Yes, I'm totally addicted to reading The Naughty Bits.  I'm not sure even TeddyPig (www.teddypig.com) realized what a discussion he'd generate when he recommended a publisher for f/f e-books.  There immediately followed several comments from women correcting him by saying that the publisher published lesbian romance, not f/f romance, and explaining the difference between the two.  So far the discussion is up to eighty-odd comments and counting, and has been going on for three days.  I hadn't realized there was such a thing as f/f romance as separate from lesbian romance, though f/f sounds like a genre I'd enjoy.  Some of the bi (and straight!) women who read f/f stories were saying that it can have bi and/or straight-identified women in relationships, which sounded good to me.  There was also a bit of mention of "gay for you" -- having a character suddenly "turn gay" when he/she falls in love with a person of the same sex.  I've read some lesbian romances with this storyline, and find it far more plausible than gay male romances with that plot.  It makes me sad that sometimes those female characters who fall for women think that their heterosexual experiences were all false.  I'd think that in some real-life cases some women would find their heterosexual experiences still legitimate, but just might not talk about it, given the political climate that they're under.

But so many threads in that discussion that I will have to think more about what I want to add here...

Brought A. along with me on a trip to Giovanni's Room.  She's quite straight, but was fascinated by the books on women's history and gay history.  I told her I had a good number of the gay history books.  She borrowed my copy of Hard Fall.  A. was raised Mormon, and is now Wiccan -- she told me she'd let me know if she found the Mormon aspects of the book like what she is familiar with.  I am not sure what I think about Hard Fall being the first m/m romance she reads, as parts of it are very...earthy.  (Of course, I enjoyed the heck out of those parts.)  I don't know if I should have eased her in more gently somehow.  But I have a feeling she'll like the bits about hot, sweaty men.  And it's one of the books I give high points to as far as having realistic gay male characters.

More thoughts on it all later...

Edited to add: Just wanted to list some of the books in men's fiction.  Laura Baumbach's Details of the Hunt and A Bit of Rough.  The Hearts from the Ashes anthology, which has stories by Ally Blue, Willa Okati and J.L. Langley.  A book in Ally Blue's Bay City Paranormal Investigations series.  J.L. Langley's Without Reservations and My Fair Captain.  Josh Lanyon's A Dangerous Thing, The Hell You Say, and a couple of copies of Death of a Pirate King.  Partners in Crime 1 and 3.  I thought about getting Partners in Crime 1, but I have it in e-book.  So the person or persons ordering for Giovanni's Room got a number of books from MLR and Samhain.  In the mysteries, Mahu is back in print and there were two copies of Stain of the Berry.

I was reading The Naughty Bits again.  I don't know how Teddypig keeps up on all these controversies.  But this one started with a blog writer posting about how Loose Id seems to be a m/m publisher now. (http://karenknowsbest.com)  Loose Id has some awesome m/m writers published with them, but they have m/f, menage of various sorts, even a few stories with intersexed protagonists.  Some of the comments on the original post got really nasty, but a number of the nicer, more thoughtful commenters made some great points.  One I thought pertinent was discussion about how GLBT romance almost entirely means m/m romance in e-publishing circles.  There's very little f/f romance, and little f/f/m romance.  Kirsten Saell pointed this out.  Here's part of a quote from her: "As someone who enjoys m/m/f, but likes f/f/m more, I’d like to see some differentiation (both on publisher sites and in reader discussions) between the types of menage and glbt out there (because the term “menage” does NOT only mean two guys and a woman, and glbt does not mean m/m)."  I didn't know she wrote f/f/m romances, and will have to check them out.  I certainly don't mind a good lesbian romance, either.  I prefer the butch/femme dynamic, but that's just me.  I'd like to get some recommendations of lesbian romances that sound like the kind of stories I'd enjoy.

A point they didn't make in this particular commentary is how it's generally assumed that bisexual equals menage.  Some bisexuals have relationships with only one person at a time.  Trust me, I know this.  Hard enough to date one person -- I can't imagine dating two or more at the same time.  Again, just me.

Here was a quote from one author defending her work, and the comment in reply.  I totally agree with Donna here. 

Donna Posted: Jul 4th, 2009 at 4:05 am

117 "Let me make perfectly clear, it’s not m/m, but m/f/m with no m/m interaction" "This always makes me a little sad when I see it, because I don’t understand. I get having two straight guys hook up with some chick for a night or a fling, but for the supposed HEA required for romance? I don’t get it. I want everyone in a relationship to love everyone else. That’s the only way I can see that HEA working out. And yet it seems to be de rigeur with m/f/m to insist, “Oh, but there’s none of that gay shit going on. Not in here, no way.” Why? In my perception, if you’re in bed with someone and there’s fucking going on, you’re sexually involved with that person. Having a chick between your dicks doesn’t negate that. Anyway, my point is that some people–myself included–are not going to default to seeing m/f/m menage as het. To some people, it inherently includes m/m content, even if there’s no touchies."

Quite a number of menage stories I've read have the, er, climax of the story being the woman being penetrated both backdoor and more traditionally at the same time.  The men usually enjoy this.  (The woman usually does, too.  I think it's quite the pr0n star scenario, and often think, "Ouch, ouch, ouch.")  One m/f/m menage story I read had this kind of scene, and one hero of the story thinking that the sensation of feeling the other guy's penis through the woman's membranes was "not unpleasant."  Not unpleasant.  You know, because they're both totally straight, and just really good friends, and the laws of this universe involve a woman having a pair of men.  Who are straight.

Here's another good point, Bree responding to a comment from Kirsten:

"I don’t know how many people I’ve come across who’ve told me (often in a less than pleasant way), that f/f interactions just do not “do it” for them. I hesitate to call them all bigots because of that.

Yeah, can we back that truck up or something? I don’t read m/m either, but I love your f/f/m books, Kirsten. And I have seen people who use the word “bigot” for those who don’t read m/m turn around the next day and sneer at f/f stories. That makes me far more angry than people who just admit up front that they don’t like the dueling penis stories..."

This pretty much goes back to people using the terms GLBT or "gay and lesbian" when they really mean m/m.  You could easily make the argument that the "B" and "T" are just tacked on to the names of some organizations without those organizations particularly having programs targeted at bisexuals or transgendered people.  So it's often token to start with before it's used to describe m/m stories.  A lot of m/m stories don't actually include gay-identified men or anything to do with gay culture or political awareness anyway.  I generally like the ones that do, if they're well-written.  I'd like to see more stories with FTM characters, if the stories were relatively respectful and well-written.  The only one I can think of offhand is *spoiler for the story* Greg Wharton's "Butterflies and Myths."  Stone Butch Blues is already a classic story with transgendered characters, and that was published in the early nineties.

But I can totally see women who are all about m/m stories saying bad things about f/f stories.  I worked through some of my internalized homophobia when I was in my early twenties.  It's a process that can take many years.  I can't imagine seriously entering that process when the only experience you've had with any same-sex relationship is reading romance.  I just can picture some readers never having had decent conversations with someone who's openly gay.  (I know I've said that before.)  Some readers are very insistent about being straight.  I've always thought of myself as being kind of bent for liking to read gay romance.  But then, I think of myself as kind of bent because I don't have a sexual orientation one way or the other, either.

But if you read Treva Harte's comments, she kept them high-class all the way.  I thought some of the other comments would be quite provoking, too, let alone the post.  One author was completely mocked for making rather intemperate comments, and told that it reflected badly on the publisher she works for.  It again goes to show that if authors or publishers act unprofessional online, it will haunt them forever.  Someone will dig up that post or comment years later to show that that person is intolerant, or unprofessional, or hurt her own cause.  Taking the high road in public really seems to be the best way to go, especially in a little world where the readers, authors and publishers mostly seem to know of each other.

And reflecting on the original post, and some of the comments made, it's perfectly fine for a reader to not be into m/m romance or menage.  If their idea of romance is that it is between one man and one woman, that's perfectly fine.  Some of the people who made comments along those lines were accused of being prejudiced, which is ridiculous.  That's how I distinguish the paperback romances at the secondhand bookstore from the family sagas.  If it's a story about three generations of women, it's not a romance in my book.  I don't even get into anything different than a "one man, one woman, happy ending" explanation of romance when I'm talking to the senior citizens at the bookstore.  I think of it as picking my battles.  Getting into a big discussion of gay rights in a public place where people are shopping, and probably see me as an employee, doesn't seem like the right thing for me to do.  I'm volunteering, but I'm still a representative of the store.  If I began a discussion about my belief that a romance is just as much of a romance if it has GLBTI (I for intersexed) protagonists, I figure the senior citizens will either quote Leviticus or give me the popular wisdom on the subject from the 1950s.

Every so often at the bookstore, we get an erotica book, and I just say, "Not a romance."  They trust me to distinguish when something isn't a romance.  I don't know what ever happened to the copy of The Story of O that we got as a donation.  I think it ended up in "Esoteric," which really means "Miscellaneous."  We have a set or two of Anne Rice writing as Anne Rampling, the Sleeping Beauty books.  One of the other volunteers asked me what it was.  "Erotica," I said.
     "What?"
     "Erotica," I hissed.  A customer walks by.
     "What did you say?"
     "Just go ahead and put it in 'Horror.'" 

 

It was quite a busy Wednesday.  We went up to the northwest corner of New Jersey to visit my grandmother.  It's a long drive, but I still wish we could see her more often.  Dad was along to navigate, so Mom and I didn't end up in Bloomsburg on the trip home this time.  Nothing against Bloomsburg, but it really was nowhere near where we were trying to get to.  But it was nice to see Grandma S.  She's moved to assisted living now, so there's less she needs to do than when she was in an independent-living apartment.  She doesn't have a sunroom in this new apartment, but she still gets the afternoon sun from some good-sized windows with wide windowsills for her plants, and room to hang up her suncatchers.  She's already got one of the glass prisms that send little rainbows across the room up.  Grandma had been talking about moving to assisted living for a while and was really ready for the move.  She needs more care at this point -- she'll be eighty-nine in a couple of months.  She raised four children and was a substitute kindergarten teacher and a seamstress.  I think she enjoyed retirement, but she does have a lot of physical problems now.  It's been a relief to us that she's in a nice place where the nurses and other staff are very attentive and caring.

She had a jigsaw puzzle out.  It was a map of the town that she and Papa C. lived in for probably close to forty years.  Dad grew up there, so he knew all the street names and everything.  He and I worked together on the puzzle for a while.  Grandma was urging us to finish it.  We had a nice visit, but had to get back on the roadtrip by late afternoon, as Dad had gotten tickets for a minor league baseball game.

We drove back across the Delaware Water Gap -- it's very scenic around there.  I drove that stretch back, and we switched over in the Allentown area so Dad could drive to the stadium.  The point at which we switched over turned out to be five minutes from the stadium, but the traffic had been getting heavy by then.  We went to go see the Allentown Iron Pigs play.  I don't know who came up with that name.  Apparently it's the name for iron at some point in the smelting process (?)  They had a couple of people in dusky-gray pig suits as mascots.  It was a little surreal.  Another surreal bit was having the fans chanting "Go, Pigs, Go!"  But the team is a Triple A team for the Phillies, and it was a really nice night for a game.  I got funnel cake, and managed to dust my clothes with powdered sugar.  Mom came up to me when I'd just gotten it, with a ballpark hot dog in her hand, asking, "Aren't you going to get anything nutritious to eat?"  She was oblivious to the irony, but I appreciated it.  I got a "dinner" of pierogies and cheese fries before my "dessert."  Before I'd even eaten my pierogies, Mom was asking for funnel cake.  She got a little less than half of it, I think, but only because I eat faster than she does.  She and Dad had a good number of the cheese fries, too.  Dad got a soft pretzel later on, and we shared that.  And people wonder why Philadelphia has the highest percentage of fat people in the nation's cities.  Anyway... We left at the end of the seventh inning or so, when the Iron Pigs were winning 12-0 over the Triple A team for the Red Sox.  I had wanted to see the whole thing, but Mom was getting tired.  She drove the whole way up to northwest New Jersey, so that was understandable.  We got the game on the radio on the way home, and the Iron Pigs did win it.  So it was a long day, but pleasant.

A. and I went on small adventures to local towns.  We went to Michaels (craft and hobby store) so I could look for spacer beads to fix my aunt's earrings.  She'd lost one and the hook had come off the other one.  I'd made them for her two Christmases ago, and she asked me to fix them this past Christmas.  It was just the first time I'd gotten all my jewelry-making stuff out since last Christmas.  I knew the beads I was looking for were sterling silver because they were tarnished.  I found a string of good-sized amethyst beads at Michaels, and got them.  I didn't find the right size spacer beads at Michaels, so A. and I went to Jo-Ann's Fabric and Crafts, which has a really nice and fairly large selection of jewelry-making beads and clasps and so on.  They had the right size spacer beads.  We stopped at Home Depot, too, and I picked up some metal tarnish remover.  It's not just silver polish -- it's something with acid in it.  That cleaned the tarnish off the beads right away.  I managed not to get it on my skin -- read the directions first and wore gloves.  Then I fixed the one earring and made another.  I'd had more of the black glass beads and onyx beads I'd used the first time around.  I'm trying to think of an earring design that would use the amethyst beads.  I have little amethyst beads, too, and glass beads in various shades of purple and lavender.

Went to the bookstore after that for a meeting planning the next few months and discussing various projects around the bookstore that need attention.  E. and I stayed a little later to pick out books for a sale. 

Went to visit my brother James in Baltimore.  Nice pool at his apartment complex, so we spent the afternoon there.  I finished reading Janet Evanovich's latest (fifteen in the Stephanie Plum By-the-Numbers series).  I laughed out loud at several points.  It didn't end the way I thought it would, but I liked how the mysteries were solved.  Lots of contribution to the fun from Grandma Mazur (who doesn't love Grandma Mazur?) and Lula.  I enjoyed Stephanie's interactions with Ranger, too.

Dad wanted to take Route 1 all the way back from Baltimore County to the Philadelphia suburbs.  Mom and I shot down that idea -- I'd done that route a couple of times, and pointed out that Business Route 1 up through Maryland (the part called Bel Air Road, I think) has traffic lights about every block.  So we compromised, and took Route 95 partway, then cut across on 537 and took Route 1 up a good part of the rest of the way.  I've crossed the Conowingo Dam Bridge so many times that it doesn't unnerve me too much.  It's only one lane each way, with the power station on either side, but it's free both ways.  The Route 95 bridge has several lanes, but can have wicked crosswinds.  The Hatem River Bridge looks kind of like an Erector set to me -- girders like that.  Once you get the pass for a year, though, you only have to slow down going through the toll booths.  We made a stop off the expressway part of Route 1 at the big convenience store on 272 (pretty easy-on, easy-off) and saw a horse and buggy.

At least where my brother lives now, you don't need to go through the tunnel and over the city on 95.  I thought it was just me thinking that the part of 95 North over the city once you get through the tunnel was one of the highest roads over a city I'd ever seen, but apparently it really is notably high.  So you go under the bay and then way up high into the air.  If I'm a passenger, I usually just close my eyes for most of it.  If I'm going south of the city, I'd just as soon take 695 (Baltimore section of the Beltway) around than take 95 through.

We stopped briefly at home, then went to another local-ish park to see fireworks.  Had something of a walk from the park to where we parked, but at least there's plenty of parking in that area.  I took an extra trip back to the car once we'd gotten to the park to get the bug spray we'd left in the car, but I was glad I went back to get it.  The fireworks were really nice, though.  So that's two years in a row that I've gotten to see fireworks live.  It's a trend I'd like to continue.

Went to see fireworks in [local-ish town] with parental units and A. from bookstore.  Much better than watching them on TV, which I've done the great majority of the past dozen or so years.  Last year, Mom and I saw fireworks over the ocean, from the boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey.  That was really cool.  A few years ago, I saw them from a boat on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Another very cool display.

Well, I'd only read a short story from Z.A. Maxfield from when I proofed the I Do anthology.  That was a cute story.  I just got St. Nacho's and Physical Therapy.  They were well-written, as in the prose flowed, and the technical aspects of the books were done beautifully.  The heroes were damaged, and had issues to work out, but they seemed to instantly fall in love, and not necessarily communicate much until the end of the story, if then.  I liked the books, but it was hard to believe that the characters would do so much for each other when they barely knew each other.  I still got drawn into the stories, and, again, appreciated how lovely the writing was. 

Finally planted just about everything I got back when at the herb sale and my plant shopping.  Mostly all that was left to do were the scented-leaf geraniums and a couple of pots of Corsican mint.  I planted the Corsican mint so it could trail over the edge of the pots, as it's a creeping, trailing sort with tiny leaves.  I never did find the pineapple mint that was still in its original pot.  Dad had moved things around.  I'll have to search again for it.

Started reading "Bad Fanfic! No Biscuit!" (http://www.englishchick.com/badfic/).  The examples made me shudder -- the ones I could read.  Some I read the warnings on and decided that I couldn't deal with right then -- or possibly ever.  The ones I did read were horrific in their pure wrongness.  The stories were deliberately done that way, to show what not to do.  I don't know if the people who would benefit from these lessons would actually read through the website, but I would fervently hope that some do. 

Begonias doing well, especially the pink-flowered one with bronzy leaves which is by the front door.  Red geraniums blooming -- they're so cheerful-looking.  TIger lilies in bud -- at least the few which haven't been beheaded by the deer.  Pineapple sage looks good.  Purple heliotrope blooming.  Cardinal flower plant well leafed out.  Will start blooming in a few weeks.  Elecampane looks like it will start blooming soon, maybe when it gets a foot or two higher.  Mint collection doing well.  Emerald-and-gold mint has filled its pot, spearmint is in various places by the back door, applemint near the path to the front door.  Some bee balm in the herb garden -- that usually blooms around the Fourth of July.

Today A. and I took a trip to [local independent used bookstore].  It is gigantic -- four stories in an old stone barn.  A. had a lot of fun exploring, but only got one inexpensive book.  I was doing pretty well with restraint as far as the gardening section went.  I found one relatively old book on roses, Roses for Every Garden, published in 1948.  It has some good roses of the time listed, so that gives me some pre-1950s rose selections to add to my mental database.  I have plenty of books on roses of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, but I love to collect ones that say what was popular many years ago.  A lot of Hybrid Teas from earlier decades are out of commerce now, of course, but it's good information for historicals -- or so I tell myself.  What I really should do is collect All-America Rose Selections yearbooks.  Some of the used ones are very inexpensive.

As we wandered up through the bookstore, I saw a book called Fantasy of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History.  It's a really pretty book, too, oversized, with lots of colorful pictures of magazine covers and pulp fiction book covers.  I could not resist.  I skimmed it a little bit -- will add more once I really read through it.

Disclaimer: I was given this one for free, so keep that in mind.  I hope my take on it doesn't come off as ungrateful at all, as I did like the story.  Which novel?  Somebody Killed His Editor.  This was billed as a romantic comedy.  I didn't really find it laugh-out-loud funny, though there were some amusing moments.  Adrien English gets better lines in his series.  Heck, Jake Riordan has gotten better lines -- he's come up with some memorable ones.  I'd say that's the author making some of his other work hard to top.  Not necessarily a bad thing.  This new series is a mystery series, too.  There's quite a sense of the characters being menaced, as they're isolated, with one of them a killer.  I didn't figure out who the murderer was, but I almost never do.  The narrator, Kit, starts out being sympathetic enough, but is revealed to be more and more of a jerk as the story goes along.  He doesn't quite cross the "moral event horizon" (as TV Tropes puts it), but he came pretty darned close to it, as far as I was concerned.  I rather liked the long-suffering J.X. Moriarity.  The way Kit tells it, J.X. is all in the wrong, but you can tell that Kit is completely unreliable about that.

There are some pretty funny observations and takes on the writing industry.  **spoilers**  The "paranormal demon Regency" bit made me smile, partly because that's the kind of thing I'd probably read.  The satirical look at the authors and the plots of their books was well done, and really very entertaining.  So it turns out to be more of a mystery-satire than a romantic comedy.  The narrator is clearly unreliable, which makes it fun to figure out what's closer to the truth than his view of it.  He's nothing like as lovable as some of the heroes in Lanyon's other books, which I think was somewhat deliberate.  It's all right to have a hero with plenty of faults, if he manages to redeem himself sufficiently.  I count being bitchy as more of a good point than a flaw, and Kit can be fairly bitchy.  The story ended up being quite different from what I thought it would be, but it was well done and very readable.  I'd definitely keep up with the series -- I want to see a lot more of J.X. Moriarity, and him really working together with Kit.

For me, an example of a lovable hero of Lanyon's is Perry Foster in The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks.  Perry was just adorable.  Sweet-tempered but stubborn, bright and determined, he was a great little hero.  I don't know if I said anything about that book at the time I read it, but that was a good one.  Mystery in a spooky old house, understated romance, creepy other tenants.  That was just what it said it was -- mystery with some romance.  His Partners in Crime stories do pretty well as equal parts mystery and romance.  "Snowball in Hell" was very nicely balanced that way -- I've repeatedly praised that novella for the characters and the romance.  "Cards on the Table" was a good mystery/romance mix, and I enjoyed it.  I liked Finn in "Lovers and Other Strangers."  He'd had a bad time of it, but he wasn't self-pitying.  He needed time to recuperate, but managed to stay very busy investigating anyway.  I didn't guess who the villain was in any of those, but as I said, I don't usually.  Plus I'm probably concentrating more on the romance in any case.       

Well, I was looking at the ComputErotika website to try to figure out when the Indigo Knights series will start.  As I skipped around, I ran across a bit with Jet Mykles talking about what yaoi is.  Here's a link she gave: http://katrina-strauss.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-heck-is-yaoi.html.  I found Katrina Strauss' post quite helpful.  Here's a good definition she gives: "Sooo....what is yaoi? Answers will vary as to what constitutes as "yaoi", though the common thread is that its roots lie in Japanese manga. Some will say it's any homosexual relations depicted in manga or anime, or fan pairings of characters from those genres, but in fact there is a certain dynamic that makes yaoi unique from other M/M and slash. One partner is assigned the role of "seme", a martial arts term for "attacker". The seme is the top, and usually tall, handsome, more masculine with squared features, narrowed eyes, wide mouth (often with a cigarette pursed between his lips) and aggressive to the point of being brute -- in other words, your alpha male. The "uke", which means "receiver", is your bottom. The uke is traditionally shorter, younger, more slender and feminine (though both parties are usually "pretty" aka "bishounen") with big doe eyes and full, pouty lips. Uke personalities can range from naive virgin who is shocked and begging for mercy when the buttsecks starts, to fiesty seducer who uses his uke wiles to spur his seme's testosterone on. As yaoi has evolved, these traditional assignations have been twisted and blurred, but then the twist lies in the original archtypes. For example, an older uke devirginizing a seme, or a uke narrowing his eyes and pinning his now wide-eyed seme against the wall while the seme blushes fiercely...those are twists on what you'd usually expect in yaoi, but then a yaoi fan would find those scenes brilliant because we've seen it portrayed the other way around so many times!"

"...Yaoi took stronger hold in the 90's when bored Japanese teenaged girls (likely tired of the aforementioned sexualization of the "Japanese schoolgirl" and seeking revenge) watched anime, read manga, or played video games aimed at their brothers and said "Hmmm, these characters are hot. How about they stop fighting, put down their swords, or step outside of the giant robot and just get it on with each other???" Only they weren't content to simply write about it -- they illustrated it, with the seme/uke characteristics as described above taking hold as the preferred art style. Doujinshi circles emerged (doujinshi = fandrawn manga) and those girls have since grown up and moved on from slashing Gundam Wing, Final Fantasy, or Weiss Kreuz (to name a few culprit fandoms) and now create their own original series, championing yaoi as a legitimate and marketable Japanese genre..."

And she explains this: "Fanfic-wise, look for the X rather than the / (slash) between names; e.g., Sirius/Remus means it could go either way, whereas SiriusXRemus specifically means that Sirius is the seme and Remus is the uke. (At least it's supposed to. I do come across supposed "yaoi" fic writers who have fallen into the misconception that yaoi automatically equates to anime/manga pairings. I nearly threw my laptop across the room upon recently opening a SephirothXCloud fic, only to find Cloud topping Seph. If you must insist on writing CloudXSeph, girls, go for it, but for the love of yaoi please label it correctly!!!)"

That had been confusing me -- I realized the "x" was supposed to denote a couple long before I learned that the "x" meant something about who took which role -- now I know the distinction.  I have some issue with things being that stylized, but I tell myself that the art form has certain conventions, and that it has little or nothing to do with reality.  Fortunately, a lot of the fictions are labeled well enough that I can pick and choose what I want.  Generally, I'm looking for "lemon" -- and I don't want to read it if it doesn't involve consenting adults.  I don't like "death-fics" that kill a character off in different ways than they get killed off in the original source material.  And I don't want to read about the characters being tortured.  Heck, I don't like original fiction in which a character is tortured.  I'm okay with some angst if it's justifiable.

In m/m fiction, I read a variety of genres mixed with the romance -- mystery, action-adventure, paranormal, humor if it's done well.  I like Goths, I like characters who are genuinely tough, but I really have what some would consider an unfortunate liking for light and fluffy, too.  Years ago, a friend in a fairly Goth phase was appalled that I grew daffodils with the cultivar name 'Yellow Cheerfulness'.  I thought she was taking it a bit too seriously.  So, that kind of thing.  I don't think absolutely everything needs to be gloomy.  Sometimes I just want a fun escape.  I don't like stories with men who act like very emotional women, but I don't mind reading a sweet romance in which there isn't any horrific threat to the characters.  Nothing too sappy, but sometimes just a simple romance is okay. 

Finished Hard Fall today.  I got really caught up into the characters' lives, and had to keep reading to see what kind of trouble Deputy Joe would get himself into next.  The descriptions of the scenery and the rock-climbing were awesome.  I'm afraid of heights, but I could see why people get such a thrill from mountain climbing.  So much research on so many different subjects must have gone into the book, but it was just woven in so the reader would understand it, without being overwhelming -- I appreciated the skill that takes.  I've worked on a fair number of books lately where there was a lot of telling, and not much showing, so I was happy that this one showed the reader the details, like how a hot, sweaty man completely did it for Joe.  Mmm, yeah.  But you got it through all of Joe's senses, so there was a great feeling of immediacy.  ** probably some spoilers coming **  And even though it wasn't Kabe's viewpoint, you could see how Kabe enjoyed being submissive.

It was interesting to see how Joe went from not really having any sense of how he'd be in a relationship to accepting how much he wanted to dominate.  Not a stretch at all from what we see of his personality, but it surprised him.  That dominant personality of his was portrayed very realistically. ;)  I know there are a lot of different ways to be gay, but Joe comes across as completely masculine, no feminine side at all.  It isn't that he's trying to present that appearance, it's just how he is.  Now, I have a thing for androgynous guys, and I've had some pretty effeminate friends.  But it's a refreshing change from a lot of m/m books to both not have any feminized men and not to be frantically told that a character is totally masculine, but just have Joe's actions speak for him.

So this could easily be a textbook on writing good m/m fiction.  It's got protagonists you can sympathize with, the secondary characters are used well, the settings are gorgeous, the sex scenes are hot.  The author did the research.  There's a good amount of action-adventure in the story, and the romance is surprisingly tender, all things considered, although our heroes never stop acting like total guys.  Here's a book that should effortlessly cross over to appeal to gay men.

My take on it...

Well, it seems like a little tempest to me, but I have no money involved in it, anyway.  Apparently, from some of the blogs I follow, the Romance Writers Association (or whatever RWA is short for) is trying to exclude e-publishers and e-books.  There's some fairly biting stuff being written about it, and then there are bits that are hysterical.

PAN stands for Published Authors Network (?) in the RWA.  I think what started the comments that cracked me up was a sentence from Ally Blue's comments in The Naughty Bits (http://www.teddypig.com): "And I have to tell you, it felt damn good to qualify for PAN using a very smokin’ hot gay ebook *ggg*"

And then Jules Jones weighed in:

"Jules Jones wrote,

I qualified for PAN with Dolphin Dreams, which has the following content warning:
“m/m/m male ménage, D/s, sex while in shifted form.”

I didn’t do it on purpose — it was pure coincidence that this was the first book of mine that came out after they changed the PAN rules to go by the book’s earnings. But I was sufficiently annoyed by the goalpost moving of the previous years to take a certain amount of malicious pleasure in qualifying with a book that was both pure character-driven genre romance, and liable to make heads explode in RWA on several grounds. Unfortunately I couldn’t enter it for the RITAs, as it was ebook only."

I had done a post here about Dolphin Dreams, on Feb. 16, 2009.  Here's my response to Ms. Jones' comment, though:

"Emilie wrote,

Jules Jones said: “I qualified for PAN with Dolphin Dreams…”

OMG. *curled up laughing* I had read the warnings, and it still just about made my head explode. Okay, it really was a pure genre romance, and it certainly made a deep impression on me. I liked the characters and **mild spoiler** Patrick’s thing for chocolate was just too funny. I’m just picturing trying to explain what it’s about to a writer or reader of more, er, traditional romances. But good for you. Oh, and I really liked the Spindrift books and Buildup: Mindscan."

I had posted here about Spindrift and Buildup: Mindscan.  I try to be an equal-opportunity fan that way -- if I like something, I'll say so, though I'm less likely to say something if I'm getting paid for working on the book, or at least I try to put in a disclaimer.  But I felt free to comment there, because Jules Jones doesn't pay me.  It's not like I haven't proofed or edited paranormal contemporaries.  And I've proofed and edited stories with m/m/m three-ways, with D/s themes, and with shapeshifters.  It was just how that particular combination eventually played out in Dolphin Dreams that really did a number on my head.  I hope my comments didn't come across as too rude, because Ms. Jones is a sweetheart by all accounts.  I think you really have to have read the book to fully appreciate the irony.  But if you just picture an author or reader of, say, inspirational Christian romances hearing about that plot...

This past week: Tradescantia blooming, Rosa Mundi blooming.  Saw a groundhog on the driveway as I was driving up -- I didn't go too fast because I thought it was a cat at first -- it was cat-sized.  It ran off in the direction of the porch.

Today: Cilantro eaten, last of the dill eaten.  What kind of Eastern U.S. animal eats cilantro, for crying out loud?  I was looking forward to trying to cook some Indian or Mexican food recipes with it.  I haven't had a decent Tikka Masala in ages.  Back in the garden: Picked some of the last few fresh blooms of 'Maiden's Blush'.

On reading: I think I'm pretty much constantly in proofreader mode at this point, and accordingly, there are some e-book publishers I probably shouldn't buy from -- I just want to get the Word documents of the stories and proof and line edit them.  Some of them I purely want to rewrite.  Some are good stories, but the proofers/editors (if there were any) did the authors no favors.  I realize I can't proof everything I read, but even of what I can afford, there are so many stories in which it would've been simple to fix typos and grammar mistakes.  I really like the immediacy of the e-books, being able to download them right away, but the editing quality for a number of publishers is dismayingly poor. 

A. (young volunteer at bookstore) and I went to [local independent garden shop].  She loved the gift shop half of it.  She had a good time picking out herbs that were on sale.  When we got to the house, she planted them in much bigger pots -- mostly pots that had held roses.  'Roseraie de l'Hay' blooming.  I planted it and 'Tiffany' in pots, and planted the apple scented-leaf geranium in the blue-and-white square pot.

Made it to the Philadelphia Gay Pride Parade and Festival.  Made the train, walked into the heart of the "gayborhood," got a gyro at Pine Street Pizza, got told twenty minutes later that parade route had changed since last year.  Saw the second half of the parade.  Could swear I saw D.S. in the William Way Center contingent.  Not only did it look a lot like him, but he still has his hair dyed that burgundy-red.  He certainly wasn't the only young man in the parade or around the area who moves with that catlike grace, but I hadn't even remembered that he had his hair that shade until I saw him.  Walked down from Eleventh (?) and Locust (or was it Market Street?  I know I passed a heck of a lot of tree-name streets...)  to Penn's Landing -- just followed the people wearing rainbow symbols and same-sex couples holding hands.  It always makes me happy to see it when lovers are safe enough to hold hands -- not anything a gay couple can take for granted in so many places and times.

Saw S. from the GLBT Executive Committee at [local university].  He said it was his first gay pride parade -- he was just so earnest and had that happy, "Wow, I'm in the majority for once" look on his face.  He got a necklace with a rainbow triangle pendant -- probably the first rainbow accessory he'd ever owned.  He put it on, and I said, "That's so cute."  Probably not exactly what he wanted to hear, but it was just adorable to see him do that.  S. said he'd have to remember to take it off before he got home, but I was proud of him.

I had seen a temporary tattoo booth, and thought of it as something I might do after I'd went around the festival a little more.  It's not like the real tattoo is someplace that shows unless I'm wearing a bathing suit.  I thought it would be fun to have one or two someplace more visible to give the senior citizen volunteers at the secondhand bookstore something to talk about.  Of course I couldn't find that booth again, but in my wanderings, I did find the MLR Press booth.

My conversation there started something like, "Are you Laura Baumbach?  I really liked A Bit of Rough and Roughhousing."  (Although I'm pretty sure I got the name of the second book wrong at the time.)  If I'd known, I would have brought the books with me.  I told her that I did proofreading for JCP's PsyCop novels.  She showed me copies of The Art of Dying.  I didn't actually say that I'd read "Body Art" in October.  Mexican Heat was one of the books on prominent display -- that's been on my "will definitely get it sooner or later" list for months now.  I've just been debating between paperback and e-book.  Watch me eventually get both versions.  I ended up buying The Ties That Bind, the paperback of Cheating Chance, and Out There in the Night.  So, yeah, from those first two and what I said to start with, she probably thinks I'm way into bondage.  It just happened that I hadn't read The Ties That Bind or Out There in the Night.  But I got them signed, which was cool.  James, if I send you a self-addressed stamped envelope, will you sign things for me?

She asked me if the T-shirt I had on had characters from Heaven Sent on it -- the bookmarks they were passing out included ones for Jet Mykles.  I said it wasn't those characters, but the art was by P.L. Nunn.  I had told S. that my parents didn't appreciate those T-shirts of mine, but S. said he hadn't been sure if the picture was of girls or guys, that the figures were very androgynous -- which really is kind of the point.

It was interesting to see the MLR folks starting from scratch explaining to people what MLR is.  I forget that people don't necessarily have half of their authors' websites on their favorites list.

But for all of that, I think the thing that most touched me was it being S.'s first gay pride parade.  I like the romance, but I also want to give back in peoples' real lives.  Volunteering to help archive things for the GLBT organization at [local university] and ending up being co-historian has meant a lot to me.  I want to do my part to show the kids that they're special, and really worthwhile people, no matter what they might hear to the contrary.