[My little rant]

In typical dim sumbloke fashion I wrote a reply and posted it in a different thread. It's here...

http://awesomedude.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=695

[positive stories?]

Codey,

Experience is various. I go to a school where homophobia, racism, bigotry of any kind is just regarded by the vast majority as unacceptable: it's the culture of my school. It doesn't mean that everyone loves gays but that most people realise that their personal prejudices should remain in the private domain and that for everyone's benefit we should respect each other in the public domain. An example: we have a number of religious students but our school is decidedly secular. I know full well that some of those students believe that homosexuality is incompatible with their religious belief but although we have talked about it never once has the difference of opinion resulted in hostility and when the French government passed a law banning religious symbols in schools (the anti-headscarf law) our gay straight alliance organised a protest against it on the grounds that an injury to one is an injury to all. That's my experience. It's not everyone's. I know plenty of kids who experience a homophobic school environment daily. I think actually that my experience is a minority one. Still on the whole I think things are better for my generation than for previous ones.

I read stories that relate the experience of homophobia and the despait it causes in the same way I read, for example, Primo Levi writing about the holocaust. Today, despite the desperately sad situation in Israel/Palestine, anti-semitism is not experienced by most Jews in the same horrific way that it was in the past. But I have to know about the past. I don't want to grow up not understanding what anti-semitism did to people. I truly believe that we must never forget what happend. I also read stories that are positive and up-beat. Some of them are essential fantasies like David Levithan's wonderful Boy meets Boy. I think every gay teen and in fact every straight teen two should read them. And, if I 'm allowed a moment's self-promotion I'm writing a story that reflects (in a very distorted way) my experience of growing up queer - my positive experience. But I read James' stories too and I cry. I rage. I want to stand up and shout "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore". I don't feel suicidal, I feel that I want to be part of the solution not part of the problem. We have to have those stories both because they are fine literature - a good enough reason anyway - but because for us queers transmitting history is very very difficult and we have to make sure that we never forget and that we're prepared mentally for the fire next time, tho chas v'shalom, we will never have to suffer it in quite the extreme way again.

So, I agree, let's have stories that show that being gay can be good; that we can have positive experiences and live productive lives in a friendly world. But let's not deny the experience of either older gay peeps or those young people who aren't as fortunate as we are. Their stories have to be told too.

sumbloke

[Gay Literature]

I can't but Desert Sons. The image on the cover is too much. The bookstore will now I'm gay dunno I can't stand the thought they're discussing me behind myback. behind those polite decorums. Jeez...

Rad

You can get anything with an ISBN from Amazon or if there's one near by go to a gay bookstore. I *haunt* Gay's The Word in London. It's tiny but brilliant and the staff are amazingly helpful, and it means I can pick up the free papers without having to sneak into a pub or adult shop.

Recently read:

A Good Start, Considering by Peter Ryde. Heartbreaking but brilliant.

Postcards from No-man's Land by Aiden Chambers. Very funny and touching and very different.

Boy Meet Boy by David Levithan. Every gay boy should read this book coz although it's total fantasy it's very joyful and hopeful.

Peter by I Can't Remember. Nice little story about an Aussie boy working it out.

Clay's Way by Blair Mastbaum. Awesome in every way.

War Boy by Kief Hilsbery. Very good but a bit scarey at times. Very punk.

[Friend passed away]

Yesterday, I learned a friend passed away last week, when I typed his name into google. I hadn't seen him in years, but I had tried to find a way to contact him. I would've loved to renew our friendship. I still consider him one of my best friends.

I don't know what happened. I only know he's gone, and it hurts.  

I'll be back online in a day or two. I'm going to spend some time to remember what's worth loving and living and fighting for, and what's still good and beautiful in this world. And I will miss him.

Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, Bodhi, swaha!

Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone quite beyond, Awakening - let it be!

Barukh ha-Dayyan Emet

Blessed be the true Judge

[Writer's Manuals and Referance Guides]

Politics and the English Language.

This is the essay where Orwell sets out some wonderful real life examples and some of his own parodies of bad writing. He also gives his famous six rules of writing. I think you have to take rules and even guides as less than binding. Like punctuation you sometimes break a rule but you need to know when and why it's the right thing to do. (And yes, I have totally monged punctuation but it's not for wanting of trying!).

For French I think you can't do better than Le Bon Usage even though it's out of date and concentrates on grammar.

There's a list of reference works here.

Course, it would show if I took any of the advice.

[Cool Source]

Here's a book for those authors working with symbols and imagry:

Man and His Symbols- edited by Carl Jung.

I saw it at Borders the other day but I've had a copy since the Reagen years.

But do you think it's such a hot idea for authors to actively attempt to put symbols into their writing? I mean, doesn't it just come out that way, if it's to work?

I know that the writing book I'm currently reading (been reading a lot of them this past 10 months since I began writing), recommended by RusticMonk-Robert's Rules of Writing, clearly states that trying to put symbols in is a mistake, that either they're there or they're not. I really do like that book, btw, and highly recommend it for practical advice.

Kisses...

TR

To not deliberately put symbols into the writing? Well, Robertson Davis' The Deptford Trilogy would have hardly been written at all then. The whole symbolist school of Russian literature wouldn't exist. Mediaeval Trouberdor lyric would be...bawdy songs...

Symbols are deliberate acts of meaning - they have meaning given to them, they don't' just happen. Signs are things that have meanings that we don't give them.

[Topics for Discussion]

What second language, sumbloke, may I ask? You mentioned French things in another post.

I'm (supposedly) bilingual French/English and my education is in French. There are differences in punctuation conventions in the two and most especially in how you punctuate dialogue, but also use of commas and semi-colons. It's not really a good excuse for making mistakes because I've lived in London, UK for almost my whole life but I do find that I tend to filter out quirky punctuation errors without much noticing them.

In fact the very first version of the story I'm writing now was written in French and set in France. I'm not translating that one because I've moved the setting and so everything really has to change except for the major plot structure but it is one reason that I think I've let minor inconsistencies and continuity problems creep in. Oh well, there's always the redux...

[Movies That Suck]

Jim Carey sucks BOULDERS. I hate that disgusting pile of buzzard puke. I wish that I could go back in time and kill him before he inflicted his idiocy on society.

I think that his movies have single handly lowered the collective American IQ to the point where a  nimrod like George W Bush could be a two-term president.

But erm, you see...I liked Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I tried not to honestly because I know that Carey is from the dark side. But I really enjoyed it.

[Topics for Discussion]

And people who write

He stood between Pete and I  

as part of their campaign for better grammar.  

This was probably me in some of the earlier chapters. :roll: I admit that when I started writing I butchered the craft as well as anyone, but I think over the last two years and some, my writing has measurably improved.

Disagreements?

Please??

Total and absolute disagreement. I could shoot myself for using the name Pete as an example! Of course your writing gets better over the series Dewey, but from the beginning the emotional realism and the simple, straightforward prose style make it instantly readable. For the record For the Love of Pete was a story so compelling that I almost missed days of school after being up all night reading it the first time round.

[Topics for Discussion]

Hey,

1. Pet Peeves. This is a fun one. What makes you slam the 'back' key on your keyboard as fast as you can? What ruins a story in the space of a phrase? Basically, what do you really hate to see in writing? Is it terrible grammar? Cliches? Cheesy names?

Un-speakable dialogue (unspeakable dialogue I can put up with). I mean the kind where no one ever contracts the copula - always I am rather than I'm - or some other common auxiliary like we will rather than we'll. Nobody speaks like this! Real speech, even of educated people, is characterised by a less rigid register than written texts. And, Lord, have mercy, would of and should of - now, where on earth does that come from?

But, I have to confess, I frequenly find mistakes in my own writing just after I've posted it, just not these ones. Just this week I found a grocer's apostrophe in a chapter of mine on Nifty. Oh, the shame. So, somethings do make me grind my teeth but I try to be fair: I make mistakes too.

Punctuation is not so much of an irritant. I had a pretty traditional education punctuation wise but I have to punctuate in two languages and the rules are different, so I tend to be liberal about it.

Spelling only really bothers me where it leads to some ambiguity or difficulty in comprehension.

Inconsistencies, implausibilities and incoherence of plot are much more likely to make me stop reading. OK, it's true that, for example, there are wildly implausible aspects to Brew Maxwell's stories in some respects but there's enough drama and humour in those that they are easily forgiven. The ones that I drop are those where having apparently deliberately set up a difficult situation or scenario for the characters the author produces a deus ex machina (or more usually a million dollars ex hitherto unknown rich uncle) to get them out of it. Why? What is the point of illustrating people in difficult situations if you don't deal with it in illuminating ways? And yes, I know that some people read stories "therapeutically" and they want that feel-good factor anyway they can get it but I read 'em as literature.

Still, I have to be charitable again since I produce inconsistencies. In one chapter a character is described - quite unnecessarily as it happens - as wearing fatigues and a thousand words later he's wearing cargoes. I am not without sin, my excuse is only that this is not the first stone I'm throwing.

Sex without consequences for the characters. I can't be bothered with graphic descriptions of sexual activity that aren't related to the plot or character development. And as for all these sixteen year olds who are hung like angry bears - what's up with that? Isn't it possible to write about sex without all this exaggerated obsession with penis size?

Anything written in the second person. Just wrong. Don't, please.

Characters with no voice. I know it's hard to achieve but people when they speak have distinctive voices and it's one of the important ways that we recognise them and identify them. An author should at least try to give their characters voices. Oh and while I'm here, people who can't use their with a singular antecedent: get over yourselves, it's as old as Chaucer! And people who write

He stood between Pete and I

as part of their campaign for better grammar. It's He stood between Pete and me. Check: you don't say I stood between he and Pete you say I stood between him and Pete or I stood between them. If people are going to be picky, at least get it right!

Writing which gives no cues to imagining the environment. I want to visualise the story - at least I almost always do - and some clues about where it takes place help.

Oh well. I shouldn't vent. But somebody did ask!

2. The Power of the Heart. It is a truth universally acknowledged that we love romance -- reading romance, engaging in romance, seeing romance splattered across tabloids and television sets. So how does one write romance well without coming off as disgustingly cheesy? Are there things to avoid? Cliches to eschew? Or do you feel that any kind of romance, no matter how melodramatic and cheesy, is good romance? Also: do you prefer love-at-first-sight (or touch) stories or the more... gradual kinds?  

I don't think that cliche is a particular problem for writing about romance. Any genre can be hackneyed and cliche ridden. My feeling about gay romance - especially youth/rites of passage romance - is that if the heart is in the right place then a certain dosage of cliche is easily forgiven.

Personally, I don't mind either love-at-first-sight or gradual romances: both happen and both can be written about interestingly. What I find dull is "romance" that isn't - the assertion of love (at first sight or otherwise) with no evidence presented that the characters even like, much less love each other. The absolute antithesis of this kind of stuff is Karla Schulz's Carrots and Celery where the emotional bond between the two boys is palpable in the writing. Even if the words were never mentioned, you would conclude those two were in love.

I do also just move right along if I encounter pornography, but not because it's bad writing - it's a personal, religious thing in that case.

I've written far too much...

[Leaves and Lunatics by EleCivil]

I just read through this thread because L&L is - along with C&C by Klara Schulz - one of my favourite stories.

Off the net, I just read _Clay's Way_ by Blair Mastbaum and I really enjoyed it. It's brilliantly written it's funny, it's moving, it's angry and complicated: I can't praise it enough. There's also quite a lot of casual drug use - well weed use anyway. It's part of the story because it's culturally appropriate: you wouldn't really find the characters plausible given the setting otherwise - they're teenage surfers in Hawai'i, middle class white and working class Polynesian. It's also a plot device in that one of the lead characters deals some dope and this provides initial contact with the protagonist. But there's no moral commentary on the drug taking at all really.

Now I happen to know that Blair Mastbaum himself does approve of cannabis as a recreational drug but that's really a side issue.

I'm a Buddhist, I was brought up one and I've never taken any kind of intoxicant (I went through a really ultra-puritan phase when I was 14 when I wouldn't drink caffeinated drinks...god I was a brat). I can't really understand (or approve I suppose) of anyone messing with their mind like that. I understand that they should probably have the choice to and that for some people it's a coping thing. The fact is though that depictions of casual drug use, drinking, smoking and so on have never put me off reading a story any more than reading about graphic sex, or even sexual abuse, would make me bail. If I let my moral standards over-ride my aesthetic ones I'd rarely finish a story...

My 2 pence worth.

And Ele, thank you a thousand times for the story - I love it.

sumbloke (AKA Jakob)