Why Not?

One of my fans, a reviewer no less, asked fairly recently when Saje Williams would deliver a sexually explicit scene for his fans.  Now, erotic fantasy and paranormal fiction is the rage right now, with hundreds of female authors raising temperatures across the globe with their explicit depictions of sex.  From my perspective, that’s great, because it represents women taking charge of their own sexuality.

But I can’t help but see any attempt for a man to do something similar as having more in common with plain ol’ smut, which is for the most part inclined to cater to the tastes of men more than women–being for our satisfaction and tittilation more than as a way to help women explore their own sexuality.

So the short answer to this question is, “probably never.”

In my latest project, a short story, I have written a sex scene, but it’s written in such a way that it emphasizes something other than the physical act itself.

I’ve written my female characters as empowered, fully-engaged people who control themselves first and foremost.  The most beautiful woman in my books never even pauses long enough to consider herself a sexual being–at least not until my most recent novels, in which I introduce her partner.  I wanted Jaz to be about something else.  Sure, she’s gorgeous, but her apparent ignorance or disinterest in this fact about herself is part of who she is.  I didn’t want her to be a sexualized being first.  That’s something she has to grow into on her own terms.  Even her eventual realization of her sexual orientation, while being of a nature that might entice many men in and of itself, is not written in such a way that it should provoke a prurient interest on the part of male readers.

Now where I write romance, it can be said that in this context, “romance” more represents a more classic view of the concept, the kind that includes both romance and adventure as a whole piece.  It’s about equals fighting together to preserve or attain something important to both of them, and falling in love at the same time.  The romance is not necessarily the primary focus of the story, but it’s an integrel part nonetheless.

I don’t see how graphic sex scenes would aid in this presentation.  I’m not sure I could do the story justice by overly sexualizing my female characters.  In fact, I see just the opposite.  Simply put, it’s not my place to bring my fantasies into my fantasy.  The focus now is on female sexuality, and that’s the way it should be.  I could bring nothing new to the table, and, in fact, would be cheapening something that, in my view, has nothing to do with me in the first place.

There might well be men who feel no discomfort doing so, but I am not one of them.  This is, for the most part, women speaking to women and a dialogue I’m not sure requires my input.

So I think I’ll stick to doing what I do best.  Creating kickass characters, both male and female, and letting them get about their business without having to worry about what they’re doing in bed.  I’ll leave that up to the imagination of the readers.  There’s always fanfic.

Snark and Sadism

Maybe I’m in some ways a product of a bygone era, when people didn’t think shredding someone else was a form of harmless entertainment.  I think some of those folks who post on the net either forget that they’re dealing with real people, or just don’t give a damn.

It came up recently on a thread about book reviews, particularly the ‘take no prisoners’ variety where constructive criticism takes a back seat to superheated snark like a plasma arc.

Maybe I’m a bit sensitized, but I don’t like bullies, and to me some of this sort of thing skirts dangerously close to precisely that.  What is bullying, after all, but a way to use pain inflicted upon someone else to make one feel stronger, smarter, better?

In literature, even the speculative variety–maybe especially the speculative variety–the magic is in the eye of the beholder.  Claiming some sort of superiority based upon one’s own opinions with nothing more than razor wit to back it up seems somehow remarkably childish and, well, sad as hell.

Taking into consideration the fact that such discourse lowers the bar for discussion in general, it seems that it just promotes a lack of civility and rudeness for everyone.  I’ve recently seen some pretty nasty comments about various things I happen to like, not critiquing the content so much as portraying a casual superiority simply by reason of disliking something someone else enjoys.

Hey, if that’s your gig, fine.  But if what you’re saying isn’t something you’d say in a crowd of people who disagree with you, maybe you should think twice.  Negativity is often a zero-sum game, because that sort of thing comes around… a lot like karma.  And the price one pays is often far higher than one expects.

Music to write to and read by

Every life and every story’s musical soundtrack is different.  From its early days, the soundtrack of Infinity was the progressive rock of the seventies and eighties, from Styx, Kansas, Rush, Genesis, and Blue Oyster Cult to the far harder driving sounds of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Queensryche.  And in the intervening years saw the introduction of Alanis Morrisette, the Toadies, Concrete Blonde, Dream Theater, and others into the mix.  Then, even as I wrote my first few novels, the music than came crashing into my consciousness was Evanescence’s “Fallen” and, as contrast, Disturbed’s “The Sickness.”

Now, seven novels and several short stories into the writing career I always dreamed of, I find myself writing to the sounds of Nightwish (I like both incarnations—Tarja’s and Anette’s), Scandinavian symphonic power metal in fine form, as well as Epica (more symphonic metal, though with a serious operatic element with Simone Simon’s mezzo-soprano vocals, as well as the full choir and string orchestra regularly accompanying them.  It’s amazing stuff, and sometimes so very ethereal it permeates every word I type.  Epica is also known as a “gothic” metal band, which utilizes the “beauty and the beast” dichotomy, pairing Simone’s voice with a dark, growly male vocal interspersed through various songs.  This is something they share with the band Sirenia.

After Forever and Within Temptation are two similar bands with powerful vocals and symphonic music to shake the world.

Also worth mentioning is the power metal band Kamelot, particularly their songs “Rule the World” and “The Haunting.”  Very powerful, evocative songs that, in the case of “Rule the World” in particular, use instruments and sounds that aren’t typical of rock and roll in general or metal specifically.

Also very intriguing are recent Therion, Stream of Passion, and Liv Kristine from Theatre of Tragedy and Leaves’ Eyes.

Another group I particularly like is Apocalyptica, whose original claim to fame was covering Metallica songs entirely with cellos.  Now they’re making their own music, featuring different singers from prominent rock bands.  I like cellos.  I like strings.  A lot.  They take me back to the early days of my childhood and one of my dad’s friends who used to play the Moody Blues on his reel-to-reel for hours at a time.  Or so my dad says.  He’s the jazz type, while I much prefer classical in general.

Hmm.

One of the things about music is that it’s in the ear of the beholder.  This is the stuff that plays through my head, or on my computer, or on my ipod, as I’m working a storyline.  The introspective, airy, and ethereal music helps me through the emotional segments, while the powerful, driving songs, or parts of songs, provide the backdrop for the fights and other high impact scenes.

Out of all of them,  I think Nightwish is my favorite, and find different aspects of the vocals of Tarja Turunen and Anette Olzen appealing at different times.  Anette’s vocals tend to stick in my head better, for some reason, but Tarja’s vocals are so passionately powerful they’re hard to forget. Anette started out as a vocalist for the AOR rock band Alyson Avenue before joining Nightwish and brings a real rock element to what was a traditionally operatic band. The whole thing has sparked quite a controversy. I came in after the change and find I enjoy both.

The thing about a lot of this music is that even if one doesn’t particularly care for what’s called “metal” in America, a lot of these groups introduce sounds America hasn’t ever really heard.  Evanescence comes closest, in some respects, but not quite.  If you have any taste, like me, for magnificent, extraordinary vocals and classical instruments, you’re not likely be disappointed.

I don’t mind Lacuna Coil, but I have to say that compared to most of the women I’ve already mentioned, Christina Scabbia’s voice just doesn’t quite hold up.

Examples of all these bands and their music are freely available on Youtube if you’re interested.  But, of course, if you like what you hear, I recommend picking up an itunes or similar gift card and buying the tracks you like.  Just to be fair.

Past time for another blog entry

I must apologize–I honestly don’t do this as often as I should.  This season is hectic as hell, especially considering that I work retail and my job involves an immense amount of responsibility not necessarily reflected in my pay.  LOL.  I tend to put 110% into everything I do and sometimes other things suffer.  I mean to blog more but…well, you know.  No excuses quite make up for the failure.

So…what to blog about?  I think today I’m going to touch on something I ran across on the web about the space program.  I know it’s fashionable for some folks who share my political viewpoints in many respects to be rather ambivalent about space exploration in general.  We see a lot of “fix it down here before we go mucking about up there,” and “we’ve got more important things to concentrate on.”

I beg to differ.  I think if we have a future as a species, it’s “out there.”  If only in terms of raw materials, basic resources to make up for what we’ve used up down here.  Water, for example, may be abundant–far more abundant than we ever suspected.  Recent surveys of mars indicates a great deal of frozen water on the surface.  And as many of us know, water is one of our most precious resources.

And that’s not even including the elements and other raw materials we can find floating around out there.  On Mars.  On the moon.  On the asteroids.  On comets making their long journey around the solar system.

We have the mind, the talent, the tools, and maybe the drive.  Maybe.  But we have to push past the naysayers, the doubters, and make it happen.

It’s certainly pssible.  All of it.  You know that FTL (Faster-Than-Light) mathematics exist?  Someone’s done the math and it’s been peer-reviewed.  Now all we need is someone to do the engineering.  And, yes, some of the technical stuff has been done.  Someone’s been working on some kind of magnetic resonance drives that show promise.

Our capacity is amazing.  A hundred years ago manned flight was a new thing.  Now we’re discussing how best to make the leap off the planet.

Oh, and yeah, maybe we should touch on the promise of nanotechnology.  I’ve been checking into that stuff for years.  If we can perfect the technology, we’re talking about being able to almost instantaneously transmute one thing into another, or create things from scratch.  All we’ll need is mass.  Any kind of mass.

Nanotechnology will make terraforming ridiculously easy.  We’ll be able to make oxygen out of rocks, dust, or from the ice of the Martian ice caps.  Sounds easy, right? Well, nanotechnology is anything but.  The problem is creating robots small enough to manipulate the molecular structure of matter, and then finding some way to program them.

Of course one option is to do it by creating microscopic lifeforms and programming them through their DNA.  That’s how I did it in my books, after all.  But then you risk the possibility of them mutating.

Suffice to say that I believe we’ve got what it takes, and, what’s more, we need to do this.  We need to make that long step into the sky and claim our destiny and our birthright.  The solar system is ours–all we have to do is reach out and take it.

And that’s one hell of a start in my book.