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Bitter Moon 4: Triane's Son Completed

3/28/2014

 
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 Okay-- I know you've seen the covers before.  But, well, the series is out now, all four books, and I thought I would remind you. (* This post originally appeared on Yarning to Write, where the pictures comment actually makes sense.)

Bitter Moon IV: Triane's Son Reigningis out today.  It's the last book in the series following 
3. Triane's Son Fighting   2: Triane's Son Learning
1: Triane's Son Rising  and the moment is bittersweet for me.

While this series was in editing, I frequently got notes from the editors that they were in tears-- that this book, of all of them, completely destroyed them.  At the very end, the editors told me I'd accomplished something incredible, and I should be proud.

I am proud. 

I was proud six years ago when I finished this series and published them on my own--but I was also a little disappointed.  The Little Goddessseries did so well for a self-pubbed series-- I had just started figuring out sales trends, and I couldn't figure out why this series wasn't selling the same way.


Well, the fact is, fantasy and science fiction-- as much as I think they're the pinnacle of human achievement-- don't really sell as well as romance.  Knowing what I know now, I understand: romance sells hope.  Fantasy and science fiction very often sell painful reality with a pretty change of scenery.  I know that for all of the pre-industrial setting, the world building, the magic, that these books involved, there were some painfully real things in them that made them difficult to edit. 

I figured I'd compile a list of "Bitter Moon" trivia-- things about my life that coincided with these books--to maybe make that a little more clear.  Also, it would be great to have a bunch of that all in one place. 

So, some things to know about The Bitter Moon saga-- on this, the day, of it's completed release.


*  This series originally came in two volumes. (You can still see the original cover art here and here, because amazon.com won't let the three copies in existence die.) For the re-release, we split each volume into two pieces, because the original books were over 200,000 words one, and industry standard, especially for young adult books, is half that.


*.  I started writing these books because my older kids were in middle school--I had written the first three books of The Little Goddess series which were "adults only", and they wanted a bookthey could read.  My daughter read the first of the books, my oldest son was not really ready for all of the figurative language.  Chicken probably could have read the second book, but by then I was reading her all the good parts as I was writing, and, well, spoilers ho!  Chicken hates spoilers.  And, of course, by the time I was done with the second one, she'd already read The Little Goddessseries, because, yes, they do grow that fast.

* The protagonist, Torrant, is bisexual.  He did not start out that way, but, well, I fell in love with his school friend, Aylan, and Torrant did too, even though he was moon-destined to Yarri.  I had to accommodate the ending so that they could have their moments.  It was worth it.

*  In the original version, Yarri didn't live.  All of my beta readers (except one-- sorry Erik!) said, "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"  *sigh*  Too much tragedy.  When I read the books again, I realize they were right.  My heart was sore when I was done with them as it was.

*  I started writing these books right after Squish was born-- she was probably two months old.  When you are first introduced to the Moon family, they are pretty much where my family was at that time.  Bethen is pregnant with her fourth child-- a redhead--and her three-year old is giving her fits.  One of the funny things (to me, anyway) was that when "Roes"  (a.k.a. Chicken) is full grown, I keep referring to her as "short and practical".  That's because in eighth grade Chicken was 5'3.  Then she started high school, went to sleep for nine months, and woke up 5'9"--and willowy.  Funny how, even when you're there, you still miss the ways your children grow.

*  My first year back to work with Squish was excruciating.  I blogged a lot of it on the "lost" blog, and I was a lot fiercer and a lot angrier then.  I alienated co-workers with my honesty--and, quite frankly, with my overwrought presentation.  I once made a list of shit that went down when I went back to work that year-- the computer, the administration, other teachers, AND the student body really were out to get me, in tangible, painful ways.  It sounds paranoid--I know it.  It sounded like the rantings of an exhausted, hormonal bitch on wheels, even when I was writing it then.  But now, looking back at it, I realize that just because I was paranoid didn't mean they weren't out to get me.  By the time I started book two (or books three and four now) my hero was stretched unbearably thin and under siege.  By the time he reached the end of his story, I was a sobbing, hysterical mess.

And then the "thing" happened.  If you read the books, you will read about "the thing" as an addendum in the last book.  The thing broke my heart.  Losing a student you are close too is never easy.  I may never get to write a memoir about the vainglorious prickweenies who made my life miserable, the cowardly groveling our administration did at the feet of a parent who worked for the district, the breaking and shifting of an atmosphere made toxic by misogyny and despair.  But I have Torrant, and the way his soul seemed to be destroyed one piece at a time.  The fact that he is alive and happy at the end of this story is, to me, one of the most optimistic things I've ever written. 

*  While I was writing these books, I took breaks in between to write The Green's Hill Werewolf series, one novella at a time.  I remember the first time I blogged about Jack & Teague & Katy-- I was extremely self-deprecating back then (if you think I'm bad now!) and I called it "gay werewolf porn".  (Forgive me, everybody.  Seriously.  Especially if you love Teague as much as I do.  Forgive me.)  One of my colleagues pulled me aside to tell me how far I'd fallen.  I couldn't explain to him, even then, how much it meant to me that Teague, damaged, broken Teague, found comfort and love.  I'm a lot more articulate now--and I've had too many people tell me how much my stories mean to them to blow anything I've written off as "porn".  (Not that there's not a long, distinguished history of porn--just my work isn't in it!)

*  The year after I finished Bitter Moon II, I wrote Rampant, and If I Must, andKeeping Promise Rock. The rest, as they say, is history, and I've been writing almost strictly m/m since.  I'm going to break that this summer, and write Quickening to follow Rampant,and I'm worried and stressed-- and exhilarated.  I miss this kind of writing.  I miss alternative universes, and shape-changing angst-monsters, and fierce little women with sexual powered nuclear fusion rays shooting out their mouths.  And editing this story for re-release reminded me of the sheer creative force that such writing entails. 

It also reminded me how far I've come, and how much more I'm bringing to the table. 

So there you go-- The Bitter Moon Saga.  If you read it, and you're new to Amy Lane, remember, it's not a romance.  It's an epic fantasy with strong romantic elements. 

And it was written to break your heart.

Amy's Lane, March: Show Me Romance (Don't Tell Me Porn)

3/4/2014

 
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Show Me Romance (Don’t Tell Me Porn)

 

My stepmother thinks I write porn.  I tried to explain to her that I don’t, but, in the way of mothers everywhere, she wasn’t going to let me finish my sentence.  There was sex, sex she wasn’t used to—ergo, it must be porn.

For a while I was really frickin’ angry about this conversation—didn’t call her for a month, didn’t ask her to watch the kids, basically took a few weeks to calm down, take some deep breaths, and figure out how I was going to convince her that I had the English degree, the experience writing curriculum, teaching state standards, writing, marketing, and even speaking on this subject, all of which gave me a little bit of expertise in the matter, and she might want to let me finish my damned sentence.

Then she called me, and she was my mommy, and is, as I’ve always maintained, a really good person, and I realized that no, I was not going to win this argument.  I mean, I’ve written a fucktonna blogposts about it, including one titled “I Do Not Write Porn!”, and, even better, I’ve had lawyers actually read my work to determine if my stuff was pornographic in nature.  If it had been pornographic, I would have served prison time.  As of yet, I haven’t been fitted for an orange jumpsuit, so, well, yes.  I am an authority of whether or not I write porn, and no, my stepmother is never going to believe me, so I really am going to have to explain it to somebody or my head might explode. 

And ta-da!  It’s column time. 

So here’s why I don’t write porn.

As an English teacher, one of the staples of teaching writing is Rebekah Kaplan.  You all may not have heard of Kaplan, but I bet you’ve heard of her greatest legacy to our craft: showing not telling. 

Kaplan’s approach to getting students to write exciting prose was to get them to concentrate on sensory details and figurative language.  She would contrast a “telling sentence” in which the writer simply tells the reader how to feel, with a descriptive, sensory rich paragraph that “showed” the same idea.  An example would be:

Telling Sentence:  The puppies were impossibly cute.

Showing paragraph:

A few of them (the puppies) came to lick his fingers with curious tongues, and then, probably tasting the salt, swarmed over him, chunky little tails wagging, little snouts snuffling. Dicey, the mama dog, was something silky haired, like an Irish setter or a golden retriever, mixed with something wide at the chest, like a Rottweiler, but with less spectacular markings.

Whoever the father was, the resulting genetic potpourri was redolent in snubbed snouts, curly hair, and oddball body types. Tall and thin? Short and thick? Dense curly blond fur? Sparse wiry black fur? The nine creatures in the box with the mama had it all.

Jeremy played quietly for a moment, talking to them like an indulgent teacher to naughty schoolchildren. He tussled with the rambunctious ones and fondled the affectionate ones and reprimanded the bitey ones, finally settling on a little short-haired love sponge with black-and-white spots and cowlicks.

The puppy started to lick Jeremy’s chin slowly and methodically, and Jeremy fondled short triangular ears.

You ’bout ready to go back inside now, Jer?”  Aiden asked softly.

Jeremy nodded, but he didn’t move from his spot with the puppy. The poor thing had exhausted herself in the licking, and Jeremy smoothed his hand over her small, blocky skull.

“This one,” he whispered, nuzzling the baby behind the perky little ears. “Tell your mama we’ll take this one, as long as you’ll help me shop so we have all the stuff she needs.”

As you can see, the essence of “Showing not Telling” is the idea that readers can think for themselves.  They can look at a collection of appropriately chosen details and arrive at an evaluative judgment.  So, if all of the things that puppies do—waddle, cuddle, nuzzle, whimper, and lick, are described accurately, we come to the correct conclusion that puppies are cute. 

Tada!

It’s like a magic trick, right? 

I give the reader all of the naked ingredients, they mix it up, and the right conclusion pops out like a cake, but decorated and with “Feel This Emotion Here” printed on top—pretty frickin neat, right?

(Well, yes, Amy.  But that doesn’t explain why it is you don’t write porn.  Hold on a sec, I’m getting there!)

Now, when writing anything, a writer needs to keep this descriptive technique in balance.  By necessity, there are some things we are obligated to “tell” instead of show. If, instead of saying, “He stomped his feet in the frosty cold,” we said, instead, “He stomped his feet, his boots making indentation in the frost condensation from the night before and his breath coming like smoke as he walked across the yard.  His gloved hand slid from the door handle and he tried again, hearing the creak of the frozen water lining the seams of the car.  There was a bird-sicle hanging from his rearview mirror, and he mourned the victim of the insidious frigidity,” every time we talked about the winter, we’d never finish a freaking book, our simplest romances would be over 400K, and we’d be forced to go into real porn or starve.  So, yeah, a mix is good—because one of the things a mix does is give us room to  “show” some really complicated concepts.

Very often, when we are writing romance and showing the progression of a relationship, we are showing a couple of different literary elements, the most prevalent being character and conflict.  So, instead of overwriting a frosty yard or a starry sky or a dirty carpet or whatever, we’re using examples of how the couple behaves toward each other in the beginning, middle, and happy ever after of their relationship to show that they have fallen in love and will probably stay together and in love for a very long time.  This is the nature of a sound adult relationship.

Part of an adult relationship—an adult romantic relationship—is a physical relationship.

Now I know that in het romance, there is a big deal about Amish romances, because they are “sweet”.  What “sweet” really means in this case is that all the sex is off-page.  But there is still sex--even if it is just implied.  What happens in the bedroom—even if sex is referred to in vague euphemisms, like a cleverly crafted 1940’s movie—is integral to what two people in an adult romantic relationship do.  If one of the people in the relationship is hurt, or disabled, or psychologically unable to have sex—that is still a part of the relationship, because the relationship is still a romance for it to even be brought up.  If the story is written like one of the old 1970’s Harlequin Presents, where it’s all build up and the sex happens after the story ends, sex is still part of the story. 

An important part of the story.  One that shows character development and conflict.  And it needs to be written about. 

Written well.

And sometimes that means showing not telling.

Of course, there are different ways of showing not telling—especially when you’re talking about testes, peen, and no-no places.  Like anything else we do, the quality of our work depends on our choice of details and the language we use to describe or elevate those details.  Would you like an example?  (No, Amy.  We’re only here for the lecture. Swear.)

“My cock was eight inches long, two inches around, with thick blue veins bulging under the surface and masses of blond pubic hair around my low-hanging testicles.”

“I looked at my toes again—I had really long toes, to match, well, you know.  Not to brag.”

Guess which one I’d use for porn—and guess which one I did use for a New Adult level book about a kid who gets kicked out the house before Thanksgiving?

Of course, there are going to be other things to describe in the course of physical relations—but if you’re not writing erotica or porn (and believe me, my Kindle library attests to my lack of disdain for either media!) the details you choose have to be important.  In the example above, I mentioned Rusty’s endowment not to titillate, but to suggest a certain shy confidence on the part of the narrator. This shy confidence becomes important when our hero is asked to be sexually assertive.  We know he has it in him—he just needs to feel safe enough to let it out.  Once again, it comes down to character development and relationship development—the bread and butter of the romance writer, the thing we all tune in for. 

So when we’re writing a love scene—a sexual love scene—we do need to be conscious of what words we’re choosing, which details we choose to describe.  We need to say to ourselves, “Do I want my reader to get horny?  Or do I want my reader to be emotionally gratified?”  The line is terrifyingly close, I know, and for many of us, the stuff that makes us jump our significant others in the middle of the night is not the stuff that describes length, girth, hairiness and outstanding ribbed-vein capacity.  It’s the stuff that makes us remember when sex goes beyond sex, becomes personal, becomes spiritual.  If we’re lucky, giving our readers emotional gratification will result in happier marriages (or greater battery consumption!)  If we’ve done our jobs right, the showing character growth just might become a sensual experience all in its own.

So, no.  I am never going to win that argument with my stepmom.  She will continue to believe that a pee-pee in the no-no place is equivalent to porn.  I can tell her that four lawyers—two from opposing council (and I’m saying, my district really wanted my ass on a platter)—all agreed that Truth in the Dark in no way violated the Miller Obscenity Test.   My other work doesn’t either.  I’m a professional—I’ve spent my life in the study of words, exploring the labyrinth of language and learning which ways lead to which ends.  I know which paths lead to decadence and orgasm (whee!) and which paths lead to emotional fulfillment (also whee!).  In the end, it’s up to each one of us as writers to choose which words that will lead to which literature.  Whether you write porn and erotica proudly, or write romance, replete with hope and tenderness, these are the caves you hollow out and decorate with your well-chosen prose. 

These are the places you “show” us when we read your work.

 


    Amy Lane

    Amy Lane has two kids in college, two gradeschoolers in soccer, two cats, and two Chi-who-whats at large. She lives in a crumbling crapmansion with most of the children and a bemused spouse. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and m/m romance--and if you accidentally make eye contact, she'll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She'll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.

    This is where she posts about her books, and about Amy's Lane, the article she writes for the RRW once a month.  

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