling down half the royalties for. Dammit, I knew I should have taken art classes when I was in school.

I wonder if I have Photoshop on the laptop? I’ve got a ton of programs just sitting on the hard drive that I never even look at because I bought this for Internet and email and to serve as a typewriter. I could probably be a publisher if I knew how to work this stuff. Maybe I can teach myself. That’s what the library’s for. It isn’t for researching erotica publishers any more, that’s for damn sure.

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Let’s start the learning curve by attempting to make a link. If I did this right, you should be able to reach the blog post that became Jessalina’s Pets by clicking here. If I didn’t, it’s at October 9, 2013. I’m going to miss paper when it finally goes out of fashion, even though typing on a computer is so much faster and easier. And nobody cares if you make mistakes because you can correct it on screen. I guess that guy from the Monkeys, whose mother invented Wite-Out, doesn’t get royalties any more. Them’s the breaks, fella. Time marches on.

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I put food out for Stray Kitty this morning and he let it sit again. A neighbor told me he doesn’t like fish, and this had tuna in it. Talk about picky. I hope he likes the taste of no food. I’m sure somebody else will slip him something, or else he’ll catch a bird or a squirrel. We know he’s not fishing in the creek. And I’ve reached a decent word count, so we’ll wrap on this finicky note. See you next week!